Sometimes your family isn’t the one you start out with. It’s the one you meet along the way. I met mine at a meeting with Jessica Grimm, director of a freshly-formed group called Bravehearts M.O.V.E. New York. They were youth just like me, who had lived what I had lived. The meeting changed my life. My childhood was harsh. There was dysfunction and abuse. My mother spoke no English. She was powerless when they said “we are taking your daughter”. I woke up and I was not at home. They tell you what to eat, when to shower, when to go to sleep. I had entered the foster care world. From the age o ..read more

Dear Mandated Reporter, Love is an energy of possibility: the possibility of wholeness in a Platonic understanding!  – Adrienne M Brown They should call you a mandated supporter, as you are here to support the families. But we will get to that later on. Looking back at my child welfare case and my advocacy work in my short 29 years, I want to remind you that your job is to ensure our families are supported and can thrive in their communities. With that in mind, how can we move this system to where we support the families? How can we ask more questions about support and the situa ..read more

First-hand accounts from young people provide a “wake-up call” for lawmakers and child welfare officials  Contact: Camilla Jenkins, Children’s Rights, cjenkins@childrensrights.org NEW YORK, NY — Today, Children’s Rights and Community Impact Advisors released Are You Listening? Youth Accounts of Congregate Placements in New York State. The new report details the experiences of young New Yorkers who spent time in congregate placements, defined in the report as any foster care setting other than a family home.  The accounts of youth with lived experience captured in the report vivi ..read more

Contact: Katelynn Schultz, Disability Rights Iowa, kschultz@driowa.org; Andrew DiAntonio, National Health Law Program, diantonio@healthlaw.org; Aaron Kellogg, Ropes & Gray, Aaron.kellogg@ropesgray.com; Camilla Jenkins, Children’s Rights, cjenkins@childrensrights.org TW/CW: suicidal ideation and thoughts, self-harm, and mentions of mental health disorders. If you or a loved one are experiencing a non-life threatening mental health crisis please call the Suicide Prevention Hotline at 988 for English; 1-888-628-9454 prestamos Servicios en Español; 1-800-273-8255 for Deaf and hard of hearing i ..read more

I am a Black woman on a mission to recreate and reimagine the foster care system. It is what I was put on this earth to do.  I have a deep knowledge of child welfare. I grew up in the Kansas foster care system. Even as a little kid, I was good at advocating for myself. And for other kids too. It just comes naturally. I have ten siblings. I was never legally adopted, but my Soul Family took me in and advocated for me. They supported me in everything I did, especially my education. My grandfather used to pay me for A’s and B’s. No money for C’s. As a child, I thought that was crazy becau ..read more

Contact: Holly Stiles, Disability Rights North Carolina, holly.stiles@disabilityrightsnc.org; Deborah Dicks Maxwell, presidentncnaacp@gmail.com; Josh Lanning, Moore & Van Allen, PLLC, joshlanning@mvalaw.com; Camilla Jenkins, Children’s Rights, cjenkins@childrensrights.org Raleigh, NC – Advocates for civil, disability, and children’s rights filed a federal lawsuit today against the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) for its pervasive, system-wide practice of unnecessarily warehousing children with disabilities in foster care in dangerous, locked psychiatric instit ..read more

The data are clear and glaring—Black families face discrimination and unequal outcomes at every stage of the child welfare system. Pexels | Muhammad-taha Ibrahim This article was originally published on the ABA Children’s Rights Litigation Public acknowledgement of the discriminatory harms perpetrated by the child welfare system is long overdue. Every day in the United States, Black children are investigated by the child welfare system and forcibly separated from their parents, at rates far greater than their white peers. Decades of data, research, and lived experiences reveal the deep ..read more

NEW YORK – On Thursday, October 27, Children’s Rights, a leading national organization focused on the rights of children, hosted its annual Benefit & Inspiration Awards event in New York City. Under the banner Childhood Is Our First Right, hundreds of the city’s most committed advocates for children came together to celebrate Children’s Rights, which for over 25 years has been holding governments accountable for protecting children and keeping families together. The event honored four individuals who have put their commitment to the rights of children into bold action: Greg Louganis, Olym ..read more

Photo: David Handschuh For the first time in three years, hundreds of Children’s Rights most committed supporters and advocates for children gathered for our annual Benefit & Inspiration Awards at the Mandarin Oriental in New York City. With the backdrop of the glittering Manhattan skyline, we celebrated the lasting impact our community has on the lives of young people across the country. Boldy Standing Up for Kids The event honored four people who shared their stories and commitment to improving the lives of children—so they can have the childhood they deserve.   Children’s ..read more

For press inquiries: Christina Ostmeyer, costmeyer@kansasappleseed.org; Willis Jacobson, wjacobson@youthlaw.org; Camilla Jenkins, cjenkins@childrensrights.org; Jeffery Rotenber, jeffrey.rotenberg@dlapiper.com (Kansas City, KS) — Today, a report on the State of Kansas’ progress in calendar year 2021 toward achieving the Performance Goals, Practice Improvements, and Outcomes of the McIntyre v. Howard Settlement Agreement was released by the Center for the Study of Social Policy, the Settlement’s independent monitor. The Settlement was approved by a federal court in January 2021. The Settlement A ..read more