New 2 Flashcards

Question

In the eighties and nineties, the NIS studies consistently reported that African American parents do not abuse their children any more than white parents do. In fact, they found no significant differences in the incidences of abuse and neglect across any ethnic or racial lines. But then, in 2010, the NIS produced its most comprehensive report yet

Answer 1

and something shifted: it found a 73 percent higher rate of black maltreatment over white.

Answer 2

- Provides funding for nutrient-rich foods, nutrition education, breastfeeding support and education, health screening and referrals to identify nutrition risks, and immunization screenings.
- Must be pregnant, bresfeeding (up to 1 year), pospartum (up to six months after birth/end of pregnancy), Infants (up to 1), or children (up to five).
- Household income under 185%, or participate in certain other programs like medicaid, snap or TANF.
Family of one = $26,973 and increases by about $9,500 per additional member

Gives about 30 to 50 per child per month

Answer 3

At a conference in 2009, Dr. Lester said that they’d tracked around 450 babies (half meth-exposed and half drug-free) for the previous three years, and so far no substantial differences had emerged. In fact, meth-exposed infants exhibit many of the same characteristics as cocaine-exposed babies, Lester said: at birth, these babies can have some difficulty feeding, then they seem to even out symptom-wise for a couple of years. I spoke with Dr. Lester a few years after the conference, when the kids in the meth study had hit five years old. By this time, just like the kids in the cocaine study, the kids started showing poor inhibitory control, which means that they acted out more and didn’t always know how to stop themselves. “We see this when they go to school, probably because there are more demands put on them there, and because their failure in behavior control becomes more obvious,” Dr. Lester said. And he contextualized the findings further. “Yes, there are drug effects, but they aren’t of the magnitude everyone thought they would be; they’re much more subtle—on the order of ADHD.”

Answer 4

They can identify the treatment programs or support groups Robbyne had wished for, and then follow up sometime later, so the kids can stay at home. But many parents are hard-wired to panic at the mere mention of ACS, and much of Robbyne’s job is devoted to reeducation (which is why it might pre-petition model might be better, keep the social workers separate from CPS)

Answer 5

scared of ACS: they think ACS is out to get them,” she said. “A lot of parents are unaware of how much the system has changed. I have to tell them—it really has changed.”

Answer 6

apply quick formulas to complicated family groups that result in a lifetime of positive bonds, or fractures and separations. And these formulas often revolve around drugs.

Answer 7

take some state-sponsored parenting classes, have a social worker visit your home and verify that you have the requisite space and a bed, and undergo a criminal background check. Then you get the benefits.

Answer 8

about 70 percent of all foster children in this country who have been in care more than two years have been moved three or more times. This sobering statistic may be due to child welfare’s history and the sinking foundation, and it may be due to all kinds of poor management and low funding and scrambled priorities and on and on. Regardless, for the child, it’s a statistic with deep and lasting ramifications: each move means another ruptured attachment, another break in trust, another experience of being unwanted or unloved.

Answer 9

traumatized—that you trusted somebody to behave in a certain way and they behaved in the very opposite way. And that is, I think, more devastating than somebody dying.”

Answer 10

‘Here’s a new husband’ the next day. But in foster care, that’s the expectation: you know, ‘I’m your new mom so love me.’” In her case, an uncle contacted child welfare after Francine’s father, and then mother, died, because he himself didn’t have any extra beds. A foster mom in Long Island accepted both Francine and her sister, but it was rocky for years: the foster mom loved Francine and expected Francine to love her back. Francine couldn’t betray her mother’s memory like that, and she never understood why her own uncle didn’t step up; for him, she would have slept on the floor.

Answer 11

adding that, traditionally, child welfare has been primarily concerned that foster parents meet a child’s physical needs for food and shelter. “But physical survival without psychological survival doesn’t help a whole lot.”

Answer 12

the original abuse, the shock and alarm when a child is removed, the courtroom fights, kids rebelling, bio parents panicking, foster parents molesting, relapses, rehabs, reabuse—that basic, low-level functioning begins to seem exemplary. These are the mediocre flatlands of child welfare, where if it’s not a crisis it’s not a problem.

Answer 13

Ninety percent said it was because of something they did. This was in 1973, but Eliana says kids are no different today: she’s seen hundreds, and mostly they believe that they’re to blame for ending up in child welfare. It’s part of the wiring of childhood: they know themselves as the axis around which events and mishaps and parents and everything else will spin.

Answer 14

nobody seems to want them. They’re unlike the babies, who are the most likely to attract adoptive interest, or the young kids, who signify innocence or easy compliance in foster parents’ minds. Forty-nine percent of all teenagers have to be placed in institutions or group homes (as opposed to just 7 percent of children between one and five), largely because there aren’t enough families who will take them.

Answer 15

First, they’re the hardest to adopt out, so they often have only two means of escape: return home or grow too old for the system entirely. Second, they can enter foster care through a traditional abuse scenario in their family of origin, but their parents can also put teenagers in foster care, if they decide they’re just too unmanageable to deal with. Finally, juvenile delinquents are often made wards of the state and thus piled onto the foster care rolls too. Add it all together, and more than a quarter of all foster kids nationwide are fifteen or older.

Answer 16

30 percent of the boys have been incarcerated, and the girls are already 2.5 times more likely than their nonfostered peers to have been pregnant. Within four years, 51 percent are unemployed. Within an average of six years, the median income for former foster kids who have landed work is only $8,000 per year. Ultimately, according to some figures, 30 percent of the homeless in America were once in foster care.

Answer 17

“They’re sexually motivated, they’re rebellious, they’re outspoken, very lazy, dirty, self-centered, and when something goes down, it goes down BIG.” Here Bruce paused, seemingly reflecting on his own frustration. “Compound that with the possibility of theft and destruction. Teenagers have no respect for the property they didn’t pay for.”

Answer 18

more likely to be older, have less education, and live below the poverty line than caregivers in the general population. They were also half as likely to provide stimulating environments for their kids.

Answer 19

psychologists. “A lot of these children have mental illnesses, and we need doctors telling us how to structure their lives to best deal with the diseases.” But foster parents don’t get much training, and they have to come up with their own structure on the fly.

Answer 20

escalated to hallway fights, mirroring what was happening in the foster home. It was Tonya’s fifth school in as many years, and she “didn’t like to be picked on.”

Answer 21

If their behavior seems psychologically rooted (and sometimes if they’ve just broken curfew or run away), they may land in a hospital. If the kids are rule breakers, or aggressive, or if they’ve timed out their stay in the psych ward, they’ll be sent to a residential treatment center. This is the last stop on the foster care train. RTCs are locked, highly regimented facilities, often with their own schools. In New York they’re outside the city, on large plots of land upstate, and they’re the places where foster kids learn criminal behavior, because juvenile delinquents live there too.

Answer 22

places for kids who have behavior, psychiatric, or substance problems but don’t merit psychiatric hospitals or correctional facilities. This is a pretty broad description, but it’s all we’ve got: the General Accounting Office has claimed it’s difficult to get an “overall picture” of the facilities because there’s no standardized definition to differentiate them. Somewhere around 15 percent of kids in out-of-home care live in RTCs.

Answer 23

150 kids with very mixed backgrounds. About 35 percent were regular foster kids, 60 percent were kids who had committed crimes but were sent to Graham Windham as an alternative to juvenile hall, and the remaining 5 percent were a mix of special-ed kids and kids whose parents just sent them there for the restrictive environment.

Answer 24

common denominator, or special education. And because kids generally can’t leave the campus, special ed is all they get. If they stay for years, the way Jonathan did, they’re in no way prepared for college.

Answer 25

lonely,” one of the kids, a light-skinned boy with pimples, admitted. “Especially because sometimes you get your own room. I guess the worst thing is, you’ve gotta stay here.” “I’ve been here six months, and there’s nothing really bad about it,” said his friend, a short Latino kid with disturbingly yellow teeth. “Except if you get modified [for bad behavior]. This means you get sent back before another judge and sent to another facility.” Jonathan was never modified, and he grew to adulthood in the little brick cottages at Graham Windham. He told me he experienced the full range of emotions on the campus—“happy, sad, mad”—but at the end of five years, he didn’t feel as if he had any truly close bonds with any of the counselors or staff—and he certainly didn’t consider them family. His final assessment of Graham Windham was that it was “just a place to rest your head.”

Answer 26

$210,000 per year. This was about $156,000 more than a year of room, board, and tuition at Columbia University—the place where I teach, and one of the most expensive schools in the country. And after his five-year tenure at Graham Windham, Jonathan hadn’t even graduated from high school. If Jonathan had been placed with a therapeutic foster parent, one who had been trained to work with psychiatrically troubled children, the cost to the state would have been half of what was paid out to Graham Windham.

Answer 27

have to find enough new good foster parents. And they’d have to train the parents to weather the children’s inevitable storms. It would mean viewing the kids as traumatized, rather than oppositionally defiant; seeing coping strategies rather than delinquency. And it would mean changing the entire culture of child welfare, so kids no longer tumbled down the ladder of more and more punitive placements. As Jonathan said, and all system kids know: “When you’re a foster kid, an RTC or a group home is the last stop for you before jail.”

Answer 28

a high staff-to-child ratio, therapeutic group treatment, individualized attention, and supportive peer relationships rather than harsh and punitive coercive techniques. The main thing, the commissioner said, was that the kids would be closer to their families, who could be newly involved in their lives. And they could take regular classes in accredited schools, earning crucial credits toward a high school diploma.

Answer 29

many rights. When a mom like Doreen is incarcerated, she has to abide by both the rules of her sentencing, determined by a criminal court judge, and the tenets of the foster care agreement, determined by a family court judge. The family court judge usually requires visitations, which are almost always up to the mother to initiate; she must navigate prison bureaucracy to place phone calls to her caseworker to both coordinate and pay for a visit. Most inmates are jailed more than fifty miles away from their children, and gas money and travel time can be too burdensome for a foster parent to shoulder. Then there can be cumbersome clearance problems, or prison personnel who view child visitation as a privilege for good behavior.

Answer 30

have the resources to travel long distances or accept exorbitant collect calls. To appear in court, an incarcerated parent must be ordered there by the family court, and then transferred to and temporarily housed in a local jail like Rikers Island. The Department of Corrections may not process the order in time; they may fail to notify the inmate of the transfer; the court date can get changed; the potential breakdowns between an order and an appearance are endless. The end result, for a judge, is the specter of an absent parent. And then there’s ASFA—the federal law that mandates that children who have been in foster care for fifteen out of twenty-two months either return home or become available for adoption. Even if a parent has managed to demand, coordinate, and pay for the visits with her kids, she can’t demand to shorten her sentence. In the five years after ASFA’s passage, the parental termination proceedings for incarcerated parents more than doubled.

Answer 31

rights and didn’t know she could ask for them. She didn’t know she could have fought for custody again, when she was slated to be released on good behavior within eighteen months or so. She felt the despondency, the drag and shame of prison, and the sense of profound failure as a mother. She took Mrs. Taylor’s advice and gave over her daughter.

Answer 32

a life stage has been irreparably damaged. They can’t trust enough to care, and they can’t care enough to hold on to a better life.

Answer 33

with it something called “basic trust.” “Babies cry, and they learn that somebody comes, and they calm down,” Kecia explained slowly, as though she were teaching a class. “In that, babies learn that they have some type of power. This is the basis for some very important psychological things later on: you need faith, you need hope, and you need confidence that you can manipulate things to get what you need.” When parents are negligent or, as Kecia suggested, so poor that long work hours or suboptimal child care keeps adults from tending to a baby’s cries, this “basic trust” is broken.

Answer 34

the crisis resolves into a stable identity. If they haven’t had these attachments, they can develop identity diffusion—or an unstable, threatened sense of self. They don’t have the inner security to hold on to a single identity, or perhaps the faith that loved ones will see them through this second infancy, of sorts.

Answer 35

adult in their lives to stick by them, and as a case manager, she stepped out of her job description to play that role. But she also believed kids should receive the kind of consistent, personalized therapy Kecia had in jail—without having to commit a crime to get it.

Answer 36

therapeutic homes with better-trained foster parents. But despite being a top agency, Edwin Gould didn’t offer such homes. If a child needed a therapeutic placement, he’d have to leave the agency and his caseworker. This was tough on Tolightha. “A kid’ll say to me, ‘I don’t have parents, I don’t have foster parents; the only person I have and trust is my social worker,’” Tolightha said, pursing her lips for emphasis. The fluorescent lights buzzed audibly. “These kids have been in so many placements that if they have someone they can attach to, like a social worker, you can’t turn your back on them.”

Answer 37

those with moms who had a mental illness were more than twice as likely to be placed in care. And even though it’s not directly within her job outline, “I’m the one that has to make sure that mom gets the services that are needed.” Otherwise, she said, it just might not get done.

Answer 38

We need to think about what people have internalized and what we represent.” For kids, a therapist could represent a lot of things. A good percentage of foster children are on psychiatric medications to control their mood swings or hyperactivity and could view a therapist, with a raised eyebrow and a cocked hip, as yet another doctor in the lineup. Others, like the kids Tolightha encountered, were afraid of therapists spreading their private business around; respecting confidentiality hadn’t been in their realm of experience. And others, like Fatimah at the Greens’, wanted therapy, but wanted it to be convenient and familiar. Fatimah had been searching for a therapist, she said, to help her sort through the abuse and the jangle of memories so she could write her book, but she said, “I don’t want to go somewhere far where a lot of white people will be looking at me like I’m crazy.”

