While the Children's Bureau is promoting prevention and strong community pathways for family support (see America First Policy Institute's vision), it has cut grants like Rise's Peer Care Initiative simply because they serve Black and Latino families - those most impacted by child welfare. Smh.

A proposal by Narrowing the Front Door Workgroup urges the Mamdani administration to create a Division of Family Well-Being within the community safety office, which would create family support programs that operate separately from the city’s child welfare agency. imprintnews.org/child-welfar...

NYC Advocates! Safety Net Activists and Safety Net Project are organizing an action to demand a universal and robust Safety Net for all New Yorkers ✨Friday, November 21st, 3pm ✨Broadway side of the Trump International Hotel by Columbus Circle RSVP here: snp.ourpowerbase.net/civicrm/even...

Incomprehensible how a child could be separated from his mother simply because all she could afford was an extended-stay hotel www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Read the full data brief by @familypolicynyc.bsky.social: bit.ly/NYCFPP-brief

New York City family policing investigations of mamas with newborns for alleged drug use dropped nearly 80% between 2020 and 2024. This dramatic drop reflects the influence of decades of work by impacted mamas & the hyperlocal advocacy of the NY Informed Consent Coalition! informedconsentny.com

If you live in NYC and you are interested in organizing with others around our public libraries, you are invited to join our work @nycplan.org. We have a chance to increase and stabilize funding for our public libraries and you can help make that happen. actionnetwork.org/letters/city...

“Walmart was the top employer of SNAP recipients in five states and one of the top four employers in the remaining four states. McDonald’s was among the top five employers of Medicaid enrollees in five of six states and SNAP recipients in eight of nine states.” www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/w...

Great NYC news via @familypolicynyc.bsky.social: * Newborn foster care entries down 37% from 2019-2023 * For Black moms of newborns, drug use allegations down 90% * Change is due to harm reduction, doula programs, etc. * Infant safety has not been impacted familypolicynyc.org/data-brief/n...

Surprise Trump Move Will Upend New York Food Stamps: New York counties thought they had months to prepare to implement SNAP work requirements. Now, they have weeks. nysfocus.com/2025/10/09/t...

"Every [news article on child welfare] I read struck the same note: tragedy. Academic journals, on the other hand, burst at the seams with topics we ought to be covering: parsing poverty from neglect, racial disparities... How, I wondered, had we missed all of this?" www.poynter.org/reporting-ed...

This book is so incredibly good. Can’t recommend it highly enough.

NYC's ‪Natural History Museum @amnh.org‬ announces a new free membership for anyone on SNAP www.amnh.org/join-support...

NEW: The New York State Legislature passed a bill banning anonymous complaints to the state child abuse hotline. The change comes in the wake of a 2023 ProPublica investigation that showed how the hotline had been weaponized by people endlessly calling in baseless allegations against exes or rivals.

With bipartisan support, the state legislature passed the Anti-Harassment in Reporting Act this week, which prohibits anonymous reporting of child abuse and neglect to the state central registry (SCR). This win is the result of four years of dedicated narrative shift work: mailchi.mp/rhfdn/policy...

Today! New York's state Legislature passed a bill that would end the long-standing but controversial practice of accepting anonymous calls at the state child protection hotline. imprintnews.org/child-welfar...

A new report from the Bronx Defenders highlights 21 all too common stories of families unduly accused of neglect & abuse. ACS treats Black & Latino families more punitively than white parents & sometimes separates families for weeks without getting required judicial approval bit.ly/4ks1LTM

Such a kind person - he just helped me with something this fall. Rest in peace, Tom Robbins. (NM) www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/b...

The Anti-Harassment bill is ready for an Assembly floor vote–it has passed in the Senate and the Assembly Children and Families Committee. www.nysenate.gov/legislation/...

"Recently, the NYC Family Policy Project released new data and Legal Services NYC released a report that make it as clear as day that New York State must enact the Anti-Harassment in Reporting Bill." - @legalaidnyc.bsky.social imprintnews.org/opinion/its-...

The Republican tax and spending bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives Thursday would punch a hole as big as $20 billion in the $254 billion state budget enacted just weeks ago. www.thecity.nyc/2025/05/22/t...

In a system that conflates poverty with neglect, NYC can better address the poverty that exposes families to child welfare involvement. Families need support, not punishment. NYC can reverse its over-spending on the system & under-investment in families. @familypolicynyc.bsky.social‬ bit.ly/3YQQLXl

"New York City can reverse its over-spending on child welfare and under-investment in families." FPP's director on critical legislation and investment to protect families 50 years after the @nydailynews.com groundbreaking expose of NYC child welfare. www.nydailynews.com/2025/05/18/b...

"We cannot let sensationalized headlines move ACS and the child welfare system in the wrong direction. We know the lasting damage to children and families that result from ill-conceived pendulum swings." www.amny.com/opinion/new-...

Important history here on the combo of investigative journalism, City Council action, philanthropy, advocacy, lawsuits, legal defense and system leadership that produces sustained change. "There is still big money and there are still little victims" but also much change in child welfare in NYC.

