Though Black people compose 27% of Peoria’s population, they account for more than half of the city’s child-welfare cases.
That finding comes from a Journal Star analysis of Illinois Department of Children and Family Services records between 2003 and 2020. During that time, of 1,762 Peoria children involved in DCFS investigations that resulted in foster care placement, 917 — 52% — were classified Black or African American by the agency.
“It’s a concern,” said the Rev. Marvin Hightower, president of the Peoria chapter of the NAACP. “But it’s a concern that goes beyond the NAACP. It’s something that the entire community should be concerned about.”
The disparity is not unique to Peoria. Nationally, child-welfare studies show Black children, parents and families account for a disproportionate share of abuse and neglect cases. That’s despite the preponderance of findings that Black parents are no more likely to maltreat their children than other racial groups.
According to recent report by the National Conference of State Legislatures, a nonpartisan association of state lawmakers, “Families of color are disproportionately represented in the child welfare system and are more likely to experience negative outcomes compared to white families.”
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Why the disparity? There is a layered dynamic of possible answers, many steeped in American society’s systemic racism, experts say.
Meantime, child-welfare advocates are pushing for changes to address a problem that is relatively unknown to the general public, said Teresa Huiza, executive director of the National Children’s Alliance, the national association and accrediting body for a network of almost 800 child advocacy centers.
“I think when you share statistics about this, people find it shocking,” Huizar said.
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, which did not response to requests for comment about this story, handles child-welfare investigations, which follow reports of abuse or neglect.
Each state specifies its own definitions of abuse and neglect. According to Illinois Department of Human Services, these are the legal definitions in Illinois:
- Child abuse is an action that causes or creates the risk of causing a child (by other than accidental means) death, disfigurement, harm to physical or emotional health, or loss or impairment of any body function. Child abuse also includes any act of sexual abuse, torture or severe punishment.
- Child neglect is when a parent or any person the child depends on fails to give the proper or necessary support, education, medical, or other care needed for the child’s well-being, or abandons the child.
A Journal Star analysis of the Peoria data spans September 2003 to June 2020, the latter of which is the last month available for analysis. Through a Freedom of Information Act request, the Journal Star asked for a racial breakdown of DCFS investigations and foster placements by Illinois ZIP codes for each year between 1970 and 2020. However, the agency said its current computer system would allow such a breakdown only since 2003.
“The effort to obtain that data (back to 1970) would require countless hours to go through paper documents,” DCFS stated.
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A national picture of the issue is presented clearly in “Racial Disproportionality and Disparity in Child Welfare,” a 2016 report by the Child Information Gateway, a congressionally mandated child-welfare information clearinghouse connected to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. According to that report, which reviewed 10 years of child-welfare findings:
- Black children represent 13.8% of the total population of U.S. youths. White children represent 51.9%.
- Black children account for 22.6% of children identified by child-protective services as victims of abuse and neglect, a rate 60% higher than that of the general youth population. White children account for 46.4% of such victims, a rate 10% lower than that of the general youth population.
- Black children account for 24.3% of children in foster care, a rate 80% higher than the general youth population. White children account for 43.4% of kids in foster care, a rate 20% lower than that of the general youth population
(Nationwide, other minorities endure disparities too. But in Peoria, whereas Black children accounted for 52% of the 2003-2020 DCFS investigatory caseload, white children accounted for 46.5%. Only 1.4% consisted of children of other races.)
Multiple studies have found child maltreatment is no greater by Black parents than those of other races. Thus, the racial disparity of child-welfare cases must stem from other factors, according to the National Center for Youth Law, a not-for-profit, child-advocacy organization that seeks to transform public policy.
“Given research finding that families of color are no more likely to mistreat their children than White families, the racial disparities in the child welfare system reflect a distortion of reality,” the organization states.
What is behind racial disparities? It’s not typically overt racism, such as a white person purposefully making a false abuse or neglect report against a Black neighbor or a Black parent, Huizar said.
“I don’t think it is, for the most part, because of racist neighbors, though I’m sure it’s happened,” Huizar said. “It’s because we’ve created a society where we police Black families more. … Because of systemic racism, Black families are under higher surveillance.”