Answer 39

it’s not a good time to explore your emotions; you’re too enraged and disorganized to fall apart a little bit,” she said in her talk on foster care at the School of Social Work at Columbia. “These kids don’t need uncovering therapy; they need adults who understand the natural processes of bereavement and trauma.” It’s the parents who are the real “healing agents,” as Francine called them; they’re the soil into which the kids can root. But really, she said, anyone a child attaches to can do the trick; it’s a matter of them “seeing in you the capacity to become something good.” It could be a teacher, a mentor, a therapist, a nun. It could even be an employee at a group home.

Answer 40

storage. We have to implement services where kids can see they’re being assisted—give them group therapy, family therapy, tutoring. A kid could go back to his family from one of these places.”

Answer 41

employee with whom he could connect but wasn’t expected to love on command, the way she was expected to love her new mother. But while services can be better consolidated and coordinated from a central location, Francine cautioned that the central service for a traumatized child will always be a primary, human attachment. In group homes, workers would have to be trained to offer this—and step up as family figures, with all the loyalty and consistency that implies. From her experience, Kecia was skeptical that group homes could provide such a thing. “There are just too many kids in there, and group home staff changes every eight hours,” she said simply.

Answer 42

keeping me here and welcoming me. It’s kinda weird. It’s scary. I don’t know.” Dominique trailed off, but then picked up again, louder than before. “Honestly, when I first came here, I was like, what kinda Cosby thing is this? I’d never been in a house with two parents before. I didn’t ask them to adopt me—I had always asked for people to adopt me, but I never had no one volunteer. I’m about to be signed out of foster care, and someone’s going to adopt me? It’s really strange.

Answer 43

attaching to their children. Or they do it and then they stop. They’re just like the foster kids: they get burned out on the system’s entrenched disregard for their love.

Answer 44

He found that the most experienced investigators removed 4 percent of their kids, and the least experienced removed 18 percent. “The biggest decision in a child’s life wasn’t based on the kind of abuse they were exposed to, but whichever investigator they were assigned to,” Abramowitz said. “And we assign our caseworkers randomly.”

Answer 45

love. “Once Allyson came to therapy with me, and I told my therapist how I test people in order to trust. And Bruce failed that test so many times,” Dominique said, tipping back her baseball cap and taking in the sun. But it wasn’t Bruce’s fault that Dominique was the way she was, I countered; he didn’t inflict any of the original damage. True, she said, but he was like everybody at the agency—who didn’t want to let her feel her rage. “I don’t have an anger problem,” she said, turning to me, her face getting red. “I’m supposed to be angry. I’m supposed to be mad at this situation, because it was not supposed to happen this way.” Dominique stared back out at the sea. “Every day of my life I wish I could die because of how angry I am,” she said. “And with foster parents, we’re not asking them to buy us anything, or do anything, just understand.”

Answer 46

biological daughter, her parents looked the other way.

Answer 47

ACS was the only agency she knew of with resources for kids, and she viewed them as a terrorizing force, one that had pushed her through twenty-one bad homes and was casing the apartment as we spoke. If Fatimah talked to anybody official, they’d likely tip off ACS.

Answer 48

supervised living arrangement for kids in their late teens. They’re often apartments or dorms, where kids live in clusters of twos or threes and learn to cook and clean and budget for themselves, with social workers checking up on them a few times a week.

Answer 49

they know what these kids have been through. Rudy Estrada has seen this a lot. One teenager he used to mentor just knew he was going to be on America’s Next Top Model, and his case manager told him he had a good shot. But the kid was overweight and unattractive; Rudy was encouraging him to fill out a job application at Starbucks. Rudy’s mentee was offended; selling coffee was beneath his supermodel status, and he wouldn’t consider any job offer unless it came from a big-name producer. I had a similar experience with Christina. She got her first job when she came to live with me, at seventeen, at a tourist shop in Hollywood. She was scandalized when the manager upbraided her for taking extra-long breaks and ogling boys on the street. She quit a few days later. At her next job, stocking shelves in a vitamin store, she argued with her boss in the first hour and was let go within the week. In foster care, Christina had been told she was responsible only for getting a job; she had neither the training, nor the emotional resilience, to actually keep one.

Answer 50

they’re shocked to discover that the world of employers and landlords doesn’t operate with the same uniform predictability that their group homes once had. Christina was appalled, despite the extreme injustice of her early life, that the people at her jobs “just weren’t being fair.” And she didn’t have the softness inside her, the plasticity and adaptability that come from being cherished, to bear it.

Answer 51

they’d just say we’ll send you another kid.”

Answer 52

“They didn’t think it was going to last anyway,” Mary said that Jennifer explained. “They thought this was too good to be true, and they wanted to be the ones to leave before they were thrown out.”

Answer 53

so clean for them might mean push everything to one side,” she said. “You have to go in and show them, ‘This is what I had in mind.’”

Answer 54

what Mary provided, and in what they gave to each other. This was beyond any system or program or mandate; it was, as Kecia said to me in the prison, just the humanness of things.

Answer 55

is to get a kid a family.

Answer 56

was tougher to picture. I imagined Pat and Chester, both so eager and assured, calling up some kid’s former teacher, his bus driver, his older sister, and saying, “Guess what? You’re pregnant! With a teenager!” So they take it in steps. They first explain the teenager’s need, and his chances for falling into trouble or homelessness, and then they encourage the potential parent to “take a learning experience,” or enroll in the ten-week licensing classes required by the state to become a foster parent. Technically, You Gotta Believe! parents do become foster parents, except in the classes that YGB offers, they’re encouraged—or mandated, really, if they do house the child—to become “forever parents.” Whether they eventually legally adopt or “morally adopt” is up to the kids and the parents. But they’re in it for life.

Answer 57

parents,” Doris said, after Glenn and Mindy shook her hand and we all settled around a small conference table in her office. “This isn’t a pet shop where parents get to pick out a kid. And it’s not a guarantee on either side.”

Answer 58

even think about helping us. And we’d been asking for help all along!”

Answer 59

These children were then failed again in foster care, so they could end up in jail, or else feeding the system with more kids. “Jails are a business too,” Bruce said sadly. “You’ve got women in prison making Victoria’s Secret bras. You’ve got to keep people stupid, so you can put them in jail and get them to do your work.”

Answer 60

Over 80 percent of children subject to investigations are not deemed victims of abuse or neglect following CPS’s investigation.49 These cases aren’t necessarily false reports; CPS might have insufficient evidence to confirm allegations or might determine that a situation does not rise to the level of maltreatment as defined in state statute. Nevertheless, the state is investigating a large and growing share of parents who—according to the investigating agency itself—do not pose a clear and present danger to their children.

Answer 61

paltry public supports for child-rearing, such as limited childcare assistance. But parenting in poverty means parenting under especially trying circumstances. Many parents are shut out of the labor market, and low-wage work doesn’t provide enough to make ends meet. Due to systemic racism and discrimination, this disproportionately affects parents of color. When she worked full-time, with a high school equivalency degree and several certificates, Jazmine took home about $250 a week. She couldn’t find an apartment affordable on that income; median rent in New Haven, at $1,200 monthly, exceeded her paycheck. Welfare and other benefits, like food assistance, don’t provide nearly enough, and millions are left behind. Recall that Jazmine—living in Connecticut, a state more generous than most—received under $500 monthly from welfare when she didn’t have income from work, leaving her well below the federal poverty line.

Answer 62

a “linked ecology of social maladies and broken institutions.”9 The mothers I interviewed described high exposure to adverse and traumatic experiences, dating from early childhood. Though such experiences were not universal, many mothers shared accounts of childhood exposure to violence, placement in foster care or other institutional settings, and difficulties in school. As they aged into adolescence and adulthood, they faced adversities such as homelessness, domestic violence, sexual abuse, addiction, incarceration, and physical and mental health challenges. Often, multiple adverse experiences compounded, subjecting them to substantial hardship.

Answer 63

CPS because they understood that such challenges could draw CPS attention.[which might get in the way of them asking for help. But also, how does being raised homelss compare to being removed? Of course, solving homelessness is best possible result].

Answer 64

ominous. Given their love for their children and the salience of the motherhood role, they saw calling CPS as the most hurtful weapon someone could wield—worse than calling the police or threatening their housing or welfare benefits. As Jazmine put it, “When you say CPS, that’s the worst thing that you could possibly do.” The prospect of losing their children was heart-wrenching. “Those are my babies. Those are of me,” Bethany, a White mother, explained. Beyond the heartbreak of separation, Bethany didn’t know what kind of care her children would receive in state custody. “Are they going to treat him or her like I would treat them?” she wondered. “Are they going to make her feel like she’s not wanted?”

Answer 65

ignored these herculean efforts to provide for children’s needs, jumping on parents’ deficiencies: They just see: Oh, if you don’t got a job, you can’t support your child. Oh, you don’t got a house, you can’t support your child. Oh, you on welfare, you can’t support your child.… They don’t see us as hardworking parents trying to make it out somewhere because we don’t have the resources, we don’t have the funds to get where we want to be. As Jazmine saw it, CPS judged and blamed parents for the challenges they faced, even as parents found creative ways to make do.

Answer 66

inquiries as opportunities to be turned in for wrongdoing. [should mandatory reporting be done away with and should doctors be allowed to report but not required? Would that make any difference given that, according to later in the book, professionals tend to report because they think it is for the best and not because they are required to do so. What about saying they can't report unless they have reason to believe that harm is imminent, while also creating a place they can call to connect patients with needed resources? What about CPS being more clear with them on what would happen if they make the report and then CPS asking them if they think this is beneficial, or if they think the professional can do stuff that is better for them? CPS could also give the professional referrals that can be passed on to the patient?]

Answer 67

CPS intervention, they see the agency visiting other families for minor issues and misunderstandings, and they routinely find their parenting subject to scrutiny. From what mothers have seen and heard, CPS doesn’t do right by children and families. With its power to remove children, the agency also threatens what they cherish most, so mothers see CPS as something to avoid at all costs.

[of course, they're hearing it from parents involved with CPS and everyone is against child abuse until they're the ones being accused. But a lot of investigations don't find abuse or neglect and the line between neglect and poverty is impossible to find. More to the point though, CPS might frequently remove when more money or services could solve the problem.

Answer 68

common in the reports I saw and heard about; a recent California study likewise found that CPS documented at least one of these conditions in 59 percent of investigated neglect reports reviewed.3 Though such conditions do not automatically threaten child safety, they can become allegations of neglect through the lens of “inadequate supervision.”

Answer 69

affirmatively decide to call in.

Answer 70

ducation, law enforcement, social services, medical, mental health, and childcare professionals, legally mandated to report suspected maltreatment. Personal relations, such as parents, other relatives, friends, and neighbors, contribute about half of the remaining cases, with the rest originating from anonymous, other, or unknown sources.

Answer 71

First, she said, they might ask themselves, if they did not report and something bad happened, “How’s that helping that child and how’s that gonna feel for me?” Second, she said, mandated reporters are not the investigators; they do not need all the answers about what happened or what constitutes maltreatment. In bold, italicized, and underlined, the training slide emphasized: “CERTAINTY OR PROBABLE CAUSE IS NOT REQUIRED” to report. Annie explained to the group that the hotline will not accept reports that do not meet statutory definitions of abuse or neglect. “And that’s it. Nothing bad happens.” She assured the group that “no harm is going to come” from erring on the side of caution by calling—except that they might have to wait on hold for a while.

Answer 72

families marginalized by race/ethnicity and/or socioeconomic status. In addition to differentially exposing families to adversity, racism, classism, sexism, and their intersections also affect which families come to CPS’s attention. This does not necessitate individual reporters motivated by animus—reporting Black families because they dislike Black people, for instance. Rather, as reporting is highly discretionary, it’s no surprise that it reflects the racism present more broadly in society. Racism and other dimensions of oppression shape how reporting professionals interpret what they see and structure organizational resources and routines in ways that channel marginalized families in particular to CPS.

Answer 73

(middle-class) perspectives and experiences to extrapolate what other parents could and should reasonably do for children.

Answer 74

institutional racism and classism affect CPS reporting through inequitable resource distribution as well. As sociologist Victor Ray explains, organizations like those reporting to CPS “consolidate resources along racial lines.” Given underinvestment in communities of color and poor communities, CPS becomes an enticing resource for organizations serving these families, especially when “combined with diffuse cultural schemas” such as anti-Blackness.39 With school funding tethered to local property taxes, for example, schools serving affluent, White areas have the resources to address issues that might prompt CPS reports elsewhere—by following up with parents or making referrals to social services, for instance.

Answer 75

a readily available tool for those seeking to enact revenge or lodge grievances in contexts of scarcity. [but it would go nowhere if their wasn't enough abuse to justify investigation. And if they lie about what they saw, they could open themselves up to prosecution. Looked at this way, this suggests that parents are protecting each other and not reporting when they are mandated to, if they like the parents who are potentially being abusive]

Answer 76

power induces parents’ cooperation with CPS’s requests, pressuring parents—even those not deemed threats to their children’s safety—to disclose personal information.

