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The Role of Race in Child Welfare

By Joe Kroll,
Executive Director,
North American Council on Adoptable Children, from the Summer, 1997 issue of Adoptalk, A Publication of the North American Council on Adoptable Children

On May 30th, at the Families for Kids African American Leadership Summit on adoption and child welfare policy, nearly 100 leaders discussed how the child welfare crisis has impacted disproportionate numbers of African American youth. Though such youth account for only 15percent of all children under the age of 18, nearly half of the U.S.'s estimated 500,000 foster children are African American. As one conference participant noted "we have given our children to a system that doesn't like us very much."

The original "system" for taking care of African American children revolved around family and community. Even now, noted presenter Dr. Robert Hill, more than30 years after African American children began entering the public welfare system in significant numbers, about 80 percent of the 1,000,000 children who are separated from their birth families live with relatives or friends outside the welfare system.

Unfortunately, African Americans who want to provide homes for youth caught in the public system face many barriers and challenges. Often services are limited or unavailable in the African American community, agencies are biased against single parents, and parent preparation classes are inconveniently scheduled. At the same time, agencies that specialize in serving African American families do so with scant resources and restrictive service mandates.

Now, in a move which could make placements of African American children in African American families even more difficult, the federal government has explicitly declared that placement decisions cannot be delayed or denied due to race, culture or ethnicity. This statement, originally proclaimed in Section 1808 of the 1996 Small Business Job Protection Act, was reiterated this June 5th in a Department of Health and Human Services' Informational Memorandum (IM-CB 97-04) about the "Removal of Barriers to Interethnic Adoption" provisions in that Act.

"Interethnic Adoption" provisions passed last August amended a section of the 1994 Multiethnic Placement Act (MEPA) to more strictly prohibit states and agencies from using discriminatory practices in adoption and foster care placements. In essence, the Memorandum states, agencies now cannot even consider race, culture, or ethnicity as a factor in decisions to delay or deny a foster or adoptive placement. Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act also forbids decision making on the basis of race or ethnicity, except when a "compelling government interest" (a child's best interest) is at stake. Such exceptions, states the Memorandum," must be narrowly tailored to advance the child's interests, and...made as an individualized determination for each child" [emphasis added].

For example, in states that require older children to consent to their adoptions, a teenager who objects to being placed with a family of a certain race cannot be forced to join that family against his wishes. The child's unwillingness to accept a family should be considered as a factor that could undermine the adoption's success. An agency cannot, however, use the "best interests" standard to routinely consider race and ethnicity as part of the placement process." "Occasions where race or ethnicity lawfully may be considered" notes the Memorandum, "will be...rare."

Do these provisions mean that the African American community has lost its children? No. It means that the child welfare community has a heightened responsibility to recruit and retain a pool of qualified foster and adoptive parents who reflect the ethnic mix of children in care.

To help all children in care, especially children of color, we must:

ensure that birth families find support to help keep their families together;
ensure that, once birth families split apart, they receive timely reunification services;
ensure that permanency decisions for children are made within 12 months;
involve relatives when birth families cannot care for their children (agencies can legally give placement preference to qualified relative caregivers over non-relatives);
in the absence of available relatives, recruit and retain families from the children's community;
if children must leave their community, recruit and prepare culturally sensitive families.

Children are not a commodity. Caring adults must act in their best interests.