Minority groups deeply dissatisfied with child protection services

Children of color are much more likely to be reported to Minnesota's child protection system than white children, a long-standing issue the state is working to address.

But a group of African-American professionals is concerned that the pendulum has swung too far.

Phyllis Sloan, executive director of La Creche Early Childhood Centers, Inc. in Minneapolis, worries that calls to child protection are no longer met with a vigorous response.

In years past she said, there would be quick response to such a call. "You know, 'Is the child safe?' 'Do you think as a provider,' for instance, 'that the child will be OK within 24 hours or would the child need to be taken?'" Sloan said. "That question has not been asked any longer."

Sloan was among a group of African-American and American Indian leaders who met Thursday with the Governor's Task Force for the Protection of Children. She said she's struggled to understand why child protection, run by counties and Indian tribes, has become so much more "hands-off."

"What is this about?" she asked. "Is this about limited resources? Is this about keeping children and families together in their homes regardless of what's going on? Is this about tiptoeing around culture and matters such as that? But us, or me having a fear that some of our kids are going to get hurt ... It's just as though no one is paying attention."

In the past decade, there has been a 43-percent drop in the number of African-American children being removed from their homes in Minnesota, according to a state child welfare report. However, African-American children are still four times more likely to be in out-of-home care than white children.

Concerned about these disparities, Sloan's group gave a series of recommendations, including hiring "cultural mediators" or translators to help parents and child welfare workers work together, and hiring an ombudsman for children in the governor's office.

Task force members wondered whether abuse and neglect of white children is being under-counted.

Robert O'Connor, a professor at Metropolitan State University who serves on the task force, cited a Philadelphia study that tracked what happened when children of different races showed up in the emergency room with head trauma that could have been caused by abuse:

"African-American children are six times more likely to receive full body scans, X-rays and referrals to child protection, as well as are poor children," he said. "That same study found that actually, when going back and looking at race, Caucasian children were more likely — out of those 'unclear determinations' — were more likely to have had that head trauma because of maltreatment than African-American children."

Minnesota's American Indian children are nearly 16 times more likely to be removed from their homes than white children. A panel of American Indian attorneys and child welfare advocates told the task force that there is a huge lack of services for Indian families.

Moreover, child protection frequently fails the children it removes, warned Patina Park, Executive Director of the Minnesota Indian Women's Resource Center.

"I will tell you completely bluntly and with no shame that the child protection system and foster care is the first level of grooming for our girls for traffickers," Park said. "It is placing them away from their community, away from their identity and the strength that comes from that cultural connection and their family and tribe and it's leaving them vulnerable, and they are getting used."

While some testimony suggested Minnesota's child protection system is overzealous, others maintain it's too unresponsive. Task force members have until March to wrap up their recommendations in time for legislative action this spring.