Answer 77

educating families or making referrals themselves, he said, “They don’t do that. They just pick up the phone and call us.” I conveyed what I’d heard from reporting professionals: their belief that families would take CPS’s recommendations more seriously. Bill countered: But sometimes now it makes it worse, because now you get the family on the defensive. They get an unnecessary CPS case.… Do the therapy, your job, educate, before you get to the next level and call us. Because once you call us, it’s a whole different ball game.… We come in and we delve into everything. Intrusive. For someone that doesn’t need to go through that? Retraumatizing the kids by asking all the questions of the kids? Calling medical, calling educational [providers].

[why doesn't CPS contact third party providers and then refferr the family to them? I think they do sometimes]

Answer 78

“delve into everything.” CPS’s surveillance is not only wide, reaching many families, but also deep, collecting extensive information from each of these families. Reports give the state license to go in; this justification for entry is a blank check of sorts, with no limits as to what CPS can inquire about.

Answer 79

educational neglect,” I frequently heard. Getting a report, a trainer explained, is “like an onion peeling”—investigators had to uncover each layer to get to the issues underlying the maltreatment allegation.

Answer 80

didn’t want to get in trouble. Then, probably remembering I was there, he clarified, “I mean, of course, we care about kids’ safety.”

Answer 81

she paused—“I get it, but it looks like you have something to hide if you say no.” Parents’ rights with CPS are thus illusory, as exercising these rights can adversely affect their cases.

Answer 82

boundless probing into families’ personal lives. The realities of investigators’ work—its inherent uncertainty and its accountability structures—further enshrine and expand CPS’s surveillance.

Answer 83

you have to be able to keep your kids safe.” Fred, investigating Jazmine, said that with families reported for the first time, “there’s a little more leniency to say, ‘All right, maybe this was a one-off incident.’ ” But, he explained, if the family is reported again, especially within a short period of time, CPS might look to keep the case open. Of course, the absence of prior reports does not imply a “one-off incident.”

Answer 84

“because when you hear that name, that’s what you think.”

Answer 85

risky, shifting the burden of responsibility for structural inequities back to parents.

Answer 86

Comparing the trauma of being removed from one's parents to the trauma of being raised by a neglectful parent is complex, as both situations can have profound and lasting impacts on a child. Here are some key considerations:

### Trauma of Being Removed from Parents

**Potential Severity**:

- **Attachment Issues**: Children who are removed from their parents may struggle with attachment, trust, and relationship-building.

- **Sense of Abandonment**: Feelings of abandonment and loss can lead to emotional and behavioral issues.

- **Instability**: Multiple placements in foster care or group homes can exacerbate feelings of insecurity and instability.

- **Identity and Belonging**: Children may struggle with their sense of identity and belonging, especially if they are separated from their cultural or familial roots.

**Mitigating Factors**:

- **Quality of Care**: Stable, nurturing foster or adoptive homes can provide a supportive environment that helps mitigate trauma.

- **Therapeutic Support**: Access to counseling and therapeutic services can help children process their trauma and develop coping mechanisms.

### Trauma of Being Raised by a Neglectful Parent

**Potential Severity**:

- **Chronic Neglect**: Neglect can lead to severe developmental issues, including physical health problems, cognitive delays, and emotional disorders.

- **Lack of Basic Needs**: Persistent neglect often means that children's basic needs for food, safety, healthcare, and education are not met.

- **Emotional and Psychological Impact**: The absence of emotional support and nurturing can result in low self-esteem, attachment disorders, anxiety, and depression.

- **Social and Academic Challenges**: Neglected children may struggle academically and socially, leading to difficulties in forming healthy relationships and achieving educational goals.

**Mitigating Factors**:

- **Community Support**: External support systems such as schools, community programs, and extended family can provide some stability and resources.

- **Resilience**: Some children develop remarkable resilience and coping skills despite neglectful environments.

### Comparative Impact

- **Immediate vs. Long-Term Effects**: Removal from parents often has an immediate, acute impact, while neglect can result in chronic, pervasive damage over time.

- **Nature of Harm**: Removal causes a specific kind of relational and identity trauma, while neglect affects overall development and well-being.

- **Potential for Recovery**: Both situations can lead to long-term challenges, but the potential for recovery can vary based on the quality of subsequent care and interventions.

### Professional Perspectives

- **Case-by-Case Basis**: Child welfare professionals emphasize that each child's situation is unique. The impact of removal versus neglect depends on various factors, including the child's age, temperament, previous experiences, and the quality of alternative care.

- **Intervention Importance**: Timely and effective interventions are crucial in both scenarios. For neglected children, improving parental care or finding a better caregiving environment is essential. For children removed from their parents, providing stable and supportive placements is key.

### Conclusion

Neither being removed from parents nor being raised by a neglectful parent is categorically worse; both have serious and potentially lifelong consequences. The focus should be on understanding each child's specific needs and circumstances and providing the necessary support and interventions to promote their well-being and development. Effective intervention, stability, and supportive relationships are critical in mitigating the negative impacts of both types of trauma.

Answer 87

Determining whether it is better for a child to be removed from an abusive home or to remain in that environment depends on multiple factors related to the severity and nature of the abuse, the child's resilience, and the availability and quality of alternative care. Here are the key considerations for assessing what is best for the child:

### Key Considerations

1. **Nature and Severity of Abuse**:

- **Physical Abuse**: If the child is experiencing physical abuse, the immediate risk to their physical well-being often necessitates removal.

- **Sexual Abuse**: Sexual abuse by a parent or caregiver almost always requires removal to ensure the child's safety and well-being.

- **Emotional Abuse and Neglect**: Chronic emotional abuse and severe neglect can be profoundly damaging, but the assessment may consider whether supportive interventions can improve the home environment.

2. **Child’s Physical and Emotional Health**:

- **Immediate Safety**: The child's immediate safety is the primary concern. If their physical health is in danger, removal is typically necessary.

- **Emotional Well-being**: Ongoing emotional trauma from abuse can lead to long-term psychological issues. The child's current emotional state and potential for recovery are critical factors.

3. **Support Systems**:

- **Family and Community Support**: The presence of supportive family members or community resources that can mitigate the effects of the abusive environment.

- **Therapeutic Interventions**: Availability of in-home support services, counseling, and other interventions that can help stabilize and improve the home environment.

4. **Quality of Alternative Care**:

- **Foster Care System**: The quality and stability of available foster care placements are crucial. A stable, nurturing foster home can provide a better environment than an abusive home.

- **Kinship Care**: Placement with relatives or close family friends may provide a sense of continuity and emotional support, making the transition less traumatic.

5. **Child’s Attachment and Relationships**:

- **Attachment to Parents**: The strength and nature of the child's attachment to their parents and the potential psychological impact of severing that attachment.

- **Sibling Relationships**: The importance of maintaining sibling relationships and whether siblings can stay together if removed from the home.

6. **Child’s Age and Developmental Stage**:

- **Younger Children**: Younger children may be more vulnerable to the effects of abuse and might benefit more from a stable, nurturing alternative environment.

- **Older Children**: Older children might have stronger attachments and may be more resilient but can also suffer significant emotional harm from prolonged abuse.

### Assessment Process

- **Comprehensive Evaluation**: A thorough assessment by child welfare professionals, including social workers, psychologists, and healthcare providers, to evaluate the child's needs and the home environment.

- **Risk vs. Benefit Analysis**: Balancing the risks of leaving the child in the abusive home against the potential benefits and risks of removal and alternative care.

- **Child’s Perspective**: Considering the child’s perspective, when appropriate, to understand their feelings and preferences regarding their living situation.

### Interventions and Supports

- **In-Home Support Services**: Providing services to the family, such as counseling, parenting education, and social support, to address the issues contributing to the abusive environment.

- **Monitoring and Follow-up**: Regular monitoring and follow-up visits by child welfare professionals to ensure the child’s safety and well-being if they remain in the home.

### Conclusion

The decision to remove a child from an abusive home or allow them to remain is highly individualized and complex. It requires careful consideration of the specific circumstances, the severity of the abuse, the child's immediate and long-term needs, and the availability and quality of alternative care. Ensuring the child’s safety and well-being is paramount, and the best decision often involves a multi-disciplinary approach and ongoing support and evaluation.

Answer 88

Mental Health**:

- **Psychological Well-being**: Securely attached children are more likely to develop a positive self-image and healthy self-esteem. They are less prone to anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues.

- **Resilience**: Secure attachment fosters resilience, allowing individuals to cope more effectively with stress and adversity throughout life.

2. **Interpersonal Relationships**:

- **Relationship Skills**: Early attachment experiences shape how individuals relate to others in adulthood. Secure attachment promotes healthy, trusting, and fulfilling relationships, while insecure attachment can lead to difficulties in forming and maintaining relationships.

- **Parenting**: The quality of early attachment can influence one's own parenting style. Securely attached individuals are more likely to provide a nurturing and responsive environment for their own children.

3. **Cognitive and Academic Development**:

- **Cognitive Skills**: Secure attachment supports cognitive development, including problem-solving skills, attention, and learning. A secure base allows children to focus on exploring and mastering their environment.

- **Academic Achievement**: Children with secure attachments tend to perform better academically, as they are more confident, curious, and able to manage the demands of the school environment.

4. **Behavioral Outcomes**:

- **Positive Behavior**: Secure attachment is associated with positive behavior patterns, such as cooperation, compliance, and the ability to follow rules. In contrast, insecure attachment can lead to behavioral problems, including aggression, defiance, and withdrawal.

Answer 89

entities—education, health care, welfare, housing, and more—had to play their part in child and family welfare too. After all, CPS is set up as a foster care agency, not a cash assistance or public housing agency. The unique tool CPS brings to the table is child removal. One investigator remarked that she tells parents in need of housing, “We can find housing for little people, not for big people.” Little people housing, she clarified, laughing, is “called foster care.”

Answer 90

he systems that filed reports. Mothers mentioned switching doctors or canceling social service programs after these providers called CPS; they said that they would think twice next time before going to the hospital or calling the police when experiencing domestic violence.

Answer 91

them. “The way she would talk to me and look at me, I felt like to her I was trash,” Candis recalled. “It’s an experience that I think I will never forget.”

Answer 92

do, when they could see their kids, and for how long. Such experiences taught mothers about state power and how they could work to counter it. When her case first opened, Christina said, she repeatedly called the caseworker and supervisor, “cussing them out” and telling them to give back her son. Then, she noticed that with this stance, CPS was delaying returning her son home. So she struck a different chord. “Now, I talk to [the supervisor] calmly, but it’s just a psychological thing I’m doing, trying to get my kid.” She enacted the same superficial acquiescence with her new therapist. “I’m making her think that my mind has changed,” she said. “Because I want my son back, and I want him fast.… I know what they wanna hear.” As in sociologist Paige Sweet’s study of women receiving domestic violence services, Christina had learned to craft a narrative of self-transformation for institutional gatekeepers.

Answer 93

A vast child welfare apparatus offering the promise of help through therapeutic social services.

Answer 94

explicit discrimination or animus.9 But as chapters 2 and 4 demonstrated, it does not need to. Racism (especially as it intersects with ideas about poverty and gender) structures families’ conditions and how professionals interpret these conditions—as problematic or risky, for instance, stemming from maternal shortcomings—which feeds a sprawling system embracing supervision and correction as a means of help.

Answer 95

divert some reports away from a traditional, forensic investigation. Connecticut and Rhode Island investigators, for example, can refer families on this alternative track to community-based service providers.

Answer 96

only recoup the costs of foster care from the federal government. Under Family First, federal funds are no longer contingent on child removal; now, they can support programs for substance use, mental health, and parenting while children remain home, if CPS deems these services necessary to avert foster care placement. This represents a major shift for CPS, one that, like differential response, strengthens its (therapeutic) service provision capacity.

Answer 97

coercive power. As this book has shown, support delivered through CPS remains inextricably tethered to surveillance; the promise of care is inseparable from the threat of removal.

Answer 98

prescheduled, leading some to push back on the recommendations against unannounced visits.

Answer 99

about changing other structures outside the agency singularly tasked with “child protection.”

Answer 100

what they need. To the extent that children in affluent White areas experience less harm, it’s not because their parents care more about them but, rather, because their parents have the family and community resources to raise their children in the ways they want. Clearly, increasing support for labor rights, the cash assistance safety net, housing, food, childcare, health care, transportation, and other material needs is essential, as is investing equitably in libraries, parks, and other public spaces. All of this—improving the conditions under which families and communities raise children—is child protection work.

Answer 101

calling CPS. Instead of the school conveying that “I’m a horrible parent, that I hurt my kid,” Ashley recommended “starting [with], ‘Hey, we know stuff goes on with him. He has a hard time. This is something he brought up.… We have ways to help. We have steps we can take.’ Whatever. It might have felt a little bit different.”

Answer 102

parents to do the things they believed parents ought to do. Here, CPS, with its coercive power, applied pressure. As this book has shown, such a model undermines positive relationships between families and service providers. Another approach could focus on developing treatment programs in partnership with parents to create services they want to access. This would mean following the leadership of people directly impacted. It would mean humility from professionals who recognize that they may not know what families need or want. It would mean professionals who ally with families to get families what they need from the state, rather than using the power of the state to pressure families into a certain mold. This may make child welfare professionals uncomfortable, with their ideas about what families should do. But we should start from the place that parents want to do what’s best for their children and see to it that they have what they need.

