If children are a society's most precious resource, then why do we treat the most vulnerable among them?

Those who were abused and neglected by their parents and placed into foster care so badly?

It's a question that should deeply trouble all Americans. Here's why.

There are approximately half a million children in foster care in the US.

Those who age out of foster care without finding a permanent adoptive family

face a much higher likelihood of homelessness, substance abuse, and even sex trafficking

than those who do find a permanent adoptive family. To use just one example,

one in six of California's state prison population has spent time in foster care.

Given these grim numbers, the goal of the foster care system should be clear.

Find the best, most nurturing environment for these children to put their lives back together.

Sadly, this is not what usually happens. When children are removed from their biological

families because they are in danger, the first, and in many cases, the only priority of our child

welfare system is to keep the family together. Even when children have been physically or sexually

abused, even if they have been deprived of food or health care, even if their parents are so

strong out on drugs they cannot function. That's right, the goal of the foster care system is to

reunite children with the same parents who abused or neglected them. If you think this is likely to

lead to disastrous outcomes, you'd be right. Of the dozens of examples I could cite here or too.

In New York, Julia Batty's had been taken away from her mother shortly after birth. Little wonder

since the mother had lost custody of her four older children in 2013 over safety concerns.

In 2021, over the strong objections of her grandmother, Julia was returned permanently to her mother.

A few months after that, she was dead, beaten to death by an older step sibling.

Julia was seven years old. In Los Angeles, the Department of Children and Family Services ignored

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