Thread by @nytimes

Across the country, an unregulated system is severing parents from children, who often end up abandoned by the agencies that are supposed to protect them, @lizziepresser reports in an article for @NYTmag published in partnership with @propublica nyti.ms/3GkczPr

@lizziepresser @NYTmag @propublica When caseworkers separated sisters Molly and Heaven, they dropped Heaven off with her friend’s parents and Molly was committed to an inpatient psychiatric facility. Ten days later, a woman showed up and said Molly was coming to live with her. nytimes.com/2021/12/01/mag…

@lizziepresser @NYTmag @propublica It would take years before Molly and Heaven learned that neither of them was ever in the foster system. Instead, caseworkers had diverted them to “hidden foster care” or “shadow foster care,” in which the legal protections of the formal system disappear.
nyti.ms/3GkczPr

A quarter of a million children are taken into formal foster care every year, but roughly the same number are moved into this shadow system, called “kinship diversion” or “voluntary kinship placements.” No federal law governs the shadow system. nyti.ms/3GkczPr

Over the past decade, states have increasingly institutionalized hidden foster care. Rather than bringing an investigation before a judge, caseworkers persuade parents to send their children to live with someone they know, often by using threats. nyti.ms/3GkczPr

What parents rarely know is that the shadow system is not designed to support their children. The government isn’t required to ensure the safety of placements with the thorough home visits and health screenings that federal law requires with foster care. nyti.ms/3GkczPr

“They did this to us for no reason? This wasn’t normal?” In @NYTmag and @propublica, read @lizziepresser on how the shadow foster care system fails teenagers like Molly and Heaven Cordell. nyti.ms/3GkczPr