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next, discussion on balance in child welfare with parental rights with the focus on the line between potential child abuse and parents rights to use recreational drugs or homeschooled children. the american enterprise institute hosted this discussion. >> perfect. we are going to get started. i will be moderating the third

and final panel for the day. i want to thank aei for hosting. this panel needs little introduction because the question is whether the system is effectively protecting or overreaching and it is hardly new. nor is the fact that we often have very interesting and strange political bedfellows in child welfare. in fact, to prepare for the panel i decided to do a quick search to make sure i was going to be using the correct terms. i first stumbled on parental rights movement which wikipedia describes as a socially conservative political movement aimed at restructuring schools ability to teach or practice certain viewpoints on gender, sexuality and race without

parental extent -- consent but at the very top of the wikipedia page there was a disclaimer that this was not to be confused with the parents rights movement, which was described as a civil rights movement primarily interested in human rights affecting related to family law, including child custody. i am not sure if there is a real distinction and we will be talking about both. i am thrilled to be joined by a terrific panel. each panelist will spend a few minutes talking about their work and reflecting on this particular space. we will then have a moderated discussion with time for questions at the end. for those who are tuning in online, my understanding is there are instructions on how to enter those. will is a senior counselor for the home school legal defense

association and also served as the first president of parental rights.org and the parental rights foundation. chris gottlieb is the current director of nyu law family defense clinic and assistance professor of clinical law. tom rollins has a long career in juvenile justice, child protection, and served as the state of georgia attorney juvenile court judge and director. ron richter is ceo and executive director of je cca and a former new york city family court judge and commissioner of new york city administration for children's services. will: thank you, it's a privilege to be here. i very much enjoyed the other panels and discussion. at 2018 my organization filed a federal rights lawsuit on behalf

of holly curry and her family. holly was a mother of six kids and she had taken her kids to karate class and stopped to pick up muffins. she came back nine minutes later and sheriff's deputies were out and told her she cannot leave her children alone even though she had not broken any laws in kentucky, they had to refer her to child protective services on the next day someone knocked on her door. the person was a social worker and said they needed to interview the children. holly said you need a court order but i also want identification. she refused to give identification or a court warmer -- order and said let me talk to your kids or i will remove them. holly said no and a few hours later the social worker came back with a sheriff's deputy and said we will remove your children and get a court order if you do not let us in.

in fear of her children being removed, she let the children in and the children were interviewed and strip-searched in front of a male sheriff's deputy and soon after the caseworker closed the investigation as unfounded. we filed this civil rights lawsuit and we got half a $1 million settlement on behalf of holly curry and her family and that is why this issue is so important and passionate to me. in the past couple months i have had two families in massachusetts to withdrew true children to homeschooled them and both had founded case of child neglect against them simply because they pulled their children out of public school before receiving approval from the school district. in massachusetts and rhode island you need approval before you can homeschool. we see this day in and day out

and why i am so passionate about reforming the system because it is stacked against parents and parents rights. one important thing i want to say is there is a distinction between abuse and neglect and maltreatment. in our first panel there was a discussion about sexual abuse. i think that person should be thrown away, there is no rehabilitation for someone who sexually abuses or physically abuses a child but when it comes to maltreatment and neglect it is more nebulous. as we saw on this discussion of what is child neglect or medical neglect it's an important distinction. is corporal discipline abuse or neglect, is refusing to vaccinate on a schedule abuse or neglect? we have to be clear about what should be punished and what his parents making decisions about what is best for their children and i make different decisions

than others might make and we both love our children very much. two things i want to also bring to your attention in my opening remarks. it is important to talk about children's rights. children's rights. our system and our china government is probably the best case, 1979 of our system of government trust the parents to make what's the best decisions for the children. a five-year-old for a a seven-year-old and 11-year-old needs help and guidance. this whole thing of children have rights. who's going to be helping children and protect the children would be the parents or is it going to be a bureaucrat or a government official? i will always side with the parents and less there's been a finding of abuse or harm to the children i encourage you to read the writings of -- an attorney at the university of baltimore school of law. she has written extensively about the harm to children from child protective service investigations. another one that is very good is holman, duke school of law.

