S. Dakota Indian Foster Care 2: Abuse In Taking Children From Families?

[midnight]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2013/08/09/186943868/s-dakota-indian-foster-care-2-abuse-in-taking-children-from-families

"The issue of when to keep families intact or split them for the benefit of the child bedevils all communities, not just Indian ones. National trends have swung back and forth over what is best, dividing people of good will. Failure to examine any of this, and ignoring the many sides and perceptions of neglect, represents incomplete and unfair reporting. This everyday story in The Washington Post, for example, has nothing to do with Indians but shows how states across the country are constantly slicing and re-slicing how to define neglect.

How much real neglect, however defined, might there be in the Indian foster care cases? I don't know. Malsam-Rysdon, in her interviews with me, repeatedly said the same that tribal leader Walters did: poverty, by itself, does not constitute neglect.

Of Bob Walters' example of 30 people crammed into a presumably small home, Malsam-Rysdon told me: "Twenty kids sleeping in a small living room or in a small environment is not in and of itself a safety concern. But if they don't eat for three days, or if no responsible adult is around, then safety concerns go up. We stand by our process to assess that." I suspect that most Native Americans would find this position reasonable and would themselves raise questions about the conditions for children in a home with 30 people in it. Whether social service workers are as reasonable in their judgments and execution, I can't say. But neither did the series explore this question, as it should have.

What Malsam-Rysdon does say is the obvious: "There is a correlation between poverty and neglect." She correctly insists that "correlation is not causation." But, sadly, some of the reservations in South Dakota are among some of the poorest places in the nation and are afflicted with some of the worst social ills."

This story at the end brings up the fact that this is all being allowed to happen because it is a money maker.... And that made me think of how the courts just locked up a judge not to long ago for putting children in detention for years for skipping school....