Home > Work > Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare

Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare QUOTES

Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare QUOTES

1 " Neglect is usually better classified as child maltreatment defined by poverty rather than maltreatment caused by poverty. The main reason child protection services deal primarily with poor families is because of the way child maltreatment is defined. The child welfare system is designed to detect and punish neglect on the part of poor parents and to ignore most middle-class and wealthy parents’ failings. Although the meaning of child maltreatment shifted from a social to a medical model, it retained its focus on poor families. The system continues to concentrate on the effects of childhood poverty, but it treats the damage as a symptom of parental rather than societal deficits. "

― Dorothy Roberts , Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare

2 " A 1999 Ohio study discovered that Black infants had slower rates of reunification than infants from other groups. The authors concluded that, given the consistency of results from other investigations, the relationship of ethnicity to reunification could be generalized across many community contexts.43 This association between race and duration of foster care involvement remains significant even when researchers control for poverty.44 For example, in a recent sample of 700 foster children in rural and urban Tennessee, nonwhite children had a 42 percent lower probability of leaving state custody in three years, after controlling for all other factors, including behavioral problems, family characteristics, and services.45 "

― Dorothy Roberts , Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare

3 " A 1999 Ohio study discovered that Black infants had slower rates of reunification than infants from other groups. The authors concluded that, given the consistency of results from other investigations, the relationship of ethnicity to reunification could be generalized across many community contexts. 43 This association between race and duration of foster care involvement remains significant even when researchers control for poverty. 44 For example, in a recent sample of 700 foster children in rural and urban Tennessee, nonwhite children had a 42 percent lower probability of leaving state custody in three years, after controlling for all other factors, including behavioral problems, family characteristics, and services. 45 "

― Dorothy Roberts , Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare