Shattered Families: Racial Justice and Prospects for Systemic Change

The child welfare system is tasked with protecting children from harm. Yet the system targets families of color in unfair ways. Hundreds of thousands of children in foster care are there because the child welfare system feeds off of the effects of poverty and of structural racism embedded in other systems like criminal justice and immigration and inequity embedded in tribal relationships to U.S. institutions. This panel will explore child welfare practices in communities of color, solutions for more equitable policy and strategies for protecting families.