In this article for Slate, Nora McCarthy - director of Rise, a New York City organization that trains parents to write and speak about their experiences with the child welfare system and become advocates for reform - connects the family separation crisis happening at the US border with Mexico to the separations that occur within the US child welfare system. "Science has documented that children rarely thrive when they are removed from their families," writes McCarthy, "and as the nation reacted with horror to the crisis at the border, organizations including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Harvard Center on the Developing Child stepped forward to state in the strongest possible terms that children can suffer lifelong emotional and developmental consequences from the terror of forced family separation."
"But children are separated from their parents within our borders, too," she continues. "Increasingly, we’re recognizing how infrequently this is the right solution. The Family First Prevention Services Act passed this winter recognizes this, and for the first time, federal funds can now be used to prevent or minimize use of foster care." McCarthy describes the seeming invisibility of parents within the child welfare system and the need to offer support to children and families to help keep families together, enable quick and smooth reunification wherever possible, and prevent separations in the first place.