2006 she wrote a long review entitled storm is the capital to save the children there on a cost per child welfare exception to the fourth amendment. these investigations from anonymous allegations, from mandated reporters and know that the abuse or neglect that they are worried about losing their license, they have real physical harms to children and their families as well as to our constitutional protection. i welcome this robust discussion but i would encourage all of us understand at all of you as practitioners and experts, a couple things we should agree or because our system tools nutri form. the first is we have got to eliminate anonymous reporting abuse and neglect. i see this costly as an ex-spouse or an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend or just a nosy neighbor reporting films for abuse and neglect and their they are too gutless to put that into it because they know they could be prosecuted. we've got to eliminate anonymous reporting of abuse and neglect. we have to eliminate mandated

reporters. eliminate the requirements that people be a mandatory reporter. i have seen so often families fearful to get the help and social welfare or counseling for the children because they are worried there will be reporting and the families could be torn apart. let's trust these experts to know when they need to file an report, let's not mandate them under criminal penalties or loss of licensure to report family for abuse and neglect. we have to put in place more due process protections come. texas has led the way. new york also is put in good protections of families being told their rights when a cps of this gift know and forth, and robust discussion in the past welcome past pemmican with eliminate these child abuse pediatrician position. a medical kidnapping, the medical neglect charges. we saw this all panel of experts couldn't even agree on what was medical neglect. when you're a hammer everything is in them and that's what

happens with child abuse pediatrician. the real cost of this. i fed hardened veterans from iraq and afghanistan i have helped crying breaking down in tears because the three-year-old has gone to the sidewalk to go visit his friends because they were afraid of the children being removed. i have seen attacks against homeschooling. there's work session called the coalition for responsible home education that adopted a model bill that called twitter page that would turn back the clock on homeschool freedom and what it would do is it would say if you even have been invested by child protective services three years prior, you cannot homeschool. not even a finding them just investigation. these these are real-world s from a system that stacked against parents. to have a second read a real quick quote? and this is from the curry decision that i referenced at the very beginning of the family that we represent kentucky. here's what the federal court said. act i, a loving mother gets muffins for children. act two there's a knock on her

door and threat by the government to take away her children act iii, her children are strip-searched without cause. america's founding generation may never have imagined a cabinet for health and family services but they knew the fish are unwelcome constable and added a fourth amendment to a constitution to protect against the three act tragedy. >> high come and gone. pleasure to be here. what do you think the vacant enterprise institute for putting together it's really important conversation. as emily said i teach at a a w school. i research a study child welfare but my real expertise to the extent i have i believe comes not so much from the study but from working side-by-side with children and parents who have been enmeshed in the child welfare system. i begin my career representing kids because i wanted to help kids and pretty soon what i saw

was the way to help kids by and large is to protect the rights of the parents and my clinic now in what he represents parents. and in the representation of hundreds and hundreds of children and parents to most of my career, i spent a lot of time wishing and beat and politicians would pay more attention to parental rights. i guess that's a lesson, the careful what you wish for since and now the topic is at the forefront. in many ways it is being parental rights are not always bring out the best of our society in the culture war. i deeply believe in the realm of child welfare we actually have opportunities to see folks from across the spectrum coming together. i think it's worth starting out this conversation by reminding

us of some of the things we all were ever are politically agree on. it should go without saying we are all deeply anti-child abuse. we all believe that the vast, vast majority of children are best off being brought up by the paris without government intervention. we all believe that prevented child maltreatment is is that didn't with it after the fact. and i think we all agree even those of us who are more big government in some ways i think we all agree one thing government is not good at is raising children. these are the overarching points of agreement i think can inform our child welfare policy. those big picture agreements have not always translated into agreement on particular policies but i think there's room particularly in this moment, i'm very optimistic to see folks left and right coming together and i want to name two of those

errors as we start out this conversation. one overlap very much with what will to set although we didn't ordinate it but i think it is an issue with is just an emerging sense that our reporting system has gotten out of control. nobody who set up child abuse registries and created mandated reporting ever imagine or intended it would lead to the massive system of investigation we have today. just to put a few numbers on it. in 1980, a million reports of child maltreatment were reported and a basket every year. one might think that's a high number. by, 40 years later, 4.4 million reports of child abuse and maltreatment. i doubt anyone who believes there's anything like 4.4 million families that need would benefit from government

intervention. as emma said on one of the panels earlier, investigations are not harmless. they are not neutral. these are dramatic, traumatic for the paris and more importantly they are dramatic for the children involved. strip searching, one obvious example of the harm but just having the government come in often in the middle of the night, wake you up, and give you the message that your parents are not in charge, that you can no longer be confident where you're going to be sleeping the next night. you have not safe in your own home and that the harm that is often underestimated. so i do think reducing the unprecedented size of this reporting system, mandated reporters around the country are saying they don't want to be forced to report things where the don't actually is a problem

