This article from the New York Times, recounts several stories of children in foster care in New York City, and the ways in which the foster care system has failed them. Too often, children in New York City are kept in foster care for a time period way beyond what is appropriate, says the article. Children may also be unnecessarily separated from their parents or families, transferred from foster home to foster home, or even placed in the care of abusive foster parents. A federal class-action lawsuit has been filed against the city and state child welfare agencies, according to the article, to address these injustices and the “mismanagement and incompetence that keeps children in an often harmful foster care system for months or years longer than necessary.”
The article highlights some of the noted shortcomings and failures of the system, as well as the current administration’s efforts to reform the child welfare system in the city to provide better services to children and families.