[sometimes an imperfect solution people are willing to do, is better than a perfect one they won’t implement]

Answer 103

housing, because you can’t do anything without housing.” The second thing “would be day care or schooling,” she added. “Just getting the parent on their feet to be able to take care of the kid. Once the parent is taken care of, the kid can be taken care of.”

Answer 104

, a primary care pediatric social worker explained that to assess whether mothers’ marijuana use impacted children, “you need to look at everything else,” such as domestic violence, children’s school attendance, and children’s health. “There is not a list of ten things … [to] call CPS on,” she added.

Answer 105

Despite its goals of family preservation, Family First may end up pushing families more deeply into the system.

Answer 106

paid for the roles they played—caseworkers, judges, attorneys, and either shift workers in group homes or a succession of often kind, but always temporary, foster parents. In most states, on the day that a child in foster care turns eighteen, these supports largely disappear. The people who once attended to that child’s needs are now either unable or unwilling to continue; a new case demands their time, a new child requires the bed. There is often no one with whom to share small successes. And with no one to approach for advice, garden-variety emergencies—a flat tire, a stolen wallet, a missing birth certificate—escalate into full-blown crises.

Answer 107

don’t have a job. You have no idea where you’ll sleep tonight, let alone next week or next month. Your belongings are packed into two plastic bags. Your family is unable to help, and may even have disappeared. Further clouding your prospects are your educational deficits and a history of trouble with the law. You read at a seventh grade level. You were held back a grade, and you have a police record.1 What kind of future would you predict for yourself? Can you cope with: • Sudden homelessness, at least temporarily, while you wander through the referral maze? • Difficulty finding a job, since you don’t have a permanent address or even the basic documents you need—like a birth certificate and a Social Security card—to fill out a job application or a W-4? • An interruption in your education, not just because of the cost, but also because of complex eligibility requirements and your inability to document your school record? • The pressure to engage in unhealthy or even illegal behaviors as a means of survival?

Answer 108

slightly more than half of these young people have graduated from high school, compared with 85 percent of all youth eighteen to twenty-four years old. • One-fourth have endured some period of homelessness. • Almost two-thirds have not maintained employment for a year. • Four out of ten have become parents. • Not even one in five is completely self-supporting. • One in four males and one in ten females have spent time in jail.

Answer 109

doubled federal funding to $140 million per year and expanded eligibility to include young people from age fourteen to twenty-one.15 President Bill Clinton signed the bill into law on December 14, 1999. The law is commonly referred to as the Chafee Act, in honor of the late Rhode Island senator, John H. Chafee, a longtime champion of children’s issues.

Answer 110

lacking, the potential surrogates undependable, or even worse. All too often, these young people look in the wrong places. Until she found focus for her life in motherhood, Monica Romero looked to drug users and partyers.

Answer 111

had the opportunity to learn to prepare even simple meals. He didn’t understand how quickly the collect calls he accepted from a friend would add up to $200, where he could get a check cashed, how to mail a letter, or even how to dress appropriately to apply for a job. Many youth in care never see an adult pay bills, fill out income tax forms, arrange for car insurance, or undertake the dozens of other mundane tasks required to run a household. Although most children receive medical care while they are in foster care, few know how it is paid for and what they have to do to get it once they are no longer wards of the state. How to get from one place to another is also often a mystery. While their friends are getting their driver’s licenses, most youth in foster care aren’t, since they generally have no one to teach them to drive or the money for insurance or driver’s education, let alone access to a car.

Answer 112

listened to what I had to say, and let me have more space to grow, I wouldn’t have run away,” she says in retrospect.

Answer 113

to be enrolled in college preparatory classes in high school, and frequent moves and schools changes make it hard to compile the academic record necessary for admission to many four-year schools. Finding the money is another common roadblock. And even when they achieve suitable academic records and pull together ample financial aid packages, many flounder in college because they lack emotional and moral support, not to mention a place to spend school holidays, when most college dorms close. Only 20 percent of foster youth who graduate from high school go on to college, compared with 60 percent of all high school graduates.

Answer 114

42 percent have given birth to or fathered children, a study by the Westat, Inc., research organization has found.

Answer 115

to live in the home--eve if, like Monica, they're related. "Nobody's supposed to come and stay here who isn't on my license," Mrs. Romero says. "One time I asked if a grandson could stay with us, and they told me no."

Answer 116

the second quarter of her stay, a resident pays 5 percent of her earnings as rent, and then 9 percent in the third quarter, 12 percent in the fourth quarter, and so on, with a cap of 30 percent. It’s a form of enforced savings; if a resident leaves the program in good standing, she gets back 40 percent of the rent she’s paid. Like all new residents, Monica had to meet regularly with a caseworker from a family preservation program. That program’s goal is to help residents develop the budgeting and parenting skills necessary to live on their own. The caseworker spent a lot of time talking with Monica about her finances and Amber’s developmental needs. “He helped me with anything I needed help with,” Monica recalls. “Like I needed to renew my driver’s license, and he took me to do that, and paid for it and everything. And when I was feeling down, he would take me out to eat, and we would talk about what was going on.” [and they didn't call CPS]

Answer 117

none.18 It’s worth pausing on that: there are now more Americans who have no close friends than any other option.

Answer 118

sicker, and they were angrier. “Something about a strong desire for materialistic6 pursuits,” he was starting to believe, “actually affected the participants’ day-to-day lives, and decreased the quality of their daily experience.” They experienced less joy, and more despair.

Answer 119

prevailed, and the effect was enhanced when there was a forty-eight-hour delay before rendering the verdict (presumably because the recall gap was even greater).

Answer 120

trial and error. Sometimes, a medication regimen stops working. Many psychotropic medications have severe side effects. The likelihood of side effects emerging increases the longer a person takes these medicines; sometimes the side effects are so bothersome that patients decide to quit taking them.

Answer 121

they steal cars and other property. In other words, living conditions may be as important as or more important than the disease in shaping the behavior.

Answer 122

1) the kind of experience children are being asked to describe, 2) characteristics of the child, and 3) the way in which children are interviewed.

Answer 123

accurate, regardless of the children’s ages. The completeness of these initially brief accounts can be increased when interviewers use the information provided by children in their first spontaneous utterance as prompts for further elaboration (e.g., “You said the man touched you, tell me more about that touching”) (Lamb et al., 2003). Unfortunately, however, forensic interviewers frequently ask very specific questions (“Did he touch you?”) that draw upon recognition rather than recall memory. Such questions typically elicit less accurate responses than open‐ended prompts and may even cause erroneous information to be incorporated into children’s testimony.

Answer 124

dealers and pimps who accompany the women to appointments, monitoring what they say. At Dr. Poland’s clinic, a sign in the patients’ bathroom reads: “Please place a sticker on the bottom of your urine specimen cup if you are experiencing sexual, physical or emotional abuse at home, or if there is something you would like to talk to the provider about in private.”

Answer 125

more happiness, build more wealth, live longer and raise more successful children than single parents or cohabiting couples, though there are plenty of exceptions.

Answer 126

unwed mother, as were 53 percent of Hispanic children and 36 percent of white children.

Indeed, a single parent is the new norm. At some point before they turn 18, a majority of all American children will likely live with a single mom and no dad.

Answer 127

40 percent, according to an essay by Sara McLanahan of Princeton and Christopher Jencks of Harvard. They point to the likely mechanism: “A father’s absence increases antisocial behavior, such as aggression, rule-breaking, delinquency and illegal drug use.” These effects are greater on boys than on girls.

Answer 128

20 percent of married parents.

Answer 129

less willing to keep paying child support if he believes his payments will be shared with another man’s child. Such problems are magnified in families with several nonresident fathers.

Answer 130

from high school or earn a college degree. They are more likely to become single parents themselves, perpetuating the cycle.

Answer 131

bad decisions by policymakers that led to mass incarceration and a collapse of earnings for working-class men.

Answer 132

fathers present in most homes, while only 4 percent of Black children do.

Answer 133

any other nation. Conservatives sometimes argue that increases in welfare benefits undermined marriage, but this appears not to be a major factor — partly because European countries have both stronger social welfare programs and more two-parent families.

Answer 134

lifting earnings of low-education men. This makes them more “marriageable,” researchers find.

Answer 135

Ask them to explain how it’s bad

Answer 136

the presence of props (such as toys or dolls) usually associated with fantasy (Thierry, Lamb, Orbach, & Pipe, 2004), or by interviewers prompting children to “imagine” or “pretend,” and may also be influenced by the instructions that interviewers give alongside interview techniques (e.g., drawing: MacLeod, Gross, & Hayne, 2016). As a result, forensic investigators have been urged to avoid having props present during investigative interviews and to avoid making reference to play or imagination‐based processes (Lamb, Sternberg, & Esplin, 1995; Lamb, Sternberg, & Esplin, 1998; Poole & Lamb, 1998).

Answer 137

to use existing knowledge and concepts and apply them to their experiences incorrectly, leading to confusion about what has actually occurred. Think about Ben, for example, and his assertion that he was stabbed by his friend. It is possible that Ben may have been using his knowledge base or frame of reference to explain something unfamiliar, interpreting the pain of penetration in a place he could not see by reference to a sword that might be wielded by a pirate.

Answer 138

such conversations increase the chance that false details may be incorporated (e.g., suggestions from others, Principe & Schindewolf, 2012), or that unrehearsed information becomes inaccessible in later interviews (Aslan & Bäuml, 2010

Answer 139

young children are much more limited and less descriptive than those of adults (Brown, 1973; Dale, 1976; De Villiers & De Villiers, 1999), and their statements are likely to lack adjectival and adverbial modifiers. Misunderstandings between children and interviewers may also occur because children’s rapid vocabulary growth often leads adults to overestimate their linguistic capacities and thus use words, sentence structures, or concepts that are age‐inappropriate and exceed the children’s competencies

Answer 140

know their conventional adult meaning, may use words that they do not understand at all, and may understand poorly some apparently simple concepts, such as “any,” “some,” “touch,” “yesterday,” and “before” (Harner, 1975; Walker et al., 2013). Moreover, children who have been maltreated are more likely to show generalized language delays than non‐maltreated children (Eigsti & Cicchetti, 2004), which may further exacerbate developmental limitations in language proficiency.

Answer 141

questioners, especially in legal contexts (Carter, Bottoms, & Levine, 1996; Imhoff & Baker‐Ward, 1999; Perry et al., 1995). For example, children are often asked to negate adult statements or to confirm multifaceted “summaries” of their accounts (e.g., “Is it not true that…?”), and are expected to understand unfamiliar words and syntactically complex or ambiguous compound sentences (Brennan & Brennan, 1988; Dent, 1982; Pea, 1980; Perry & Wrightsman, 1991; Saywitz, 1988; Walker, 1993; Walker & Hunt, 1998; Walker et al., 2013; Warren, Woodall, Hunt, & Perry, 1996)

Answer 142

understand such questions and should thus seek clarification (Malloy, Katz, Lamb, & Mugno, 2015; Perry et al., 1995), and that children frequently attempt to answer unanswerable or nonsensical questions, especially if the questions are phrased in a closed manner, even when they are able to identify that the questions do not make sense (Waterman, Blades, & Spencer, 2000, 2001, 2004

Answer 143

preface these with phrases that turn the question into a yes/no format. For example, young children often respond in a very literal manner to questions such as “Do you remember where it was?,” answering “yes” without elaboration, rather than to the intent of the question (“Where was it?”)

Answer 144

have special difficulty answering specific questions, and may exhibit a response bias (e.g., Fivush, Peterson, & Schwarzmueller, 2002; Peterson, Dowden, & Tobin, 1999), or a reluctance to give “don’t know” responses in the absence of knowledge (Davies, Tarrant, & Flin, 1989; Saywitz & Snyder, 1993

Answer 145

this strategy does not overcome the problem of children’s tendency to simply select one of the response options. Including a “something else” alternative improved accuracy when there was no correct answer included in the response set (but not when the options included a correct answer, or the question was unanswerable). Despite the improvement, furthermore, children’s response accuracy was still unacceptably low (31% compared to 15% without this option).

Answer 146

the earlier interviews (i.e., they carried the earlier errors over into the later interviews). The type of questions asked and the context in which they are introduced thus determine whether they enhance or degrade the reliability of children’s reports (Brown & Lamb, 2017).

Answer 147

correct them, and thus the mistakes, rather than the correct information, may be reported by the children later in the interview (Hunt & Borgida, 2001; Roberts & Lamb, 1999). Indeed, researchers have shown that children rarely challenge or correct interviewers when the interviewers have inaccurately paraphrased their statements (Evans, Roberts, Price, & Stefek, 2010; Hunt & Borgida, 2001

Answer 148

concretely and restrictedly (e.g., a child may not respond to a question about something that happened at “home” if the child lives in an “apartment”), or make references that fall outside of the listener’s knowledge base (e.g., “he looked like my English teacher”), thus making their accounts ambiguous.

Answer 149

differently from adults. For example, when describing the placement of their (or the alleged perpetrator’s) clothing, children may deny that clothing was pulled “down” unless they were standing, because they associate “down” (and “up”) with verticality (Stolzenberg & Lyon, 2016

Answer 150

interviewers have little, if any, knowledge of the alleged events, or attribute superior knowledge to the adult interviewers, they may refrain from reporting all they know. As a result, interviewers need to communicate their needs and expectations clearly, motivating children to provide as much information as they can.

Answer 151

they're our boss. We do what they want. Not the other way around.