that you're feeling this pressure. they want to be supporters, not reporters, is the refrain under over and over again. certainly it includes the next step should include as will suggested pulling back on the idea anonymous reporting is not only allowed but encouraged. texas has already made a change. still be confidential reporting, that is the names of the reported would not be given to the subject but an honest reporting just invites the district we know this, domestic violence, survivors and 14 know more than that the system is often misused by people making purposely maliciously false reports. a lot more to be said about that but i but i want to put on the table the other area where i see folks coming together from really all over the country and all over the spectrum. and that is on another area where the united states has gone and is simply unprecedented

direction, which is the idea that we now celebrate destroying family ties. termination of parental rights is a concept that was not known in history until about the middle of the 20th century when child welfare officials developed it, , brought into the law. but it was created, if you look at the history, it was created to allow children who had been abandoned by their parents to be adopted by the new caretakers with whom their own parents have placed them. that was the structure which termination parental rights was introduced and largely the situation which it was used well into the 20th century, toward the end of the 20th century when congress decided that the way to deal with the overly large foster care population that we had was to start

incentivizing, , financial incentivizing the distraction of family ties. since 1997 with the adoption of safe families act our federal government now financially rewards states when they terminate parental rights instead of reunifying those families. we are not talking about by a large cases where the children were abandoned and we're not talking by 12:30-2:15 eastern cases with the children refuse. we are tight but cases where very often the parents are struggling with social maladies of our age, drug use issues, mental health issues can domestic violence issues, issues that we see and all walks of life but if you're in a low income situation those issues now under federal law that often lead to termination of parental rights. many of those kids whose rights to the family have intimidated whenever the adopted. they are legal orphans. others will be adopted but may

unnecessarily be cut off from the families they're still emotionally connected to. many will return to the femmes when they're old enough to make that choice and others tragically will not be able to reconnect. it is hard not to look at the history of child welfare and the united states and see that again and again when we have destroyed families, those have turned out to be the most shameful moments in american history, that we now look back on with regret. i think i hope we are in a moment now where we can pull back on the purposeful destruction of families that we are doing by terminating rights and move toward other solutions for our children. >> good afternoon. it's great to be with you all. thanks eei for inviting me, as the least listing was member of this panel. so over the last 25 years i've handled cases, child abuse and neglect cases as judge spent

several years as a child advocate for georgia where i t all the complaint and was had a complaint about the system. i ran this is a i was a child welfare work. i've litigated these cases. i found it interesting this morning we spent time talking about what our parental rights. what are children's rights? i do have a few thoughts on that. number one, it's certainly clear that, in fact, all of our constitution supreme court comments on this have been consistent. the custody here, care, raising the children resides first in the parent, but we also have to remember that whose primary function and freedom include reparations for obligations state can either supply nor hinder. as marcie said earlier this

morning, parents can become martyrs themselves but they're not free to martyr their children. so there is i think an appropriate balance that is reflected in most of our laws that yes parents, the role of the parent is to raise the child. at the obligation, you're right, it has obligations he goes with. the obligation of the state is to stay out of that relationship to the extent that the parent is acting in a reasonable, minimally, confident capacity. i think for those who would say there are not really any children's rights, or downgrade those, i think one of our speakers this morning made this very clear, i think it was james. the real issue, the child rights

or children's rights are subsumed so to speak within the parental family unit. but there do come times when the parents right, the parent is not doing what they're supposed to be doing. there becomes a a conflict ben what the parent wants to sometimes that is the parent wants to abuse a child sometimes the parent wants to do a lot of drugs and ignore the child. sometimes it's the parent is more concerned about the violent relationship he or she is and then are about the child's well-being. it is in those situations will get to start thinking about what is the child's right. so the problem here is that as said amerigo, there are 4.4 million reports made to some

child protective agency in the united states each year. of those, half of them are screened out. of those another half or nothing really happens. there's only about 300,000 children a year of all those reports the receipt services. only about 150,000 who actually are placed in foster care. but think about the fact that we have this incredibly important balancing act of the parents duty to the child and then the states duty to intervene in the parental unit only when necessary. and who is handling all of those 4.4 million complaints? i bet a bunch of 25 euros right out of college who are not lawyers, who don't know how this works, and our laws quite frankly are oftentimes confusing. on the one hand, we have

demanded that, for example, if a hospital has a child was born and the child test positive for a regulated substance of some sort that they must report that to authorities. the idea of scores is not that the child should be removed necessarily but the truth is that the agencies that are responsible for responding to this cases, they don't really know what to do. so, for example, in new jersey recently even though the hospital was doing its duty of reporting child comics you become a prenatal substance exposure, the attorney general of new jersey who represent the child protection agency to whom these reports are being made sued the hospitals and told them to stop doing that. and so imagine how confusing this is for a bureaucracy, for a bunch of 25-year-old-year-old simply trying to do their job.