That dynamic, according to Huizar and others, has root causes not in child welfare but other societal issues. A big one is poverty. In 2019, the share of African Americans in poverty was 80% higher than their share among the general population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Poverty, including homelessness, can bring the attention of social-service agencies. The more eyes on a family, the more of a chance of a child-welfare report, Huizar said.
Over the past 40 years, the rate of child-welfare reports of physical and sexual abuse has dropped, Huizar said. The lower incidence, she said, can be credited to better public education on child-abuse laws, which over time have ebbed the problem.
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However, the rate of neglect reports — which account for as many as 70% of all child-welfare reports — have remained unabated, Huizar said. Often, such reports conflate poverty with maltreatment.
“Neglect is where it gets really, really tricky,” Huizar said.
For example, perhaps a child seems undernourished. The problem might stem not from a parent’s purposeful neglect, but from a lack of money to buy food, Huizar said.
Other types of neglect calls also can improperly allege maltreatment. For instance, perhaps a small child is seen unattended in a fenced-in yard. The parent might have stepped inside momentarily, yet a passerby sees only a lack of supervision and makes a call to authorities.
In either scenario, a parent has been flagged for child-welfare attention. Even if a report is determined to be unfounded, that parent is more apt to undergo closer scrutiny in the future, especially amid ongoing social-services (such as with poverty).
Studies show such reports tend to carry more weight if the parent is Black, Huizar said. That kind of implicit bias stacks the deck against Black parents even before child-welfare workers have a chance to investigate a report.
“White folks are given the benefit of the doubt,” Huizar said. “I’m not saying caseworkers are conspiring.”
Indeed, such judgments are unconscious, she said – and not always by white persons alone. According to a 2016 brief from the U.S. Departmetn of Health and Human Services, researchers analyzing nationwide data found Black caseworkers tend to assess all families — regardless of race — at higher risk levels than white caseworkers.
“Since Black families are more likely to be assigned to a Black caseworker, they may have an increased likelihood of a substantiated case of maltreatment, which could increase their rates of disproportionality and disparity,” the report stated.
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Negative effects of these disparities are are spelled out in “Disproportionality and Race Equity in Child Welfare”, a 2021 report by the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), a nonpartisan association of state lawmakers.
“Families of color are disproportionately represented in the child welfare system and are more likely to experience negative outcomes compared to white families,” the report states. “For instance, children of color are more likely to experience multiple placements, less likely to be reunited with their birth families, more likely to experience group care, less likely to establish a permanent placement and more likely to experience poor social, behavioral and educational outcomes.”
Plus, Huizar said, resources are often lacking to serve parents flagged by neglect reports. A town or neighborhood might not have enough or appropriate intervention services, especially regarding mental health, she said.
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Huizar does offer several possible ways to fundamentally address racial disparities:
- More technology: Huizar said child-welfare researchers are developing algorithms that can assist screenings with a “dispassionate eye.” Whereas a caseworker might be unconsciousness hobbled by implicit bias, technology is not. An algorithm could analyze a checklist of inputted factors and provide evaluations and recommendations. Though the final decision would remain in the hands of humans, tech could give them help.
- Data feedback: It’s one thing for a caseworker to read about the traps of implicit bias. It’s another to see feedback in the form of caseload analysis detailing possible racial disparities. This practice is rare in child welfare, Huizar said. “I think we need to give people training on that,” she said.
- Community awareness: To avoid unnecessary and unfair child-welfare reports, communities — cities, neighborhoods, organizations, churches — could become better educated on true signs of possible neglect and abuse. This approach works with medical issues, such as promotion of cancer screenings, so why not do likewise regarding child welfare?
- Refocused services: Much investment (time, money) is spent on child-welfare investigations and foster care, Huizar said. Far less is spent on prevention and early intervention, including mental-health help.
- Increase investment: Nationally, caseworkers often undergo just 14 weeks of training before becoming enmeshed in difficult, heart-wrenching scenarios. “You might thing these caseworkers are masters-level social workers. They’re not,” Huizar said. The gut-wrenching work comes with low pay, often resulting in burnout in 13 to 15 months. “How do you develop any expertise (in that time)? Huizar said. “How do you eliminate your implicit bias?”
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