The NYC chief seems more concerned with race politics than kids’ needs.
The Zohran Mamdami administration in New York City is eyeing the elimination of foster-care prevention programs.
Because the best kind of love comes from a child being dumped in and ultimately aging out of the foster-care system?
This is how The Imprint writes it up, in part:
In its effort to rein in city spending, New York City officials have proposed cutting foster care prevention services in Brooklyn and Queens, a belt-tightening that contracted providers say would threaten families at risk of separation.
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Prevention programs provide resources for mental health care, substance abuse counseling, parenting classes, and assistance with basic needs such as applications for housing and food stamps. The resources are aimed at supporting families early, preventing the need to remove children from home.
In New York City, prevention programs are run by private foster care agencies using city and state funding. If the proposed cuts are finalized in June, in the ensuing three months, Forestdale, the Coalition for Hispanic Family Services, the Church Avenue Merchants Block Association and Good Shepherd Services would shut their prevention programs that collectively serve hundreds of people a year.
More:
“It’s just a real gut punch,” said Good Shepherd Services CEO Michelle Yanche. “Families are struggling economically, with mental health challenges, and this is part of the safety net that protects families and helps them navigate through these challenges.”
At last Thursday’s meeting, some city council members also objected to cutting foster care prevention services and urged the child welfare agency to look for trims elsewhere.
“My hope is that we come up with a better solution,” said Council member Althea Stevens. She lamented the job cuts that will follow when the targeted programs are shut down. Stevens called it “heartbreaking to think that people will be losing their jobs in 90 days.”
Look. We know the kids are not alright. There are over 6,000 in foster care in the City — some will laud that as a “historic low.” But a numbers game isn’t how this should work. And over 6,000 kids are over 6,000 children who don’t have a permanent home.
Foster care may be necessary. It’s not the long-term goal. A healthy “forever home” is. One that is safe for a child.
And there are many reasons not to celebrate an only-over-6,000 figure. There are children who, frankly, should be in foster care who aren’t.
Kinship care — both strictly and liberally speaking — is considered protocol, when it should be the best interests — and home — for the child. Children who turn up dead because of these protocols should have already forced a change.
Some kids who are in foster care are being abused by their birth parents, anyway.
We also know the Administration for Children’s Services in New York City can’t be trusted, as they routinely hide their own mistakes.
The NYC chief seems more concerned with race politics than kids’ needs.
And the list could go on.
You probably didn’t even need a partial list, however, to know that a family mental-health counseling program and the like isn’t where New York City government should be cutting costs.
And if you didn’t know, make sure to start reading Naomi Schaefer Riley’s child-welfare work over at the American Enterprise Institute.
There’s plenty of reason to not be certain that the prevention programs do prevent kids from foster care or otherwise bad outcomes. But, really. I’m all for cutting government waste. But you can keep the shot at a parenting class that may not help but can’t hurt in a questionable, at best, situation for a child.
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” the Administration for Children and Families Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Alex J. Adams, comments to me about the potential cuts. He quotes the president saying “the best foster care system is one that is not needed in the first place,” and Adams highlights the federal Home for Every Child initiative, focused on improving the ratio of foster homes to children in foster care.
“Prevention efforts anchor this initiative,” he explains, “as they help to strengthen families and minimize unnecessary entries into foster care. We are thrilled 25 states have already joined A Home for Every Child.” New York isn’t one of them. It’s an initiative that even has a competitive component complete with financial incentives in it for states.
“The door remains open to New York,” Adams tells me.
At the very least, the city could afford to make more adult choices about cuts — don’t cut the rug from under kids already suffering from ideological madness and bureaucratic incompetency and corruption.
Surely the Mamdami’s socialist grocery stores can spare some change going toward some counseling to keep children safe from abuse and with hope for a future with a family to lean on and not need to flee from.