Answer 152

using the children’s own words to form cues and asking broad open questions which are known to increase coherence (Feltis, Powell, Snow, & Hughes‐Scholes, 2010; Snow, Powell, & Murfett, 2008), is likely to enhance this important aspect of testimony.

Answer 153

compromise their accounts rather than communicate their actual experiences in order to appear cooperative (Ceci & Bruck, 1993, 1995). In the forensic context, therefore, interviewers must be sensitive to children’s perceptions of their knowledge and status. To facilitate comprehensive and accurate reporting by children, for example, interviewers should emphasize that they do not know what the children experienced, and that it is thus important for the children to tell as much as they know (e.g., Sternberg, Lamb, Esplin, Orbach, & Hershkowitz, 2002).

Answer 154

introduce or assume undisclosed allegation‐related input and are formulated so as to strongly communicate the expected responses (e.g., “He forced you to do that, didn’t he?”; or “He lay on you or you lay on him”? when the child said: “We lay on the sofa”; e.g., Lamb et al., 2009; Lamb, Orbach, Hershkowitz, Esplin et al., 2007; Orbach, Lamb, Abbott, Hershkowitz, & Pipe, unpublished research, 2016).

Answer 155

- Embedding assumptions in prompts

- Introducing unreported information Implying the expected responses (tag questions)

- Referencing interviewers’ high status

- Exerting peer pressure (reference to what other witnesses said)

- Reinforcing desired responses using rewards or threats

- Requesting that children pretend, imagine or speculate about what occurred

- Using anatomical dolls as interview aids

Answer 156

struggled to order components of repeated events across the four experiences and to correctly describe the order of each occurrence. Similarly, Sharman, Powell, and Roberts (2011) showed that young children who experienced either one event or multiple events were accurate at responding to a general question about the number of occurrences (“did that happen one time or more than one time?”), but the children who experienced multiple events had difficulty accurately specifying the number of occurrences they had experienced.

Answer 157

information

Answer 158

there are repeated opportunities to reactivate the memories by rehearsal. Further, children’s memories of details that recur across experiences are also more accurate and more resistant to suggestion and misinformation effects (Connolly & Lindsay, 2001; Gobbo et al., 2002; McNichol, Shute, & Tucker, 1999; Powell, Roberts, Ceci, & Hembrooke, 1999). Prior experiences can also have adverse effects on children’s event recall, particularly if there are variations across the different instances of the event. When events recur with any regularity, children’s accounts are likely to be skeletal, reflecting common components and the basic structure without the details that may vary from one occasion to another (Brubacher et al., 2011; Brubacher, Malloy, Lamb, & Roberts, 2013; Powell, Roberts, & Guadagno, 2007).

Answer 159

more false alarms occurred in response to suggestive questions after the long delay, suggesting that the memory representations did change over time.

Answer 160

day of the week, month, and season. Wang et al. (2010) showed that 8‐, 11‐, and 14‐year‐olds asked to date memories that occurred before they started school (using parental reports as an index of accuracy) overestimated how long in the past events that occurred after they were 4 years of age happened, and underestimated how long in the past events that occurred before they were 4 years of age took place.

Answer 161

incorporated into memory representations

Answer 162

incorporated into their accounts (via source‐monitoring errors or social pressure). Children may also produce inconsistent accounts in successive interviews, reflecting errors of both omission and commission (Peterson, 2011).

Answer 163

Very little (only 5%) of the conversation was reported (and only 66% of the activities that had been talked about), and mothers attributed over a quarter of the information that was elicited in response to direct questions to spontaneous reporting by their children. As Bruck et al. concluded: “our data indicate that the mother may not be able to accurately recall whether these were the child’s own words or if her statement is a reconstruction of a conversation in which the child provided one‐word answers to a series of direct and possibly leading questions from the mother. A genuine concern is that a mother might accurately report the gist of a child’s disclosure but fail to recognize that this disclosure resulted from a host of repeated leading questions” (p. 105).

Answer 164

input into the disclosure process and the suggestive nature of the questions they used, and over‐reported the children’s input and the spontaneous nature of the information the children provided. Similar findings were observed in a subsequent experimental study, in which parents listened to a recording of a mother questioning her child about sexual abuse. Parents incorrectly attributed 51% of the details to the child (when they were provided by the mother), and 12% of details that the parents reported were not in the recording at all (Korkman, Laajasalo, Juusola, Uusivuori, & Santtila, 2015). As

Answer 165

close relationships with the perpetrators, a sense of loyalty to perpetrators, fear of retribution and abandoment, feelings of complicity, embarassment, guilt, and shame, fear of consequences for others, fear of not being believed and therefore punished, and fear of family disruption. Children are often disconcerted by the speed at which investigations are initiated, frequently feel they have little control over the process, and are often uncomfortable with the manner in which they are interviewed (Wade & Westcott, 1997).

Answer 166

an atmosphere in which children are willing to discuss topics that are not normally sanctioned. When interviewers fail in this task, either by neglecting to establish rapport or by failing to communicate ground rules for the conversations, children are less likely to share their experiences completely and accurately.

Answer 167

more likely to be responsive rather than reluctant thereafter (a more detailed discussion of the supportive version of the Protocol and associated research is presented in Chapter 9). Thus momentary gains and losses in children’s engagement with interviewers can occur as a function of the interviewers’ responses to reluctance, and this underscores the importance of monitoring child motivation, state, and rapport throughout the interview.

Answer 168

- provide unrestricted accounts of their experiences (e.g., “tell me everything, even the little things”)

- report only what they are confident about (e.g., “don’t guess, just tell me what you really know”),

- be cognizant of the interviewers’ naivety about what occurred (e.g., “I don’t know what happened”)

- tell the truth (e.g., “only tell me what really happened”)

- signal when they do not know the answer to a question (e.g., “if you don’t know the answer to a question, just say “I don’t know”)

- signal when they do not understand a question (e.g. “If I say something that you don’t understand, just tell me”)

- correct interviewers if they say something wrong (e.g., “If I make a mistake you should correct me”) (Brubacher, Poole, & Dickinson, 2015).

Answer 169

children address them directly, because a failure to do so may imply tacit agreement with or confirmation of the incorrect information. Children frequently fail to directly signal such errors, however (Evans, Roberts, Price, & Stefek, 2010; Hunt & Borgida, 2001; Roberts & Lamb, 1999), and they are unlikely to be reinforced for challenging or correcting adults in other settings. An explicit instruction about the importance of correcting the interviewer during an interview may therefore increase the likelihood that children do so.

[If summing up at the end, you can say, I'm about to sum up everything we've talked about, if I say something that is incorrect I want you to interrupt me right away/immediately. Then you can do an example, if I said you were wearing a pink shirt today what would you do?]

Answer 170

to be necessary to ensure that children benefit from the presentation of ground rules (Brubacher et al., 2015) and follow them appropriately. For example, early studies examining the impact of instructing young children to say “I don’t know” revealed a tendency for children to overuse the term, unless they were also instructed not to do so when they did know the answer (Gee et al., 1999; Saywitz & Moan‐Hardie, 1994).

Answer 171

orienting children to the types of information interviewers need in order to fully understand their experiences (including level of detail, and descriptions of specific instances rather than generic summaries), 2) providing children with opportunities to respond to the kinds of prompts that will be used to encourage elaboration during the substantive phase of the interview, 3) allowing for extended rapport building, and 4) giving interviewers opportunities to become familiar with the children’s communicative styles. [can do this as part of rapport building without saying your practicing. Have you done anything fun lately? What did you do earlier today? That's interesting, tell me more about x!]

Answer 172

interviewer bias may result in a line of questioning designed to confirm particular hypotheses or explanations rather than to test a range of possible explanations (Ceci et al., 2007), and thus exert undue influence on what the children report, even if the questions used are open‐ended. Children’s responding may also be shaped by the nonverbal cues that accompany questions. For example, an interviewer’s tone, gestures, and facial expressions may convey information about expected responses or selectively reinforce responding (or non‐responding), as might the repetition of questions (Earhart et al., 2014).

Answer 173

remains surprisingly stable with age—at least when children are responding to very open‐ended questions (Schneider & Bjorklund, 2003).

Answer 174

(cued‐recall) that refocus on disclosed, allegation‐related, information and provide a category for requesting additional specific details, using “Wh‐” questions (e.g., “What color was his car?” when “car” was mentioned) understandably tend to elicit fewer details, but also more errors (Brown et al., 2013) and more inconsistencies (Lamb & Fauchier, 2001), than free‐recall open‐ended prompts.

Answer 175

Invitations and direct questions both rely on recall, whereas option‐posing and suggestive questions require recognition memory processes. When memory is probed using open‐ended prompts, children must search their memories and attempt to provide as much relevant information as they “remember.” In this way, the information exchange is child‐led, and allows the child to focus on and report what is best remembered and thus most easily accessible (and perhaps most salient) to them. In contrast, when children have to select, confirm, or reject information provided by interviewers, recognition memory is being used. When such questions are used, the exchange becomes interviewer‐led, which may interfere with the children’s ability to generate and benefit from their own retrieval cues, and result in potentially important information not being included in children’s accounts.

Answer 176

they are likely to be much more accurate than reports elicited using recognition cues or prompts. The completeness of brief initial responses can be increased when interviewers use the information provided by children in their early spontaneous utterances as “cues” for further elaboration (i.e., “cued‐invitations”; e.g., “You said the man touched you; tell me more about that touching”) (Lamb et al., 2003).

Answer 177

A lawyer is someone who knows a lot about the rules and laws. They are there to help you understand what's happening, explain your side of the story, and make sure you are treated fairly. Think of them like a guide or helper who stands up for you and speaks on your behalf in front of the judge.

Answer 178

A judge is like a referee in a game. They make sure everyone follows the rules and listen to both sides of the story. The judge's job is to decide what is fair and what should happen next. They make sure everyone gets a chance to speak and tries to make the best decision based on the laws.

Answer 179

the presentation of ground rules (Brubacher et al., 2015) and follow them appropriately. For example, early studies examining the impact of instructing young children to say “I don’t know” revealed a tendency for children to overuse the term, unless they were also instructed not to do so when they did know the answer (Gee et al., 1999; Saywitz & Moan‐Hardie, 1994).

Answer 180

the entire interview. Further, the negative effects of asking more specific questions are likely to be exacerbated when such questions are introduced later in an interview, by which time the children’s recall is likely to have been exhausted. As a result, children may be even more susceptible to the social and cognitive demands such questions place on them. [so pair]

Answer 181

immediately following up any focused (direct, option‐posing, or suggestive) question with an invitation (e.g.., “tell me everything you can about [that]”), to encourage child‐led elaboration and limit interviewer input. When interviewers follow this principle, they are not only more likely to address children with a greater number of invitations, but also maintain the use of invitations throughout the entire interview.

Answer 182

What is it they need? What are they missing?’ rather than, ‘You’re being bad. Get out of my classroom.’”

Answer 183

suggestive questions about their experiences, as well as to show response biases and select erroneous options when responding to forced‐choice and yes/no questions

Answer 184

day, day of the week, month, and/or seasons associated with events ocurring as much as several months earlier

Answer 185

fewer references to backward sequences (“before dinner, I watched TV”) than to forward sequences (“after watching TV, I ate dinner”) overall, regardless of age. Even after controlling for the total number of details and the number of temporal requests, there were large increases with age in the overall number of references to temporal sequences. This was especially compelling when analyses focused on spontaneous production.

Answer 186

3.4 times that of TD children in some contexts (Sullivan & Knutson, 2000).

Answer 187

they were more likely to report being repeatedly victimized, victims of more intrusive abuse, and victims of more incidents involving the use of threats and force than were TD children. These findings suggest that CWDs may be used as “safe targets” for sexual abuse because they are less able to avoid or report victimization (Williams, 1995). On most dimensions, in addition, higher levels of disability were associated with increased risks of sexual abuse. Whereas the risks for children with minor disabilities were higher than for TD children, the risks for children with severe disabilities were even higher with respect to the number of incidents reportedly experienced, the severity of the reported sexual acts, the use of force, and the tendency for physical injuries to be inflicted during the abusive incidents.

Answer 188

less frequently and delayed disclosure more often (Hershkowitz et al., 2007). Again, children with severe disabilities failed to disclose abuse more frequently and tended to delay disclosure even more often than peers with minor disabilities. Of course, the increased failure to disclose abuse when interviewed may increase the likelihood that CWDs will continue to be abused.

Answer 189

parents or parental figures than were perpetrators of abuse against TD children (Hershkowitz et al., 2007). As discussed in Chapter 9, suspected victims tend to conceal abuse perpetrated by their parents much more often than they conceal abuse by other perpetrators (Hershkowitz et al., 2005; London et al., 2005). Thus, CWDs may delay or avoid disclosing abuse because they are more likely to be dependent psychologically and physically on their abusers. The children with severe disabilities may be especially vulnerable to abuse by their parents; they were suspected of being victimized by their parents almost three times more often than were TD children in Hershkowitz et al.’s (2005) study.

Answer 190

open questions (Agnew & Powell, 2004; Henry & Gudjonsson, 2003). As with TD children, the amount and quality of information elicited from CWID is affected by the way in which they are interviewed (Brown & Lamb, 2015).

Answer 191

appropriateness of their techniques and failing to subsequently return to open‐ended questioning.

