SOCIAL JUSTICE BLOG
Read and share extraordinary stories from the frontlines of social change
Class Action Brings Justice and Healing to Foster Children in Kansas
I remember talking to children and families early in our work in Kansas and being shocked by the stories they told. How children were regularly dropped off at a new foster home night after night without being offered so much as a warm meal or a shower before being picked up the next morning. They would then spend their day in a case worker’s office with nothing to do. Some children cycled through upwards of ninety placements due to this horrifying practice. This is an experience that we know devastates youth emotionally and psychologically, and interferes with child brain development. It was impossible for me to fathom how we could be doing that to any child.
Too Many, Too Much, and Too Young: Class Action Seeks To Protect Foster Kids From Dangerous Mistreatment With Psychotropic Drugs
On any given day, thousands of children in foster care across the country are administered psychotropic medications to address mental health and behavioral issues. Some of these children receive combinations of two, three, or more such medications at a time, often in elevated dosages. Some, like Joe, are even placed on antipsychotics, which led him to say, “I feel like I have knives in my eyes.”
Just Doing Their Job? The Structural Roots of Police Abuse
I recall my first contact with police as a middle schooler. Two of my friends and I, all Black youths, were walking in our neighborhood. San Francisco’s Richmond district was diverse but mostly White then. It was a dark early evening. As the three of us were walking, a police car pulled up. The officers ordered us to empty our pockets. They searched us without asking for permission or explaining why they had stopped us. Finding nothing illegal, they departed without explanation or apology. We knew they had stopped us because we were Black. To them Black kids in a “White neighborhood” was synonymous with suspicious. They didn’t beat us or kill us. So the physical toll was light, but the psychological effects were deep. Afterward we had to question if the police would protect and serve us.
Reproductive Justice for Foster Youth
When S.H. entered the foster care system at age twelve, she had already suffered years of sexual abuse by her stepfather. She was around seventeen and a young mother, when her county welfare agency placed her in a Promesa Behavioral Health group home. Upon arrival, the group home made S.H. sign a document promising that she wouldn’t engage in sexual activity while she lived there.