we are giving these young people this massive burden of trying to balance what it think we all agree, is the right to family integrity. children to best when they are raised by the parents and their families. versus we have an obligation to keep a child safe, and usually that's a standard of safe from imminent harm. within can also see situations where there's no imminent harm, there's no imminent harm, there's no imminent harm, the fifth report the child dies. and so it is a really hard thing to do but have a couple of thoughts on what we should do about it i guess you might say. so number one, we have got to clarify as a society that the

working child welfare wt something to be abolished and it is not something where we need to focus only on the parent nor only on the child. it is about the act. it is hard work and we need to put people doing it who had judgment and skill. we need to quite frankly help them to a better job. number two, i remember this, we've seen over the last certainly my career just a loss of faith in institutions, whether those institutions are faith institutions, whether they are the justice system to where they are the child protective system or the police. people are losing faith in his two seasons? why? because when you're not treating people decently come sometimes that happens. some of the things that you talk about a moment ago, will,

removing a child because they feared that the child in the car for a few minutes. had a case in georgia yesterday where a 10-year-old was walking down the road in a rural area just like i use do everyday going to school, and the sheriff arrested the woman for letting her child walked to school. then probably even because it seemed like something you'd do something, the department of children service came along and wanted to make her do lots of other things. and so we have got to find a better balance. i think the way you do that is that we need to focus not only on abolishing the system or focusing on child rights for parents try to anything else but to focus on due process and transparency. so, for example, i think emily was talking about the child abuse pediatricians issue. i have done a lot of work with our local tv station and the

land on this issue. what i always say is i love child abuse pediatricians. but they are not the end-all be-all. and when the court and the child protection agency simply deferred to them without giving the parent an obligation to say look, -- an opportunity to do with you, i did expert to help you but i can't afford one and a little testify against a fellow doctor period that would be an airy we could to improve due process for these families so they would have more confidence in the system. again the issue of with hat in atlanta recently the issue of whether we often used drug screens of course as a way to make sure that parents are involved in the system are staying clean. we've had situations where the companies that do this testing are just, it ain't working very well. and as a result, parents feel

that they are trapped. if you want someone to respect the system you have to make sure the system is working in a way that respects parental rights but also keeps the child safe. finally, we've talked a lot today about the issue of removing a chilled. there's one other issue we might disagree on a little bit, which is for example, adoption. the adoption say family act was simply in 1980 and effort to deal with significant issue, which is that children were being removed by the system, rendering in the system, they were acting out in ways that children who are traumatized by being ripped out of their homes and put in some foster home that they don't know, this is what to do, they react so to get bounced around for placement to placement and her mental health deteriorates.

and so the question of course is, at what point does that child have the right to a safe, stable, permanent home that is frankly not the parental home? and so i think when we talk about this balance, once we lift the veil of parental rights and the state has a capacity to intervene in the family is life, the state those obligations. that's what rights are. obligation of the state to help that parents reasonably and hope that child regionally. one of the things chilled of the greatest right to is family. that may be their own family. it may be a relative or it may be an adoptive family. but if we are to focus on one end of the spectrum or the other, safety versus parental rights, for example, reunification versus adoption, what we do is we end up not

respecting and fulfilling the rights of either parent or child. whenever folks for who other day was a sort of like the u.n., united nations relationship to sovereign state to select the printer rights, child rights issue. it's interesting observation. because anybody who knows how the u.n. works knows it is a freaking mess. it's a messy, large bureaucracy. and, in fact, we have in this country because we don't have a better system, we have entrusted a a bureaucracy to try to implement laws that are supposed to be based upon our recognition of the right of family and a recognition of the duty to protect children. unfortunately we don't do good job of that sometimes. thanks.

