In the US, there’s a growing call from academics and advocates with significant experience in the country’s child welfare system for fundamental reform. Professors Lisa Merkel-Holguin and Ida Drury, colleagues from the Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect at the University of Colorado, and a national advocate, have catalogued multiple stages within the current system they see as oppressive and prejudiced against families who are part of racialised or ethnic-minoritised groups and/or who are poor. The researchers suggest that kin-first and community-based programmes, instead of agency-led policies and decision-making, will provide a more supportive and holistic system to serve vulnerable children and families.
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