In her piece for the Huffington Post Blog, Mirah Riben writes about the issue of Family Preservation, explaining its meaning and why it should be prioritized as a response for at-risk families. Riben writes of a couple who met a family living in homelessness and sought to adopt the children, “‘Rescuing children’ while leaving their family behind is not the most humane response to a tragedy.” Instead, she argues, greater emphasis must be placed on finding solutions that would prevent unnecessary family separation (while recognizing that family separation is sometimes a necessary response in certain cases). Riben offers a history of Family Preservation efforts in the United States and the basis for Family Preservation from a child rights perspective. The post also explains how Family Preservation “plays out - or doesn’t - in practice” and the common forces that threaten Family Preservation, including under-funded child protective services and the high demand for children to adopt.