>> good afternoon. i'm ron richter, and i currently run a large child and family services business in the new york metropolitan area called jcca. we are 203 years old this year. and we have been doing sort of the same thing since the beginning, although i hope we have innovated over time. i am really thankful of naomi and aei for fostering this really important conversation. as someone who has been doing work related to these struggles for, i'm shocked to say, 35 years, i'm thrilled that these questions are coming to the fore in a much more meaningful way. so i want to say that i i agre with the general proposition, absolutely, children belong with

their parents and their families, and ought to be some pretty serious showing before you're able to disturb that. the fact that one into black children at home are investigated before their 18th and one in three white children are investigated, are or all children, i should say white one of three american children are investigated before their 18th birthday ought to alarm all of us. mostly because of the trauma that this causes families and the balance of power between a parent and her child that is really confronted in a harmful way to both. so i think one thing we really need to be asking ourselves is, if we're conducting that many investigations and nationally,

maybe 25% of those investigations result in something for us to follow up on, then we are creating trauma, which has long-standing implications for the well-being of our society, and we also spending an extraordinary amount of money investigating families that don't have much in need for any investigation. so i think at the outset we should be saying that government great many things. government has, in my view, an obligation to ensure that children are free from suffering and harm. i just want to illuminate, , whn i say harm i agree, sexual and physical abuse horrifying. as they family court judges though, that was not what i saw

mostly. there's been an enormous amount of conversation about neglect equals poverty. it's as simple as that. you should just buy into that. at the same time there are many poor people raising the children without any allegations of neglect ever. and there's no question that race and economics have an enormous amount to do with how you end up in the crosshairs of the state central registry. so it's complicated. as a family court judge what i saw were generally mothers who had two or three children under five years old, who were struggling with managing that extraordinary responsibility because i think most parents, not all, really want to do right by their kids. and some others have relationships with their family and with the fathers of their children.

and those, sometimes when you up in family court, are fraught with family violence. and often those parents who are struggling with this scenario end up, end up developing emotional and mental challenges. i won't call the illnesses, but challenges that directly impact their ability to function as parents. and often in that same scenario that parent self medicate because who wouldn't? and so you have two or three children under five years old in a home with a parent who may or may not enforce orders of protection against someone who is often found to have been violent toward them and hopefully not the children, and a mother who is really struggling with trying to figure out how to deal with her

emotional turmoil, albeit very understandable emotional turmoil. what does a government do? what obligation do we have? we are not as a society in 2025 offering solutions for economic depredation. we are not offering phenomenal, attentive, public education we we are not offering health care that is available, and behavioral health health, that is available. yet as a government we are told through reporting that there are at least two or three kids under five living with their mother, probably in housing that would shock us. and as a family court judge what are you supposed to deal? say, you know what, madam, the world has really triggered you terribly. your children can remain with you. i'm dismissing all of the allegations because that's the

right thing to do. you shouldn't be stigmatized with nick fact findings. that isn't what we decided you as a society. we have decided that in some cases it is critical for there to be government involvement. in new york city in 1990, there were close to 50,000 children in foster care with 30-35% of them in institutions or residential settings. in 2025 there are fewer than 7000 children in foster care in new york city, and less than 9% are in residential care. i say this because there has been tremendous effort, extraordinary effort on the part of politicians, on the part of elected officials, on the part of appointed officials, on the part of families advocating for what they need to change this system. and it has made amazing, amazing

progress. so i enter into this conversation saying i am going to continue to worry about the two or three kids under five years old who are living in a dangerous situation and of going to continue to struggle with what to do with that family. and any creative solution i thought personally, why i went opening something similar like they have in israel where families that are struggling can live together and support each other? i daresay the money for that has never been available in the united states of america. so solutions have to be considered in the context of reality. and reality is that there are more than just one or two of those three kids under five living in the united states right this minute. >> all right.

i did not know you would be coming in with the bold vision at the end of there, but well done. >> did you not think i was a visionary? >> i was not suggesting that. >> will, , i'm going to start wh you. because i fear that the public's understanding of how our child protective system works is framed by the kind of media coverage of these of the unusual free range parenting cases as well as kind of the tragic child the top of these, both of which are somewhat atypical but since you brought up the stories, i think for everyone of those i could probably give you an example of a child who was pulled out of a public school setting because they were being abused, and the event was using homeschooling as a shield.