50 years after @nydailynews.com published “Big Money, Little Victims” a series about private agencies trapping kids in #fostercare to keep per diem payments flowing, there are fewer little victims, & payment system is changing. But much more needs to change. www.nydailynews.com/2025/05/13/h...

"A chorus of voices in child welfare have tried to frame the growing national effort to reduce unnecessary family separation as a threat to child safety. But what they are selling isn’t the truth." - Prevent Child Abuse America & Social Current thehill-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/thehill....

"There's storytelling that anything you do to try to reduce the harm of the chid welfare system will cause danger. We know that isn't true. And the tools that child welfare uses-investigation and separation of families-have their own inherent harms." parentalrightsfoundation.org/supporting-p...

“The warm defender of the sacredness of the family relation is the same that scatters whole families—sundering husbands and wives, parents and children, sisters and brothers, leaving the hut vacant, and the hearth desolate.“ —Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845)

"For those impacted by family policing, restitution and compensation might include reunifying families, providing targeted job support, direct payments to survivors and offering culturally relevant, non-judgmental programs to build and sustain generational wealth." 1/ imprintnews.org/opinion/why-...

NIH cancels participation in Safe to Sleep campaign that decreased infant deaths. Exclusive via Ismael M. Belkoura for @statnews.com www.statnews.com/2025/04/30/n...

In New York, 2.9M people receive SNAP to help put food on the table. 30% of NY’s SNAP participants are children, and 31% are seniors or people with disabilities. Cuts to SNAP would increase hunger and harm the youngest and most vulnerable New Yorkers. Congress must keep #HandsOffSNAP.

A series of moves by the Trump administration could profoundly harm children. www.propublica.org/article/how-... The staff of a program that helps millions of poor families keep the electricity on, in part so that babies don’t die from extreme heat or cold, have all been fired. 1/

A beautiful appreciation of one of NYC's most vibrant community groups, the Brotherhood Sister Sol www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/a...

Nearly 600,000 residents rely on the monthly payments — which range from ONLY $183 for a single person to $389 for a family of three — to cover basic needs. After a 5 year pause, the city says it must bring work requirements back to comply with state and federal rules. gothamist.com/news/pre-pan...

In New York City, 4,000 to 7,000 families a month could be denied continued childcare. Assemblymember Brian Maher called the looming shortfall a “crisis.” “Child care is not a luxury—it’s a necessity for working families across New York.” imprintnews.org/top-stories/...

We should end TPR because the state should not have the power to orphan children. TPR is wrong because there are less intrusive ways to ensure child safety and permanence. Thrilled the American Bar Assn is pushing this initiative and looking forward to being in conversation with family defenders.

New York State legislators + @governor.ny.gov - enact the Working Families Tax Credit, Child Care investment, Baby Bucks, Child & Family Well-Being Fund and cash assistance benefits increase/parity in this year's budget! NY families are going to be short on cash.

New Data: Anonymous reports to the child abuse and neglect hotline are rarely substantiated in NYC familypolicynyc.org/data-brief/a... This spring, the New York State Legislature is again considering a bill that would end anonymous reporting, replacing it with confidential reporting. 1/

Child care vouchers for low-income families have been a lifeline amid the city’s affordability crisis. They could vanish unless state lawmakers move quickly to fund the program. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/24/n...

the best part of my job is getting to read the questions we get from readers and then assign smart reporters to answer them.

"In a move that will significantly stymie state innovation in helping low-income families address barriers to employment, HHS rescinded pilot projects awarded under bipartisan legislation to Ohio, Kentucky, California, Maine and Minnesota to improve their TANF programs." www.cbpp.org/blog/hhs-hal...

Millions of New Yorkers could be left without health care, money to put food on the table or get housing help. www.thecity.nyc/2025/03/03/b...

new paper with Sheely and Fong: we analyze the 'front door' of family policing through a descriptive analysis of CPS investigations. We describe 1) who is doing the reporting (mandated reporters) 2) at what ages and 3) how reporting rates vary by race/ethnicity link.springer.com/article/10.1...

"The approach I suggest can pair localized knowledge from system impacted families and communities with expert statistical analysis to chart and evaluate broad policy efforts directed at safely drawing down levels of CPS intervention in particular Black and Indigenous communities." 1/

Sign this petition from the Safety Net Activists to raise cash assistance benefits in NYC. www.change.org/p/increase-c...

"Next week, House Republicans will hold a major vote on Trump’s fiscal agenda. The House blueprint, which Trump backs, lays the groundwork for up to $880 billion in Medicaid cuts and tens of billions in cuts to food stamps." Everybody knows someone this will harm.

read @kelleyfong.bsky.social Investigating Families for an incredibly thorough treatment of the mechanics, impacts, and implications of family surveillance.

getting investigated by CPS is often experienced as traumatic. investigations are invasive and incredibly high stakes; family separation is on the table. this editorial from McCarthy and Kohomban captures the problem well and points to good directions forward: imprintnews.org/opinion/chil...