Safety Before Kinship

Those who worry about a child welfare system that puts ideology over children’s safety breathed a sigh of relief when the Biden administration ended. Whether the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) was issuing guidance to keep qualified religious families from taking in foster children because those families didn’t believe gender was a social construct, or discouraging the protection of black children from abuse by publicly comparing Child Protective Services (CPS) workers with “overseers on plantations,” the federal leadership seemed to have lost its way. Unfortunately, it now appears that the Trump administration isn’t immune to such ideology. In an effort to keep more foster kids with relatives (a goal the Biden administration shared), the feds are telling state agencies to loosen criminal background-check requirements for foster placements.

In 2023, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families (ACYF) Commissioner Rebecca Jones Gaston (now head of New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services) changed a federal rule to let states create alternative licensing processes for relatives to become foster parents. The theory: that kids removed from their parents’ custody would be able to stay with their extended family rather than going to live with nonrelatives, if not for some small bureaucratic hurdles, such as the number of beds they were supposed to have in their home.

At the time, Gaston explained, “The hope and intention is that we’re creating some equity around how we’re supporting family members caring for children that are in foster care.” The word “equity” was a tip-off. She and her colleagues seemed less concerned with prioritizing kids’ safety—indeed, extended family members often show the same kind of dysfunction, including drug abuse and domestic violence, as the parents do—than with whether black children were being placed with relatives in the same proportions as other children.

Illinois responded by passing the Kinship in Demand (KIND) Act, which exempts relatives from the background-check process required for nonrelative foster parents. Instead, relatives undergo a review of their criminal history to determine whether they pose a risk to a child. Illinois’ Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) may also consider broader factors when evaluating a relative’s eligibility, such as the disproportionate incarceration of minorities, especially for lower-level drug offenses.

The Trump administration has reinforced the Biden administration’s policy. Guidance issued in May states, “Agencies are discouraged from automatically disqualifying applicants on the basis of a criminal history beyond the federal list of automatically disqualifying felony convictions” like rape, murder, and child abuse. The guidance further explains, “If an applicant or an adult living in the home was convicted for a crime other than those,” then the agency should consider the following factors: “The type of crime,” “The amount of time that has passed since the crime,” “The age at the time of conviction,” “The seriousness of the crime,” “Evidence of rehabilitation since conviction (may include completion of treatment, court-ordered classes, community service, character references),” “The total number and types of crimes, and ages at the time they were committed,” and “The role the individual plans to have with the child.”

Let’s start with the types of crimes not included as automatically disqualifying, which include other types of aggravated assault, domestic violence, and drug trafficking. The idea that being related to a foster child should exempt you from this requirement is outrageous. If we wouldn’t accept a nonrelative convicted of such crimes caring for a foster child, sharing some DNA with the child shouldn’t make any difference. (It’s important to note that kin placements don’t even require shared DNA—they may include second cousins by marriage and “fictive kin,” which means someone whom the child knows well.) These kids have already been severely and/or chronically abused and neglected, so we shouldn’t accept anything less than the safest conditions for them.

The way that the guidance is written allows for all sorts of shenanigans. It leaves “evidence of rehabilitation” largely to the discretion of agencies, which can rely on factors such as “character references” and completion of “court-ordered classes.” Neither necessarily proves that someone is fit to care for a child. Completing a court-ordered program, for example, may demonstrate nothing more than a desire to stay out of jail.

It’s not that these factors don’t matter when it comes to, say, whether to release someone from prison early. But the stakes are higher here: Should this person be licensed and paid by the state to care for a vulnerable child? Either someone with this criminal history is safe for kids to be around, or not—whether the person is a relative should have no bearing on that determination.

In an interview with The Imprint in May, ACF Assistant Secretary Alex Adams explained that the current guidelines preserve “the core features of health and safety.” He believes the shortage of foster homes means the new guidance is necessary. In other words, we’re desperate. “If the choice is between keeping in this parameter and keeping out a family or placing a kid in the Red Roof Inn, which is preferable?” Adams asked.

To be clear, the reason kids are staying in hotels and other inappropriate placements like homeless shelters and child welfare agency offices has little to do with a shortage of foster homes—and definitely not a shortage of kin foster homes. Most of the children without placements have cycled through all the available relatives and ordinary nonrelative foster homes, but their behavioral and mental-health challenges are so significant that they need round-the-clock supervision so they don’t hurt themselves or others. Unfortunately, residential care facilities face a shortage of beds, and no change in licensing standards for foster homes will fix that.

But Adams has gone around the country talking about prioritizing kinship and even citing questionable research on how kinship-care arrangements encourage permanency for kids. This research fails to take into account how kids in kin placements often differ from the general foster population. A Child Abuse and Neglect article notes that “children going into kinship care tend to have more advantageous characteristics prior to entering out-of-home care (OHC), including fewer behavior problems and higher cognitive abilities.” Children in kinship care are also less likely to exhibit disabilities or health problems, which reflects “a process through which higher-functioning children enter kinship arrangements at a higher rate than non-relative placements.” All of that might lead to a greater likelihood of permanency.

Even the fact that kin are available might say something about a child’s baseline circumstances. For instance, if your grandmother was willing and able to care for you safely, she likely served as a source of support while you were in an abusive or neglectful home. Having other adults willing to take you in may indicate that your circumstances were less severe than those of a child who had to be placed with a nonrelative.

Federal child-welfare policy is a game of incentives. When Adams says that he wants “a home for every child”—that is, a one-to-one ratio of foster kids to foster homes—some states may decide to recruit more foster families. But plenty of other states (red and blue alike) will just keep reducing the number of kids in care, regardless of whether it’s safe to do so.

While the ACF says that it doesn’t intend for states to sacrifice children’s safety on the altar of more kinship care, states will pursue policies that they can get away with. States are already encouraged to prioritize kin—it’s cheaper and easier, and the public rarely blames the agency when a relative is the one who harms a child. Ideologically, kin care already gives something to both political sides: it allows conservatives to say that kids are staying with family, and it enables progressives to tout how kids can stay with their “communities.” Things are bad enough without the Trump administration putting another thumb on this scale.