now i shared with you, i homeschool my children so not anti-homeschooling, but in just curious, are there some reasonable kind of regulations that you would support that could help to strike a balance so that parents are able to educate their children but in the very small number of cases where its use as a shield, the state knows that and a step in? >> that's a great question. that's bobby something a lot of people ask. so on your first point of the free range parenting, there's, tom mentioned the case in georgia who let her son walk around and got arrested. i'm huge fan of the range parenting. not every parent is going to do. we all have different risk factors and use but i love the word, let grow. a lot of research on this. advanced loss on this. jonathan hite who is a researcher also has been a great

deal of work about the importance so on reasonable so let's do that. on homeschooling front there are very few cases of horrific abuse of children who ostensibly being homeschooled. the two things on that i want appointed. the first what is all of those cases i'm aware of, cps knew about this family. there were attempts in michigan recently, illinois and west virginia to pass laws basically putting further restrictions on homeschooling because of these. in all three of those high-profile cases cps knew about the families. it had cleared the family for their supposed to be checking in and cbs dropped the ball. that's the first important thing. why did cps got the ball? because of all been tae bo, 4.49 cases are coming in. cps workers are chasing people instead of following up west virginia cases particularly horrific instead of following up on the family that they knew

about. we have limited resources, limited workers. let's prioritize and a talk with some of those getting rid of anonymous reporting. the second point though is i want to reach 19th in case of parma versus jan jr becauseu think about let's put for the restriction on homeschooling because we can save one child, it's important. his with u.s. supreme court set in 1979. jurisprudence of. >> we have reflected western civilization concept of a family as a unit with broad parental authority over minor children. our cases have consistently followed that course took our constitutional system long ago rejected any notion a child is a of the state. on the contrary asserted pairs generally have the right couple of high duty to recognize every further children for additional obligations. the stated notion government to power should supersede parental authority in all cases because some parents abuse and neglect children is repugnant to

american tradition. my heart breaks for children who have been harmed but as a sprinkler said nic said none if a statist notion to say because some people have broke the law. lock them up through with the key every single person like myself for example, my wife and i homeschool our kids, we should have to jump through further hoops. in the first amendment context the pen is mightier than the sword. newspaper can do great damage but we never require the covenant review by a restraint newspaper publishers. there's defamation laws. there are laws criminalizing fermenting abuse, fomenting violence and for example. that sources of us would prefer to protect our due process, our civil liberties. >> i want to open up in case anybody else wants to jump in. okay. all right. we have got two new yorkers on the panel, and i know, i understand is there's some

significant kind of effort on the part of parents' rights advocates to enact new legislation. i think was at the harassment and reporting which would tend to know more anonymous reports, informed consent, family miranda. i think all of those have either failed or vetoed, is that right? i guess my question is, what do you attribute that to? if we're all sitting here and there is a real movement for parents' rights, what happens in new york and what does the signal for the rest of the country and what's coming? >> well, i think what's happening in new york is that families and communities that have been hurt for so long by child protective services and the phrase abolition came up and i just want to say when i speak

to families that are calling for abolition, what they're saying is the system is doing more harm than good. ..

activists in new york on our laws change so it's where lester kony and that it used to be. the other bills you mentioned are still in process, but i'm actually quite hopeful, with respect to all of them. you mentioned what we call family miranda. it's telling people their rights , they do do this in other jurisdictions already, and i find it puzzling, to put it mildly, how anyone could object to folks knowing their rights. let me put it differently. we don't tell people their rights, what we ensure is that well resourced families that have access to lawyers know their rights and under resourced families don't.

there's just simply no way to bring rights to life unless you let people know about them. so, a lot of progress has been made on that front. children services in new york city has started in a modest way to let people know more than they did. those of us who want to ensure people really know their rights are still pushing for the requirement that people more robustly be told their rights. similarly with the antiharassment and reporting bill, this is the bill that would shift from anonymous reporting to confidential reporting as they have been in texas. i do think new york is at the forefront, but if you look at the package of family protection laws that were passed in 2023, texas is on the cutting edge. this left, right coming together, and they have made it much harder for people to make false reports. informed consent, the other bill that emily mentioned is simply a

bill that would require hospitals to do what they are already required to do but don't do, which is give people a meaningful information before they are drug tested so that if they have been given drugs during labor and delivery, that doesn't come up as a positive test result, but will lead to a dramatic investigation. all of those are really great examples of state legislation that is moving forward in new york, and i hope other states will pick up on. but i want to say, some of the real challenges of our system have to be dealt with at the federal level. since we are here in d.c., i can't help to call on folks that are here and shifting the perverse financial incentives to terminate parental rights and that we are subsidizing the termination parental rights to a tune of $2.6 billion a year

