Family Reunification

Articles and Reports

• How Incarcerated Parents Are Losing Their Children Forever (The Marshall Project)
• Family Separation: It’s a Problem for U.S. Citizens, Too (The New York Times)
• Jail Will Separate 2.3 Million Mothers From Their Children This Year (Prison Policy Initiative)
• What Los Angeles Child Welfare Leader Bobby Cagle Could Learn from Mick Jagger (Youth Today)
• Inside a mom’s months-long fight to get back her children (LA Times)
• Double Punishment: After Prison, Moms Face Legal Battles to Reunite With Kids (Truth Out)
• Adoption Myths and Racial Realities in the United States (Dorothy Roberts)
• A Shared Sentence: The Devastating Toll of Parental Incarceration on Kids, Families and Communities (The Annie E. Casey Foundation)
• Los Angeles’s Vast Child Welfare System Has a Lot to Teach Rest of Nation (Youth Today)
• The True Cost of Incarceration on Families (Ella Baker Center for Human Rights/Forward Together/Research Action Design)

Tips for Dealing with DCFS

When interacting with the Department of Child and Family Services, here are some things to keep in mind:

• Create a plan. Getting DCFS involved can be avoided if there is a plan in place. If someone you know has been arrested, talk to them about their plans for their children if they are not able to come home right away.
• Lend your support. If you know someone whose child is in the DCFS system, ask if you can write a letter to the court on their behalf or consider becoming a visit monitor.
• Be mindful. Do not call DCFS on someone unless you are absolutely certain that a child is in danger. Don’t assume a child is being abused just because he or she has a bruise.
• Be vigilant. When DCFS wants to conduct a search, confirm that they have a warrant. However, only do this, if you feel safe to do so.
• Educate yourself on the dependency court system, using the resources on this website, and consider writing to your representatives to ask them to create legislation to fix the system.
• Don’t assume that people who are going through dependency court are bad parents. Children can end up in the foster care system for a variety of reasons not directly related to bad parenting.