Answer 192

create optimal recall conditions than when interviewing TD children. Knowledge of disability status may increase the use of less desirable interviewing strategies (e.g., focused and closed questions), perhaps because interviewers assume that CWID require more structure (Aarons & Powell, 2002; Aarons et al., 2004; Ericson et al., 1994; Milne, 1999; Nathanson & Platt, 2005; Phillips, Oxburgh, & Myklebust, 2012; Sharp, 2001). Alternatively, the differences in questioning may reflect differences in the quality of CWID’s responses: These children may simply provide sparser responses, suggesting the need for more interviewer guidance and scaffolding, whereas the more intellectually advanced TD children probably provide richer initial accounts, yielding many opportunities for child‐provided retrieval cues to be used. The similarities between the performance of children in CWID‐Mild and MA‐match groups on numerous dimensions, however, suggested that response differences are unlikely to fully account for interviewers’ questioning strategies. Perhaps instead, as in Agnew et al.’s (2006) study, interviewers poorly monitor how successfully they are eliciting information from CWID and MA‐matched children using open‐ended prompts and so adopt more focused interviewing styles as a result.

Answer 193

fewer free‐recall details about staged activities, especially about social features, although their levels of accuracy and suggestibility did not differ from those of TD peers. Bruck et al. (2007) demonstrated that 5‐ to 10‐year‐old children with ASD reported fewer details and were less accurate (relative to parents’ accounts) than TD children when recalling personal events from their past. They also reported fewer correct details and were more suggestible when recalling staged events. Although they provided less information, children with ASD were as accurate as TD children during free recall, but their accuracy decreased when more specific questions were used.

Answer 194

omit important contextual and social details from their accounts, which may mean that interviewers need to prompt them for it. One might thus expect that the NICHD Protocol might be very useful when interviewing children (and perhaps adults) with ASD.

Answer 195

high‐functioning autism about their experiences. Although children with ASD recalled fewer details than TD peers in response to cued invitations, the information elicited using such prompts comprised core and highly accurate details about their experiences, even when a substantial amount of time had elapsed between the event and the interview (91% accurate in the 2‐week interview and 87% in the 2‐month interview).

Answer 196

similar developmental level should be useful. When children have more severe levels of impairment, expectations should be set below those for children of a similar developmental level.

Answer 197

when children raise alleged abuse, with concerns about consequences for themselves or another family member associated with delayed disclosure (Hershkowitz, Lanes, & Lamb, 2007; Malloy, Brubacher, & Lamb, 2011), as well as concerns about how others (e.g., parents) would react to the disclosure (Hershkowitz et al., 2007).

Answer 198

early in the interviews; they were less responsive to interviewers’ questions than their disclosing peers and provided fewer personally meaningful details about neutral experiences when invited to do so.

Answer 199

intrusive questioning, unsupportiveness, and the premature mention of sensitive topics, seemed to make the children even more uncooperative. Hershkowitz et al. concluded that the interviewers’ strategies were counter‐productive because they did not address the children’s emotional needs; they recommended that, in such circumstances, interviewers should make increased efforts to establish meaningful rapport and should avoid shifting the focus to substantive issues until children appear comfortable and cooperative. In short, interviewers should be more, rather than less, supportive of resistant children. Further, because the non‐disclosing children had started showing their reluctance early in the rapport‐building phase, Hershkowitz et al. stressed the importance of identifying and addressing reluctance at the very beginning of the interview, before negative dynamics had emerged.

Answer 200

1) children are invited early in the interview to share personally meaningful information in detail and are prompted using open‐ended questions to elaborate on it (Brown et al., 2013; Hershkowitz, 2009; Roberts, Lamb, & Sternberg, 2004; Sternberg et al., 1997), 2) interviewers say less and instead encourage children to talk (Teoh & Lamb, 2010), and 3) rapport‐building is neither too lengthy nor too cognitively burdensome (Davies, Westcott, & Horan, 2000; Hershkowitz, 2009).

Answer 201

intensify uncooperativeness and minimize the amount of information children provide.

Answer 202

details about experiences than children interviewed without dolls, but the number of erroneous details reported also increases, resulting in lower accuracy overall (Bruck, Ceci, Francouer, & Renick, 1995; Goodman et al., 1997; Saywitz et al., 1991). When

Answer 203

provide more information about those events than children who do not draw, without reductions in accuracy (e.g., Butler, Gross, & Hayne, 1995; Gross & Hayne, 1998; Patterson & Hayne, 2011; Salmon et al., 2003; Wesson & Salmon, 2001).

Answer 204

credibility when examining the children’s statements. These experienced investigators were twice as likely to judge children’s credibility accurately when the interviews were conducted using the Protocol than when they were not similarly structured.

Answer 205

fabricate allegations, perhaps to achieve some secondary gains. In our research on false allegations (Lamb et al., 1997a, 1997b), for example, we encountered several cases in which children alleged victimization in order to avoid punishment for returning home later than their parents had allowed. Of course, factors such as these (potential for contamination, motivation to be deceptive) do not in themselves signal that the allegations should be dismissed; many credible allegation arise when the parents are separating, for example, or when children have good reason to fear their parents’ punishment for violating curfews (again). Nevertheless, good investigators identify such circumstances and attempt to seek information that would help clarify the circumstances.

Answer 206

necessary. Similarly, interviewers should expect, not be surprised, that subsequent interviews elicit new information. This is entirely predictable, both because second and first interviews often have a different focus, and also because the retrieval of information is almost never exhaustive. Considerably more research on second (or later) interviews is needed to further clarify the benefits and risks of repeated interviewing, but we know enough already to assert that blanket “one‐interview only” rules do not serve the best interests of either child victims or justice (La Rooy, Katz, Malloy, & Lamb, 2010; La Rooy, Lamb, & Pipe, 2009).

Answer 207

everything that happened from the beginning to the end.

[also: Do you know why were here? Can you tell me why? Can you tell me everything about that?]

Answer 208

general supportive statements which do not refer specifically to him/her and do not mention abuse: [Child’s name], my job is to listen to children about things that happened to them. [Child’s name], I really want to know when something happens to children. That’s what I am here for. [Child’s name], here kids can talk about good things and bad things that have happened to them. I’ve

Answer 209

refer specifically to the child, but still do not mention abuse: You have told me a lot about yourself. I feel I know you better and you can tell me more [about things, about both good things and bad things] that have happened to you. You have told me a lot about yourself, thank you for letting me know. When you talk to me today please go on and tell me about other things that have happened to you. [Child’s name], if there is anything you want to tell me, [I want to know/listen, It’s important for me to know/listen].

Answer 210

[child’s name], has anybody been bothering you? [child’s name], did someone do something to you that you don’t think was right? [child’s name], did someone [briefly summarize allegations or suspicions without specifying name of the alleged perpetrator or providing too many details]?

Answer 211

[Child’s name], [I am, people] are worried about you and I want to know if something may have happened to you. h. [Child’s name], if something has happened to you and you want it to stop, you can tell me about it. i‐1. [Child’s name], if it is hard for you to tell, what makes it so hard? i‐2. [Child’s name], is there anything you are concerned about? i‐3. [Child’s name], what would happen if you told me? i‐4. [Child’s name], has someone told you not to tell? j. Sometimes children think that if something happened to them, it’s their fault, but children are not responsible if things happen to them. k. It’s your choice if you want to tell me and it is my job to let you choose.

Answer 212

l. [Child’s name], I understand you are [difficulty the child mentioned, e.g., embarrassed]. Let’s start talking and I’ll try to help you with it. m. Many children are [difficulty the child mentioned] and I try to help them. n. I understand you are [difficulty the child mentioned], tell me more about that. o. If the child expressed lack of confidence: I’m sure you can talk about it well. p. If the child said s/he was worried about something specific and the reassurance you can give is true: Do not worry, I will [not tell the other children/make sure you are not late for the bus]. q. It's your choice whether to tell and I will go with your choice. E.1.b

Answer 213

Address the child in a personal way using his private name. Avoid using nicknames or terms of endearment (e.g., “sweetie”).

Answer 214

“I really want to get to know you/about things that happened to you.” “Today is the first time we’ve met and it is important for me to know you better.”

Answer 215

“I want to thank you for your help.” “I really appreciate that you are talking to me.” “I appreciate that you’re trying to remember and tell me.” “Thank you for sharing with me.”

Answer 216

“It's up to you whether you talk to me or not. I will respect your choice.”

Answer 217

“If something happened, I'm here to listen to you.” “You can trust me and tell me if something happened.” “It's okay to share secrets/problems with me.” “I talk to many kids who tell me about things that have happened to them.” “It's my job to listen to children who have problems.”

Answer 218

“Many children find it difficult to talk/feel ashamed at the beginning but then find it easier.” “Many children have secrets.” Empathy “I understand it is difficult for you to tell me.” “I know it’s been a long interview.”

Answer 219

“How are you doing so far/now that we are done?” “How did you feel before we began/ during our conversation?”

Answer 220

“You said you were sad/disgusted /wanted to run away. Tell me more about that.” Echoing emotions “You said you were sad/you were crying.”

Answer 221

“You say that it was very painful. I can understand that/ I see what you are saying.”

Answer 222

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell other children.” “You won’t be late for the bus.” “Nobody is going to arrest you.” “Sometimes it's possible to help families which/people who have been hurt.” “Sometimes it helps children when they tell others and don’t have to keep a secret.”

Answer 223

“If something happened/someone hurt you, it is not your fault.” “You are not responsible for that.” (Or in a generalized way: “When things happen to children, it's not their fault.” “Children are not responsible when they are hurt.”)

Answer 224

“I’m ask you these questions because I was not there.”

Answer 225

their specific contents, were recommended.

Answer 226

developmental ages

Answer 227

what is causing the behaviors. Only then can we properly address the pain and suffering that fuel the behavior.”

Answer 228

developing brains. Using terms like “brain injury” or “invisible disability” can help parents recognize developmental trauma as something akin to a physical injury, where behaviors are the result of a physical condition rather than a choice.

By comparing children or youth with this type of brain injury to those with a noticeable physical injury (such as blindness or paralysis), parents might more quickly adjust their expectations and support systems.

Answer 229

As a foster child living in her grandmother’s home, the Long Beach teenager knew the sport wouldn’t require expensive equipment or private coaching.

The team helped her feel “really powerful,” she said, providing welcome respite from her tumultuous childhood. But even running track she noticed the differences. When her teammates traveled to far-away matches, or trained before school, she’d miss out due to lack of funds or rides to practice.

The frustration wasn’t new. Earlier, in middle school she sat out a trip to Washington, D.C., that her 8th grade classmates took.

Answer 230

going into a bunch of painful details,” Guerrero said. “Missing out really bothered me. It closes you off to other potential opportunities that may be out there and stifles your growth.”

Answer 231

ore than $15,000, which then drops to almost $13,000 for a 4-year-old

Answer 232

1 in 5 parents has quit or been fired due to child care problems.

Answer 233

toxic stress, worsening domestic violence and child neglect as well as hindering cognitive development, experts say. Parents involved in the criminal justice system, abusing alcohol or drugs, or struggling with serious mental health issues can also leave children facing poverty and stress

Read more at: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/article289448396.html#storylink=cpy

Answer 234

problems and have more children growing up safe, and nurtured and loved getting positive experiences that we know will make a difference for their health, and for our bottom lines as a society moving forward,” Hirsch said.

Read more at: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/article289448396.html#storylink=cpy

Answer 235

reductions in child maltreatment, because that financial stress on families is a big risk factor,” Hirsch said.

Read more at: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/article289448396.html#storylink=cpy

Answer 236

the needs of a child are unmet by their primary caregivers. Inadequate clothing, food, shelter, medical and emotional care, along with unsafe environments, exposure to substance abuse and lack of supervision, are often included in definitions of neglect. Even with these definitions, pinpointing cases of neglect can be challenging. Policymakers and researchers are rethinking historical definitions, which often are intertwined with poverty. States have authority to define exactly what neglect means through legislation, and there is considerable variation.

Answer 237

8% to nearly 28% in 2021. Childhood poverty is associated with a range of negative outcomes across the lifespan, such as poor health, lower educational attainment and more risk-taking behaviors

Answer 238

often impact families simultaneously; but poverty does not cause neglect. Experts say it’s more complicated than that. Poverty produces material hardships for families. Such hardships often result in families experiencing toxic stress, which can impede children’s cognitive development and parents’ capacity to meet the needs of their children. Incapacity to provide is not the same as an unwillingness to provide. This distinction is at the crux of the challenge policymakers face to disentangle poverty from neglect.

Answer 239

redlining and the discriminatory use of home lending provisions in the GI Bill, for example, have had lasting generational effects, shaping the landscape of poverty across the country.

Answer 240

child care subsidies, affordable housing, home visiting and enhanced primary care. Preventing child maltreatment almost certainly requires diverse and integrated strategies

Answer 241

impoverished families facing little more than social and environmental
stressors.'

