A selection of The Imprint’s most impactful stories from the past year
Krystal Harris’ son entered foster care at age 6, and her parental rights were terminated when he turned 8. Her son went on to 40 placements in the child welfare system.
The situation would appear to make Harris a candidate for Minnesota’s law permitting parents to seek a reinstatement of their rights if the system failed to find permanency after years of trying, an option now available in roughly 22 states.
But as Farrah Mina reported, just two of the 17 parents who have appealed termination of parental rights rulings since the law took effect in 2019 have succeeded.
In California, lawmakers worked to provide more time to many parents before a termination of parental rights was ever on the table. State lawmakers could decide otherwise. A bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in October grants parents six more months to participate in counseling, domestic violence programs and substance abuse treatment before courts can consider permanently severing them from their children.
On The Imprint Weekly Podcast, Vivek Sankaran and Christopher Church joined to discuss their recent law journal article laying out three arguments against the rate at which many child welfare systems terminate parental rights. “The Ties That Bind” lays out data, outcomes and legal reasoning to support that idea.
