A mother we recently supported had her newborn removed after concerns were raised that ultimately proved to be untreated postpartum depression. With therapy, parenting support, and consistent advocacy, she reunited with her baby. But they were separated for nine months during a crucial period of child development.
A father of a child who has autism lost custody of his son because of inadequate housing. We spent weeks helping him secure an appropriate apartment so they could be reunited. The stress of separation took a toll on the child.
These families had something important in common: they were both helped by a parent advocate, but that person only became involved after the children were already in foster care.
We believe separations like these can be avoided if families receive parent advocate support earlier.
New York City has reduced the number of children in foster care by nearly 90% over the last 30 years, reflecting significant investment in prevention, kinship care, and community-based services. With a new child welfare commissioner and an administration focused on equity, we have an opportunity to build on that success by bringing more people with lived experience into prevention services before children enter foster care.
We come to this work from different perspectives. One of us is the CEO of a child welfare organization and a lawyer by training who previously worked in government to ensure New Yorkers received the social services they needed. The other is a parent advocate who works alongside biological parents whose children have entered foster care, helping them navigate the system and reunify with their children.
From both perspectives, we see opportunities to better support families before separation occurs.
Parent advocates bring something distinctive to the table. They can connect with families in ways that other child welfare workers sometimes cannot. They help frightened or angry parents feel heard, explain a complicated system, and encourage engagement with services. Most importantly, parents know the advocate is there to support them and they trust them.
Yet the way prevention services are funded can make it difficult for agencies to hire them.
Under city prevention contracts, providers have flexibility to hire either case managers or parent advocates. That forces an impossible choice. Agencies must maintain enough case managers to carry required caseloads and must prioritize the case manager over a parent advocate. But we know that families do better when both are available to them.
The city should provide dedicated funding for parent advocates within prevention programs. That would allow these advocates to work alongside case managers and clinicians and reach families earlier, providing a trusted person to help navigate the system. This will make the difference between a family remaining safely together and a child entering foster care.
No child welfare system will ever be perfect. Decisions about whether a child can safely remain at home involve uncertainty. Professionals sometimes must make life-changing decisions without having every fact or knowing what will happen next.
That uncertainty makes early, trusted support more important. It will enable us to more often safely avoid separation.
New York City has demonstrated what is possible when we invest in keeping families together. Now we should take the next step: provide dedicated resources for parent advocates so providers no longer have to choose between essential roles and families can benefit from this support before a crisis becomes a separation.
Children are safest when families are strongest. We should give families every tool we have to help them stay that way.
Scalia is CEO of JCCA. Shaw is a parent advocate with JCCA.