Family Justice Resource Center

05/29/2026

This expansion of predictive analytics in child welfare should concern every parent. Algorithms are not neutral. Predictive models in child welfare are built by people, trained on historical data, and shaped by institutional judgments about what counts as “risk.” They often draw on administrative records from health care, schools, social services, prior reports, child welfare systems, and forensic medical evaluations. The assumptions, errors, and biases embedded in those systems are inherently ingrained in predictive models.

NEW: ACF announced $6 million to help states, territories, and tribes pilot predictive analytics in child welfare to improve child safety and caseworker decision-making.

Technology tools like predictive analytics can help jurisdictions achieve a 1:1 ratio of foster homes-to-children in foster care nationwide by ensuring families are kept together, when appropriate, and placements are made quickly when necessary.

More: https://acf.gov/media/press/2026/acf-announces-6-million-states-pilot-predictive-analytics-child-welfare

05/29/2026

Parental rights protections vary dramatically across the country.

Some states recognize parental rights through both statute and court precedent. Others provide only partial protections, or none at all.

Our 2026 analysis found:

• 46% of states have statutory parental rights protections
• 64% apply strict scrutiny protections in court
• 22% remain unprotected

See the full state-by-state breakdown in The State of Parental Rights in America 2026: https://www.parentalrightsfoundation.org/the-state-of-parental-rights-in-america

05/27/2026

05/27/2026

Declining foster care numbers are often treated as evidence that fewer children are experiencing family separation. What we see every day tells a different story.

Many family separations now happen outside the formal foster care system through DCFS/CPS‑facilitated safety plans, kinship placements, and guardianship arrangements that are presented as alternatives to foster care. When they are truly voluntary, time‑limited, and supported, these tools can help keep children with family instead of entering formal foster care.

But too often, parents agree to these arrangements under duress, because they are told that if they do not do so, their children will be placed in foster care with strangers. Fearing the worst, they are eager to sign whatever they need to in order to at least keep their children with family members. What most parents do not understand is that by agreeing to these arrangements, they are allowing the state agency to bypass judicial oversight and are depriving themselves of a defined path to reunification.

To learn more, we encourage you to check out www.hiddenfostercare.org

05/21/2026

🙌 We did it! 🙌

Today, the Illinois Senate passed HB 3169, the Protecting Innocent Families Act, following its unanimous passage in the Illinois House earlier this session. The bipartisan bill, sponsored in the Senate by Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford (D), Senator David Koehler (D), and Senator Andrew Chesney (R), will now head to the Governor’s desk to be signed into law.

For a small nonprofit led by personally impacted parents, this moment is historic.

For years, child abuse pediatricians have played a significant role in child abuse investigations with limited transparency and few formal safeguards for wrongfully accused families.

Parents often did not know who was evaluating their child, what credentials those professionals held, how their opinions were being used by DCFS, or that they could seek an independent medical opinion.

The Protecting Innocent Families Act establishes important transparency and due process protections for families:

✅ For the first time, child abuse pediatricians and other medical professionals involved in a child’s evaluation will be required to disclose their profession, specialty, subspecialty, and role in the child’s care

✅ Families must now be informed of their right to obtain an independent second opinion, and DCFS must consider that evidence before making a final finding

✅ Parents will now have the right to request and receive a copy of written medical opinions submitted to DCFS

✅ DCFS will be required to publish clear guidance explaining the investigative process, access to records, second-opinion rights, and the right to legal counsel, and hospitals must provide those materials directly to families during a child’s evaluation.

We are deeply grateful to the coalition of legislators, advocacy organizations, and personally impacted families who helped make this reform possible. These reforms bring greater transparency, clearer procedures, and stronger due process protections to child abuse investigations in Illinois.

05/19/2026

🎬 Complicated is now streaming on Apple TV.

Filmed over seven years and premiering at Slamdance, this documentary examines how families caring for children with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and other complex medical conditions can become entangled in child-protection systems while seeking appropriate medical care.

Through the experiences of real families, Complicated explores the consequences of diagnostic uncertainty, limited rare disease awareness, and systemic bias at the intersection of medicine and child welfare.

For professionals in medicine, law, child welfare, and family defense, this film raises important questions about how institutions respond to medically complex children and the families advocating for them.

Parents of children with a mysterious illness face accusations of medical abuse and custody battles while seeking answers.

05/18/2026

The Children’s Bureau, a division of the Administration on Children, Youth and Families within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, recently released its newest Child Maltreatment report, and the numbers are jaw‑dropping. Out of roughly 7.7 million children who were the subject of child abuse hotline calls in 2024, only about 7 percent were actually substantiated as victims of abuse or neglect.

That means millions of children were swept into child welfare involvement with no finding of abuse or neglect. These unnecessary reports and investigations drain scarce resources away from children who are truly in danger and expose innocent families to lasting trauma.

Read the report here ➡️ https://acf.gov/cb/report/child-maltreatment-2024

05/15/2026

As it stands, the Child Abuse Pediatrics subspecialty board examination has a 100% pass rate, calling into question the rigor of the training and certification process (https://tinyurl.com/tmpzx3m4).

Now, the American Board of Pediatrics is moving to shorten fellowship training for from three years to two years.

While Child Abuse Pediatricians (CAPs) present themselves to parents and colleagues as treating physicians within hospitals and children’s healthcare systems, their role is primarily forensic. CAPs work pursuant to contracts and formal working agreements with child protective services, child advocacy centers, and prosecutors to provide medical opinions that become the basis for determinations regarding child removal, termination of parental rights, and criminal prosecution. In a field carrying this degree of medicolegal authority, reducing training standards should concern every institution that depends on the credibility of these determinations.

The American Board of Pediatrics’ new subspecialty training model aims to improve readiness for practice as well as flexibility in training pathways but brings concerns about implementation.

05/15/2026

Stephen Martinez was wrongfully convicted in 2000 after his girlfriend’s infant daughter choked and aspirated in his care, later dying. Doctors believed it was shaken baby syndrome. Martinez was convicted and sentenced to life without parole. The Korey Wise Innocence Project filed a motion for a new trial in 2026 citing changed science and new expert opinions that the infant likely died from pneumonia, not abuse. Martinez was exonerated in April 2026 after 27 years in prison.

05/10/2026

History has a way of being shaped by mothers who refuse to accept a broken system.

This Mother's Day, help us stand with moms across the country fighting for reunification and reform.

Join our Family Defenders Circle. Details in the comments. 👇