Answer 242

(1) why they are in
foster care (i.e., placement reason ambiguity); (2) the meaning of foster care
(i.e., structural ambiguity); (3) how long they will be in foster care (i.e.,
temporal ambiguity); (4) where they will be living (i.e., placement context
ambiguity); (5) the people with whom they will be living (i.e., relationship
ambiguity), and (6) their roles in familial environments (i.e., role ambiguity)." Most importantly, when left unattended, ambiguity can and will traumatize
children who have been removed from their parents.12

Answer 243

form new relationships with unfamiliar people
(e.g., foster parents, lawyers, teachers, agency staff, providers, foster siblings).
Moreover, children can and often do experience multiple placements over the
course of their time in foster care.1 4

Answer 244

relational losses, disenfranchised grief, and complex trauma.'" Complex trauma is caused
by exposure to multiple unresolved traumatic events that compromise personal
safety and interpersonal well-being.' 6 Children who have experienced complex
trauma may suffer from body dysregulation, difficulty managing emotions, dissociation, poor self-regulation and self-concept, cognitive impairment, and
multiple long-term health consequences." Therefore, it is critical for child
welfare professionals to consider the impact of trauma and ensure that all efforts
have been made to mitigate the potential for complex trauma by keeping
families safe and together

Answer 245

a "monsoon of stress
hormones ... flood[ing] the brain and body." 9 Even brief separations can
cause the release of higher levels of cortisol-stress hormones-that begin to
damage brain cells.20 And, unlike other areas of the body, research suggests
that "most cells in the brain cannot renew or repair themselves." 2
' The evidence
about the harm of involuntarily separating children from their parents is so
overwhelming that Dr. Charles Nelson, professor of Pediatrics at Harvard
Medical School, concluded: "There's so much research on this that if people
paid attention at all to the science, they would never do this."22 In the context
of foster care cases, perhaps not never, but certainly less.

Answer 246

harmful physiological response, rooted in
stress, and far too often are traumatized.24 While discussing their involvement
in the apprehension transaction, children report experiences of ambiguity, loss,
and trauma and often equate child removal to kidnapping." Children's reports
suggest that the apprehension transaction is often interpreted as a threat to their
well-being and an event that should be avoided if at all possible. When it is
necessary to remove a child due to safety issues that cannot be addressed in less
intrusive ways, this transaction requires sensitivity, competency, and traumainformed knowledge.

Answer 247

people whom they have never met.2 6 This experience of relationship ambiguity
further complicates a child's experience. In addition to their trying to make
sense of the reason they were removed from their home, children struggle with
acclimating to unfamiliar people and unfamiliar environments. Thi

Answer 248

grieving the loss of a family member who is not dead, but is
out there somewhere.30 Ambiguous loss, a non-death loss, can provoke anxiety,
confusion, despair,,and other negative mental health experiences. 3 1 Research
suggests that these experiences are often left unattended by the child welfare
32
system. Without adequate attention, children may suffer from additional
stressors

Answer 249

nearly twice as high as the rate documented by
U.S. war veterans.33

Answer 250

I went insane. I broke down, nearly died. I couldn't stay in
my house. I couldn't be around their clothes ... I found
myselfjust wandering around looking for them. Even though,
you know, they are not there. It's just-it's traumatizing. It's
awful. [sobbing] ... It's as if the three of them died. One day
just died. That's the grief that I went through. That's the pain
that I went through. But meanwhile they didn't [die].
Somebody's got them. Somebody's keeping them from
me ... It was too much.39
Undoubtedly, the mental and social health outcomes of parents can
deteriorate when a child is removed from their home and placed into foster
care.40 Mothers who have been separated from their children and whose
children have been placed into foster care were found to have increased rates
of anxiety and substance use disorder diagnoses within two years of being
separated from their children.4 1 Support is not only needed, it is necessary.
Ideally, the provision of this support would be provided to parents well before
the need to warrant a child's removal as child removal often exacerbates the
problem

Answer 251

children and their parents never receive the psychological and emotional
support needed during moments where they are vulnerable to conditions that
will almost certainly traumatize them. Further complicating this issue, state
child welfare agency policies permit up to seven days before a caseworker is
required to establish an initial visit with a child post-removal." Therefore, the
trauma experienced by children during this period where little communication
occurs is at odds with child welfare's core charge: protecting children from
harm. This process of non-communication creates more problems for a child
than it is designed to resolve.

Answer 252

In some jurisdictions, regardless of whether the officer could have
contacted the court to obtain an order, if the officer determines that the child
has been neglected-an inherently subjective determination-the officer can
remove that child immediately." In other states, the police officer must also
determine that the child is in immediate danger of substantial harm. 9 In a few
other states, the officer would have to ascertain whether any services can be put
in the home to prevent the removal.o Some states would not permit the
immediate removal unless the officer first determined that the situation was so
life endangering that the officer did not have time to seek a court order.6
' These
differences play a major role in how individuals view their authority to take
children from their parents without a court order.
The statutes also send a clear message about how states view the impact of
removal on children and their parents. States that permit individuals to remove
a child based solely on suspicion of abuse or neglect have created a scheme that
encourages removals based on one individual's subjective determination.62
This scheme does little, if anything, to ensure a removal is absolutely necessary
prior to the apprehension transaction. Whereas other states, with a stringent
standard for ex parte removals, require not only a finding of abuse or neglect,
but also a finding of immediate danger that demonstrates that services cannot
address the problem and that proceeding to court is not feasible.63 Ultimately,
states with stringent standards for ex parte removals reaffirm the notion that
children should only be removed as a means of last resort.

Answer 253

will have the opportunity to challenge the
lawfulness of an agency's removal of the child from their home.
The differences in due process protections among states raise significant
concerns. Some parents and children have the opportunity to contest an
emergency removal order within twenty-four hours of the apprehension
transaction. However, for parents in other states, it may take weeks before they
have any opportunity to appear before a judge. In the interim, without active
court oversight, important decisions are made exclusively by the child welfare
agency, decisions which could mitigate or intensify the trauma experienced by
children and their parents including where children are placed, what school they
attend, what services they receive, and how often children see their parents.

Answer 254

challenging erroneous removals. They remind the court of the correct legal
standards, provide key information to the court and, when removal is necessary,
can identify alternative placements and resources for the children. 7 1 Attorneys
also counsel clients on their options, explain complicated legal processes, and
help guide parents through a complex and overwhelming bureaucracy.
Unsurprisingly, research has demonstrated that the early appointment of
counsel can reduce the need for children to be removed or can expedite
reunifications. 72

Answer 255

in Mississippi, no statute affords parents an absolute
right to counsel, allowing courts to completely deny parents the right to a
lawyer throughout an entire child welfare case, even prior to the termination of
their parental rights. 74 In other jurisdictions, while parents may receive the
assistance of a lawyer at some later stage of a child welfare case, they are not
entitled to a lawyer at the first removal hearing. For example, in Texas, parents
are first appointed counsel at the full adversary hearing, which only occurs
fourteen days after the child has been removed.7
' This delay in appointment
increases the likelihood that the court will be deprived of information to
properly vet the removal decision.

Answer 256

demonstrate
it made reasonable efforts to prevent the removal, or that the case fits an
exception.io' This is an important requirement to protect parents' and
children's constitutional rights to family integrity. Yet federal administrative
data contain little or no information concerning what efforts were made to
prevent the removal and why they failed, a significant deficit in our regulatory
landscape. [this is where you can come in as a CPS attorney. Parents attorney's obviously have a role here too, but they might not be any good at their job, or the removal might be ex-parte]

Answer 257

necessitating an involuntary separation of
the child from their parents.1 20 States should be required to document how they
tried and failed at treatment. [also where you come in]

Answer 258

blame themselves for the placement or
make some other erroneous attribution. Studies have shown that
children may create their own interpretations of the reason for their
foster care placement (Palmer, 1996; Whiting & Lee, 2003). The
creation of false reasons for placement may negatively affect
children's psychological well-being (Auden, 1995).

Answer 259

contribute to emotional upheaval that may result in
states of tension, anxiety, and depression (Cowan, 1991). In instances
of abrupt, unanticipated, or untimely loss transactions, individuals are
at risk of lengthy and maladaptive responses due to the inability for
anticipatory adjustment (Cowan, 1991). According to Cowan (1991),
successful transitions are dependent on personal and social resources,
subjective interpretations, and physical and social demands. Without
adequate assistance for coping, an individual's developmental
progress could be impeded due to the stressful changes that often
occur during (life) transitions (Cowan, 1991).

Answer 260

five main events (notification of placement into foster care, the home transfer, placement into a new home environment, loss of relationships, and formation of relationships) and six domains of ambiguity. The emergent domains of ambiguity were categorized as temporal
ambiguity, placement reason ambiguity, ambiguous loss, placement context ambiguity, structural ambiguity, and relationship ambiguity.

Answer 261

he day of apprehension. Most children were notified of
the need to be placed into care by a child protection worker while in a
location outside of their original home.

Answer 262

stressful experience. Common themes that emerged from
children's reports included experiences of shock, abruptness, and
confusion as a result of cues of immediacy and novelty of the
apprehension event. A few children reported coming home from
school only to discover they had to move and their belongings had
already been packed. Many children reported experiencing the
apprehension transaction as abrupt and not having enough time to
process the event. Children stated, “It happens so quick and you're just
gone and like see you later. That's it” (male, 12–13 years), and, “Does
anybody know what's going on other than mom and this weirdo, this
grouchy weirdo? Like, what's happening?” (female, 10–11 years).
Although many children indicated that, at the time of placement
notification, they were confused about the meaning of foster care and
its future implications (i.e., the events to follow once placed “into
care”), many were able to identify the immediate implications and
discussed emotional responses to their predicament. Children
reported experiencing fear, anxiety, and especially sadness and anger.

Answer 263

5.1.2. The home transfer
The home transfer refers to the period of time when a child was
removed from the home and transferred to a foster home. This
experience was often interpreted by children as analogous to
kidnapping or being “tooken”. Children made comments such as, “I
got tooken from my mom” (male, 8–9 years) and, “Yeah. It's like
you're being kidnapped and nobody wants to tell you nottin” (female,
12–13 years). These reflections illustrate how the apprehension
transaction can be appraised as a traumatic experience by children;
especially for those who interpreted and/or equated the transaction as
being kidnapped. Children who perceived they were being apprehended from their home, against their will, and in the absence of cues
in the environment to explain the transaction, evaluated the
transaction as threatening to their personal well-being. All but one
child reported that their removal from their original home was forced
and against their will.

Answer 264

Structural ambiguity refers to children's lack of clarity about the
meaning of foster care. Many children had no idea about the implicit
and explicit rules of foster care other than discovering that it involved
a monumental shift in their lives. Nearly half of the children indicated
that they “did not know” the meaning of foster care. One child
discussed how she did not understand the meaning of foster care until
the day of apprehension. She stated:
My mom said I was going to an appointment at a person's house
and she was going to come. She never went into the car…I found
that this woman was packing my stuff…and that's when I ran into
the house and said ‘Mom, why is there people packing our stuff?'
and she said, ‘I'm not coming to the appointment with you ‘cause
you are going into foster care.' I said, ‘What is that?’ She's like,
‘Where people take care of you, cause, cause, um, I can't' (female,
10–11 years)
Another child stated:
I thought when I first went into foster care that I wouldn't be able
to see my parents ever again...Even though my parents didn't do
right, they weren't being right with me... it doesn't mean I don't
like them. But, like, it kinda feels like prison if you didn't get to see
them (female, 10–11 years)
Children discussed being confused about the meaning of foster
care and commonly reported their concerns about whether they
would ever see their family and friends again. As indicated by their
reports, some children were not provided with any information
regarding visitation rights with their loved ones

Answer 265

Placement reason ambiguity refers to children's lack of clarity
about the reason for foster care placement. Children's experiences of
placement reason ambiguity included being unaware or confused
about the reason for placement into care, disagreeing with the reason
provided to them, and self-blame. Half of the children indicated they
did not know the reason for their placement upon entrance into foster
care and some stated they were still unaware of their reason for
placement at the time of the study

Answer 266

they still construed their personal
actions as the main contributing factor.

Answer 267

Placement context ambiguity refers to children's lack of clarity
about the context of the home where they would be living. Thirty
percent of children reported concerns about the context of the
appointed foster home. Once notified that they would be moving to a
new residence, children reported having concerns about whether the
basic needs one would normally receive in a family environment
would be provided once placed into care; that is, play, sleep, being fed,
and companionship. One child stated, “I was afraid of, ah, if she didn't
have toys” (male, 8–9 years). Another child stated, “I didn't know
where I was going to sleep” (female, 12–13 years).
Other children discussed their concerns about whether children
would be residing at the home. Most children indicated they wanted
other children at the home. One child stated, “The only thing that I was
like scared to death about is there better be another kid there… It would
weird to be alone, like there would just be parents living there and I
don't even know them. Okay, that's really weird” (male, 12–13 years).
However, not all children indicated that they desired to reside with
other children at the foster home. One child presented another
perspective on this issue:
[My social worker] asked me who I'd like to be with, if there's any
kids there or something like that, and how the parents will be. I
was like make the parents young and no kids. (You would prefer
that they didn't have any children?) Yeah, so I can get all the
attention. (female, 12–13 years)

Answer 268

Relationship ambiguity refers to children's lack of clarity about the
people with whom they would be living. Relationship ambiguity was
the most salient experience of ambiguity for children entering foster
care. Seventy five percent of children reported concerns about the
people with whom they were going to live. Children's reports
indicated that being informed of living with strangers was a
frustrating and anxiety-provoking experience that instigated a variety
of stressful appraisals.
The experience of being placed into a home with an unknown
family commonly elicited stress appraisals. One child commented:
I was like, ‘Woah! …Who are these people? I don't even know them
and I'm moving in with them’. I was like, ‘Holy! Bring me somewhere
else. I don't care where I'll have to go. I'll get locked up as long as I'm
not with just some family I don't know.' (male, 12–13 years)
Other children stated, “I was afraid that they might hit me or my
little [siblings]… Like I didn't mind if they hurt me, but like my siblings, they're too important to get to me. So it was sort of scary for
that” (female, 14–15 years) and “I didn't know the people so I don't
know what to expect…they were still kind of strangers to me. Even
though I know their name and stuff, but still” (male, 12–13 years).