going to adoptive families when many of those kids could be home if we were spending that money on their families. those are things that need to be dealt with at the federal level. >> if i may, chris has done a wonderful job of advancing this. she's a hero in my book, new york and texas have really led the charge on this. but when it comes to telling families, i'm a little intrigue, law enforcement cops carry a gun in a badge and they get far more fourth amendment training than social workers do. that shows when an investigator walks on the door. my boss used to lecture the social worker conventions and says the fourth amendment applies to you and he has not been invited back for several years. the fourth amendment applies to social workers. >> and it may have a boring answer to your new york question, which is that in my experience with the legislator in albany, the influence of your

sponsor matters enormously and who listens to the sponsor of your legislation matters enormously. i also think practically speaking, i realize this is the right, left coming together conversation and i will say that in new york, iowa -- our democratic governor only won four of the five counties in new york city, westchester county and erie county, which is buffalo in new york. i share that because it reflects the relatively conservative new york legislator, even though they are democrats, for the most part in the assembly in the senate, they are not insensitive to the fact that there are those three kids under five living in

a situation that raises real concerns for them about whether new york's children should be living that way and, i agree very much with the change in the law with respect to the state central registry. but i think new york is not as -- we are, in many ways, purple as opposed to blue. the loud city of new york is very, very blue, but as a states, we are not. one thing i want to say about anonymous reporting, i have one concern about eliminating anonymous reporting and i realize the response might be confidential reporting, but there are not a few victims of sexual abuse in their homes who call the state central registry because they are in the bathroom, they are freaking out,

they are worried about their siblings and themselves, and they call on anonymously and i, i'm sure chris, i shouldn't speak for her, have had clients. i have had clients. i have had kids in the care of my agency who instigated the investigation themselves because they had no place else to turn because their parent when i believe them. so i think, and i think this is easy to work out in legislation, but i do think there has to be considered exception for children themselves reporting anonymously, which makes it much more likely that they will report. , an independent review of the. georgia we got rid of the child abuse registrar a few years ago

because we had too many teachers who ran into the convenience store who were instantiated against. >> one thing i love to throw out there, the thing that hasn't come up and maybe is the elephant in the room is what the role in the state should be you have what will be a well-meaning parent but a young child when they identify and i would love to hear everyone's thoughts on that.

>> substance abuse is a major issue. if your substance use is not affecting your child, if you're going out getting drunk or high on vacation when your child is with an appropriate caregiver, that's one thing. if you think about substances that are comparable children, especially prenatal, alcohol is the biggest one. the problem, talking about children were very young, endangered by actives absence abuse, it's a move like marijuana is no big deal, the problem is that pre-marijuana use needs to respiratory issues and it can be very dangerous.

idea that we are minimizing substance use is not a big deal. >> it does not indicate marijuana needs to significant harm contrary to alcohol use during pregnancy and someone said there are a range of use on marijuana. those are decisions made by parents, not the government but more broadly, everybody in this country understands we are dealing with tucson substance of

disorder around but i want to go -- the way we should think about the well system to look at how resource families deal with it. they have access to high-quality absence abuse programs engage in voluntarily and they get to choose what works for them and the children are not separated from them while they undergo the treatment and that is the model we should bring to every family in the united states. every study shows if you keep the mother and child together through the process, they both do better and that's what our child welfare system should be offering.

>> there is an interesting component, if you are white and wealthy doing marijuana, he will run into problems. if you are wealthy, it's the same and if it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander. university tentatively titled hidden pain of families grieving. we had to make sure we talking about abuse, it's not worse than the one you committed and remove children, it will extend generations we got to consider a 6-year-old being strip-searched or taken from the home.

i don't think we've got enough about this. >> i think part of what is most interesting and most challenging is nothing is cut and dry. you can have a parent using a substance in a manner that does not impact their ability to provide a minimum degree of care. not one or two, over four years on the bench. he appearance in front of you nodding off because they are so under the influence and have a couple of you kids under five let's say. they can be under seven. she you have to meet the same

standards before judge should be able to give them to you but their parents by using cannabis, alcohol and what have you but where a parent cannot remain attentive a 20 minute proceeding, you have to have concern for what's going on at home. is that child being fed? is the child being changed? is the front door locked in our people going to be able to come in? there's no question accessibility is tremendous and the where they come from.

