Articles And News

The hunger of parentless children is palpable, as a visitor to a Haitian orphanage captured so eloquently in her blog. Unfortunately, we do not have to travel to watch children who live without families beg to be held—both physically and emotionally. Children in our foster care system, who have been separated from parents who are…

Suppose that you are a foster parent with four children in your care. One of the children is excited about going trick-or-treating. One child knows nothing about the holiday. One comes from a family that does not celebrate the holiday for religious reasons. The fourth is a new arrival who is easily frightened and who…

This is the complaint of a foster mother who last month had three-year-old Jesse delivered into her care. Not only will he not sit still, he fidgets while she is trying to read him a story and gets up from the dinner table without asking. He frequently bumps into things when he wanders around the house because he doesn’t…

Over the last twenty years we have been amassing evidence that negative experiences in early childhood have life long deleterious effects on physical and emotional health. Early maltreatment results in years of emotional pain, chronic illness, and, too often, premature death. As David Brooks reminds us the multiple lenses through which we have been able…

Many years ago I was asked to make a recommendation to the court about the fate of a toddler whose mother had been raised in foster care. Mother and daughter arrived at my office and immediately headed for a basket of toys. Sadly, the mother was more interested in playing with the toys herself than in helping or enjoying…

A pregnant woman undergoing methadone treatment may find herself in an extremely difficult position. According to a recent article in The Daily Beast confusion, uncertainty, and disagreement among professionals may put expectant women in danger of losing their infants to the foster care system if they are considered to be drug addicted because they are receiving methadone to manage opiate…

Teenagers are interested in sex. Not only are they interested, but many of them are having sex. Some of them become parents as a result; in fact, seventy-one percent of young women in foster care will be pregnant before the age of twenty-one, many of them more than once. Yet, according to a recent article…

Last Wednesday morning, the movers arrived at the office we had occupied for five years. By Friday afternoon, we were more-or-less settled into our new space. In all respects, the move from one end of San Francisco to the other went seamlessly—nothing was lost or broken; all of the furniture fit, as expected; and we…