Answer 269

Children's initial experiences of the foster home placement
included reports about experiencing unfamiliarity, fear of pets, the
initial greeting, feelings of isolation and loneliness. Children discussed
how anxiety surfaced as a result of being unfamiliar with the foster
home. One child reported, “I felt a little scared …I didn't really know
them and I didn't know where I was going to sleep, when I was going
to go back” (female, 12–13 years). Another child reported, “I didn't
know anything. I had to ask to get food, or like ask to do something,
you know 'cause it was my first time there” (male, 12–13 years).
Other children discussed how they became fearful and anxious upon
discovering that pets resided at the foster home.

Answer 270

their foster parents and fellow siblings in care. One child stated,
“I don't think [my foster father] said hi to me or anything there in like
three days that I was there” (female, 12–13 years). Another child
stated, “All the kids didn't really like me very much for some reason
that I didn't even know why” (male, 12–13 years). These experiences
suggest that a child's perception of feeling welcome and secure by
adults and children residing in the foster home can influence whether
stress appraisals will be evoked.

Answer 271

feelings of isolation and loneliness due to displacement
from family and friends. “It's a pain in the butt 'cause I'm like in the
middle of nowhere, from my friends” (female, 10–11 years).

Answer 272

my first hour and like
the first time you go there you don't want to quickly do a chore,
you want to wait a couple days and then do your chore. And
they're like, ‘You have to do your chore’. I was like, ‘I just came
here. Why don't you wait like not tomorrow but the next day and
I'll do dishes. I just came here I'm not really in the mood to do
dishes’. And then I didn't do it and they were like, ‘Well if you
don't do dishes then you can go to your room and you can't see
friends and mom and blah blah blah’ so I called my dad up and
was really sad. (female, 14–15 years)

Answer 273

“But at first I didn't start talking
to her right when I went there because I couldn't really trust her yet. I
needed to know I could trust her” (male, 12–13 years) Trusting an
adult was not a given, rather, it was something that had to be earned.
For most children, earning their trust involved an investment in time.

Answer 274

a sense of familiarity and a
foundation of trust.

Answer 275

Temporal ambiguity refers to children's lack of clarity about the
duration of foster care placement. When placed into foster care,
children began to question the length of time they would be in care
and when they would get to return “home”. As one child stated, “I
didn't know when I was going to go back” (female, 12–13 years).

Answer 276

they were found to report the foster care
transition in terms of two separate transactions: the apprehension
transaction and foster home placement transaction. Each transaction threatened their well-being
evoked distinct subjective appraisals and involved distinct events that

Answer 277

insufficient or conflicting cues in the
environment that hindered their ability to evaluate the potential of
events to threaten their personal well-being, relationships, and
matters of significance in their lives.

Answer 278

efforts that will be made to
preserve matters of importance to their personal well-being. Suggestions to minimize the various experiences of ambiguity may include
explaining the meaning and purpose of foster care, providing information about the reason for placement into foster care, the
home where they will be living, and the family with whom they will
be placed, and providing children with the opportunity to raise any
questions or concerns. Children could be provided with resources and
information that have the potential to minimize ambiguous interpretations and subsequent stressful appraisals as well as preserve
relationships and matters of significance during the transition into
foster care. The provision of this information could be provided to
children verbally as well as in an informational package that
introduces children to life in foster care (Mitchell, 2008).

Answer 279

non-death losses of
parents, siblings, and other loved ones. Specifically, as a
result of their “temporary” placement in foster care, children experience multiple non-death losses: ambiguous
loss of family and friends (Lee & Whiting, 2007; Mitchell & Kuczynski, 2010; Mitchell, 2016a), the loss of community (Kools, 1997), the loss of identity (Kools, 1997;) and the loss of normalcy.

Answer 280

no preparation to memorialize or grieve his nondeath losses. Therefore, it is important to consider how
youth in foster care are impacted when they are separated
from their living loved ones and how youth’s psychological
and emotional well-being are impacted when youth’s losses
are not recognized or acknowledged.

Answer 281

is psychologically present and physically
absent (e.g. losses due to divorce or foster care), or psychologically absent and physically present (e.g. losses due to
dementia or mental illness; Boss, 1999). Research suggests
that ambiguous loss is a common experience for young
children, ages 8–15, in foster care (Lee & Whiting, 2007;
Mitchell & Kuczynski, 2010; Mitchell, 2016a). Youth in
foster care can experience the ambiguous loss of parents,
siblings, grandparents, and friends.

Answer 282

siblings was identified and discussed
most frequently by youth participants. This finding supports previous research which identifies the sibling relationship as one of the most significant relationships in the
lives of youth in foster care (Herrick & Piccus 2005; Mitchell et al., 2015; Mitchell, 2016b). Similarly, practice reports
indicate that children who are grieving the loss of their
parents often perceive being separated from their siblings
as a negative experience (Schuurman, 2003).

Answer 283

I had lost the other half of my life because me
and my whole family, we were so close…and when
we got separated it almost felt like having a leg broken off and pretty much walking on crutches. (Larson, male participant)

Answer 284

turmoil, trauma, and confusion for youth in foster care and,
if left unattended, can result in loneliness, hopelessness,
depression, and despair (Mitchell, 2016a, b).

Answer 285

an individual’s psycho-social losses (Rando, 1984). For example,
the loss of a “future” and the loss of “stability” are types
of losses that an individual can experience in tandem with
physical losses (e.g. the loss of a home, the loss of a person,
etc.). T

Answer 286

I had so many losses, man. I felt like my life was
tooken away, I felt like I didn’t have no freedom, no
independence, it was, to be completely honest with
you really, it was one of the worst experiences in my
life, going on 21 years that I’ve been on this Earth that
was definitely one of the worst experience in my life,
right there…. You know, it was terrible. You know, I,
I lost my strength, I lost my life, I lost myself. It was,
it was, it was hell man. (Jasper, male participant)

Answer 287

I think I felt like I had
lost myself. Like I felt like I had just lost this me as
a person because my family is just like we can’t deal
with you anymore and they just gave me up. And like
a big part of me it…it wants my family. Like I love
my family. We don’t talk to the same or have a relationship. We don’t get along. It’s never gonna work
but like when I went into care I really felt like I had
lost myself because like I kinda at that time defined
myself by my family if that makes any sense. (Carly,
female participant)

Answer 288

like having to bounce from like one school to another
you do lose like a lot of friends and it’s hard to like
find new people that you can hanging around ‘cause
you’re…like you’re always moving like I’ve been to
like five different high schools. (Wendy, female participant)

Answer 289

someone no one cares about.”

Answer 290

not acknowledged or attended to by society (Doka, 1989, 2002). Disenfranchised grief can occur
when (i) the loss is not acknowledged as significant (e.g.
the loss of an animal/pet), (ii) the relationship is not recognized (e.g. the loss of a mistress), (iii) the griever is
excluded (e.g. a child’s “inability” to grieve), (iv) the loss
is disenfranchised (e.g. suicide), and (v) the grieving style
is considered socially unacceptable (e.g. a female who is
an instrumental griever). This theory sheds light on previous research which suggests that children’s experiences of
ambiguous loss in foster care are not adequately acknowledged or attended to by the child welfare system or society

Answer 291

children may have the opportunity to attend a memorial service, speak with a therapist, or participate
in grief groups. Some scholars suggest that we live in
a death-denying society (Johnson, 2004; Walsh, 2012);
similarly, I argue that we live in a grief-denying society.

Answer 292

colder than it really is. I pretty much
lost faith in humanity really; not people-wise, but humanity
itself.”

Answer 293

not acknowledged (Doka, 1989). When placed into foster
care, youth in foster care form new relationships with multiple caregivers (e.g. case managers, foster parents, courtappointed advocates; Mitchell, 2016b). These relationships
can become meaningful in youth’s lives and can become
distressful if the relationship dissolves.

Answer 294

her placement in a new home, made Penny “feel bad cause
I wish I woulda stayed with her.” When asked whether anyone was there for her during this loss, Penny replied, “No,
not really.” Following this, Penny was asked if it would
have been helpful to her if she would have had somebody
there for during this time. She replied, “Yes, just to have
them cause they could’ve encouraged me, ‘Everybody
makes mistakes but just move on with your past.’”

Answer 295

the foster
people, they’re getting money to keep us, you know.
DSS workers, they’re getting paid, they don’t give a
freak man, they go home, they eat a hot meal, you
know relaxing. And, I’m chilling in foster care,
away from my family, so nobody to me. I felt like
no one acknowledged my loss and hurt during that
time period. It made me felt terrible because I felt
like I had no stand, no take. Um, it, it was just awful
like, I felt like nobody wanted to hear you know,
about you know, you’re too young, and, and nobody
took great concern to understand what I was going
through, or honestly what any kid in foster care was
going through to be honest with you, so yeah. (Jasper, male participant)

Answer 296

never be underestimated.

Answer 297

e, a child who
loses her mother because her parent was abusive may
be at risk for disenfranchised grief. Youth in foster care
may hear comments such as, “You’re better off” or “You
should be grateful that you are in foster care”; all statements that are disenfranchising. These comments suggest
that the loss experienced does not justify a grief response.
This is problematic because youth deserve the right to
grieve the losses of those whom they love, regardless of
the reason for the loss.

Answer 298

valid,
acknowledged, and worthy of grieving. Children deserve
to be surrounded by caregivers who will create a safe and
nonjudgmental space where their losses will be acknowledged, respected, and enfranchised.

Answer 299

females who never shed a tear after
the loss of a loved one are often disenfranchised by society. Comments such as, “She never cried after her mother
died. There must be something wrong with her” characterize how an individual’s grieving style can be disenfranchised by others. As illustrated by youth’s reports in this
study, engaging in “problem” behaviors is how some youth
in foster care cope with experiences of non-death loss and
disenfranchised grief. For example, when discussing her
separation from her siblings, Riley shares, “It was hard not
having at least one of my siblings with me. Because they’re
the only family that I have…I was angry and I ran away a
lot. It made me mad. I didn’t understand why. I was sad. I
was upset.” Riley also reported that nobody was emotionally there for her during this time. Carly and Stacie respond
similarly:
Most people would say it made them sad. It actually
didn’t make me sad. It made me angry that I couldn’t
see them….I acted out. I got in a lot of fights. I ended
up in a treatment facility. I acted out um in a verbal
and physical way….[I felt] lonely. (Carly, female participant). I missed [my siblings]….I was pissed off about it.
I was pissed off and I hated the system. I was mad
as it could possibly get me. They tore my family apart. I was always bouncing around from house to
house….After that I kinda went loose. I quit school.
Didn’t do really a whole lot for a long time and then
I got myself together after I turned eighteen. (Stacie,
female participant)
These reports suggest that the youth’s “acting out” behaviors were influenced by their experiences of ambiguous
loss and disenfranchised grief. The majority of youth who
reported they engaged in these behaviors stated they did not
have someone in their lives to speak with about the grief
they were experiencing, and having someone with whom
they could speak would have been helpful.

Answer 300

who made an
effort to acknowledge their losses and enfranchise their
grief.

Answer 301

communicating, affirming, and recognizing youth’s experiences of
loss and grief, and ensuring that their emotional needs
were being met (Mitchell, 2016a).

Answer 302

their vulnerability,
feelings, and concerns.

Answer 303

model of society in which the inequality they observe is part of a larger design that works to the betterment of all people.

Answer 304

it is the natural outcome of an economic system that provides the greatest good to the greatest number.

Answer 305

they don’t stop there; they study the differences between the real world and the assumptions of the model, develop additional theories that take those differences into account, and test those theories using empirical data.

Answer 306

reflects how rich they are. So the venture capitalist who works at home can afford a shovel, but not the single mother who will be fired if she can’t get to work. In most cases, we rely on prices because alternate means of distributing goods have their own problems: Could you imagine if the hardware store asked people to apply for snow shovels by explaining how much they needed them?

Answer 307

they needed a conceptual framework that showed why their preferred policies were good for society as a whole (and only incidentally good for them).

Answer 308

reducing barriers to “supply,” such as taxes and regulations, is the key to unleashing entrepreneurial activity and boosting economic growth. In particular, lower tax rates could increase growth enough to generate higher tax revenues—an idea now referred to as the Laffer Curve (supposedly originally sketched on a restaurant napkin). The general idea that lowering taxes would increase growth by encouraging more people to save, invest, and work came straight out of Economics 101, although few people at the time thought tax revenues would actually rise as a result.*2

Answer 309

slashed income taxes, with the top rate falling from 70 percent to 50 percent. (The Tax Reform Act of 1986 later lowered the top rate to 28 percent.) Reagan pressed his staff to reduce the burden of government regulation.

Answer 310

have to live in poverty. Yet in America, there are more than ten million members of the working poor: people in the workforce whose household income is below the poverty line.

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