>> the supreme court of the u.s. and i sent it to the group your. i am a member of parents united workers across the country. there's a great new bill in texas where it you do wrong, you get the time back and that is what we are pushing across the country. we should look at the two people from new york 2024 the family

services that was an extreme report. it is about process. it is a winner and a loser and decide who's going to win and lose and publishes the one and on top of that, it's very political. i have a judge who says one, they should never go house and you will a political affiliation with that's take it.

the parental rights but we are forgetting about the rights of the children. what you're talking about is rainy versus rainy. >> the biggest problem is we are focused on parental rights. you have to look at cases like rainy versus rainy, bonne

hoffman versus watts who is telling the courts you have the action to do the activities not rely third parties to do this. there's no question about it. people often say what's going on him part a completely different than what's happening in part in the process by which they are processed. the make it as difficult as possible in the family court. in the parental rights and the

one here. and it's what you can have an family court and a judges deciding in this unpopular idea and they always terminate parents rights when they get the facts but it is important to be asking questions how we are engaging in decision-making for sure. and they take over the whole thing.

and they are written. you have virginia, you don't even have to be a quirk of the judge. in these are the issues. >> i'm wondering if you thought through and have any ideas on approve of review and what it differ based on determination versus a medical issue. we have lots of standards in the law. any thoughts?

>> i'm so glad because our earlier panel has a level of scrutiny what standard. i do want to distinguish we are talking about which is child welfare. it is much more complicated to figure out the standards. we are talking about government tension in the protected realm family life. legislative enactment but i don't think it's true what somebody said on this court they might characterize this and they might see it as ninth amendment but the supreme court over and

over again has said parental rights are of fundamental rights and if you are terminated fundamental rights, it requires that. what does that translate into? compelling interest in intervention narrowly tailored. earlier on mention what has become all too common safety terminating parental rights. there's never a situation for parental rights required for the safety of the child and that's why once we look at narrow tailoring the constitution requires, we are going to move away from terminating rental rights because they are other lesser ways to protect children then severing family ties. defendant historically and can do it now.

the supreme court has a chance on this piece of parental rights they will confirm and one other thing it applies to family separation. there are no actions in which the government does have a right to protect the child is it a truly compelling danger to the child? the level at which we are taking kids because of missing will or marijuana use what they can't possibly make that level. >> the standard and the parents

rights to do x, y, and z. i certainly think men in the state showing to regulate medication for children. the child's future and we talked earlier about the right to an open future and part of the center may be, what is the impact of this? requiring certain teaching,

allowing or authorizing vaccination. something child needs to make the decision for themselves? they may suffer harm. >> the only caution is cannot and this is why, it's got to be strict scrutiny. we got to make sure we are not saying this could affect the child's future so we will have government aircraft absent of these or neglect. every decision a parent makes some of vaccination, religion are bringing them church this

could impact the future we have very strong views it is why i come back to scrutiny. >> i agree with you, they certainly need better training. parents have a right to deny any type. it is important they have that right to deny. i know there's probably conservatives and what conservatism is supposed to be about.

also a comment about never terminating and she kept poisoning the children. those were offenders who would not stop instantly they are determining. >> the they find homes for them without terminating the relationship we all know in reality continues to exist. no shot from the parent is going forward no matter how imperfect they are terminating right --

what happens among other things the government cousin and he races the name on the birth certificate. what we can do in the private adoption world has learned a lot of lessons in the forefront of public option. you can't replace a family as if they never existed and what you can do is expand relationships. maybe the child doesn't even see that child. contracts as possible while the parent is dealing with a substance abuse issue or mental health issue. generally maga more complex the fact.

and not hate. we can transfer whatever rights we need to transfer to protect the child and the medical decision-making but no reason to cut them off and know the fundamental right for all and i truly believe the look back and wonder how society was able to do that. look there are times for the have contact with their biological child wonder how you and the kids interest in a relationship with. >> it's quite rare. >> but in the private adoption world sometimes express do not

work for the contact. >> and it is a voluntary choice in the idea that the government over your objection make it a different situation even where they go through. where most often it does appear that ends in may reconnect later but at the end of the day it is creating options leaving open the option to connected most kids are going to have that one

is not extinguishing rights not saying we are forever banishing them from their life unnecessary steps to take. it has been shown guardianship creates permanency for children not cutting them off from extended family. >> valid points. we have to consider the child's right. that is best accomplished by guardianship 12 foster family seeing what happens and if

there's a real thing of the parent might come back and harm their child, it's a different issue child's attachment. >> thank you enjoying our panelists, >> democracy is alwayn unfinished creation. >> democracy belongs to us all.

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