To Aid Welfare Children at Risk, Take Them Away to Safe Havens : Their needs should come first, ahead of neglectful parents’ rights. This would be true reform of a dysfunctional system.

Ending poverty in America must rely on programs that reinforce individual fortitude. Those who lack this moral backbone will soon become the undeserving poor. As with other political mandates, rich in rhetoric and piecemeal solutions, ideology that describes the poor is central to the mission of gaining popular acceptance for welfare reform. This is precisely why the imagery of the welfare mother on the dole and the deadbeat dad becomes so powerful in the national welfare debate: It allows us to simplify whom we are willing to support during times of economic duress and whom we are willing to let go. It also allows us to ignore the truly invisible and voiceless poor of America, the children.

Yet daily we are bombarded with the reality of these children--in the media, in the streets and in our schools. The drug-exposed infants, the sexually and physically abused, the runaway and throwaway children. They become victims of the trickle-down welfare programs targeted to their parents--policies that place the biological entitlement of the parent as the major determinant on the quality of life for the child. Thus, if we deem the parent unfit to receive welfare support, the child, too, loses.

To propel the welfare debate in a new direction, we need to decouple the link between biological parent and child. This is crucial not only for determining needs, but also for determining appropriate public strategies. We have examples of programs that do this: school meals, health care for poor children. But there is little coordination, and funding relies increasingly on the benevolence of policy-makers.

We also need to shift our focus away from parents toward society’s responsibility. As difficult as it is to accept that parents may not love or be able to care for their children, we must stop eulogizing the loss of “the family” and trying to re-create it through federal policy. The crisis in the family cuts across society, but poor children are at greater risk.

All children must have an alternative when the family environment is disruptive or destructive to their personal well-being. For example, a recent study by the Children’s Defense Fund illustrated that the Los Angeles County Department of Children’s Services had open files on approximately one-fourth of all the children who died in 1989; more than one in five of these cases had confirmed reports of domestic violence in the household. How many other children in Los Angeles survived 1989 and the brutality of their family life, and how much longer will we act as accomplices to a failed state and federal welfare policy that places parental rights above children’s rights?

Consider the possibility of abused or neglected children having the option of living in a residential school or community home. Here, we could marshal our resources to buffer these children from the violence of poverty and abuse. We could also avoid duplication of services. Residential programs would provide a nurturing and secure environment where children do not have to witness the daily degradation of their parents, withstand verbal or physical abuse or fear going to school. They would allow older children and hard-to-place children who are removed from their homes to avoid the heartbreak of the revolving door of foster care, where their dreams of a permanent home are rarely realized. They would also alleviate the pressure from a foster-care system where inadequate regulation puts children at greater risk of future abuse.

School districts could coordinate after-school care for those with learning disabilities or special needs with residential programs. Social workers, physical therapists, nutritionists and educators could help rebuild self-esteem and hope for these children. Parents who are not abusive should maintain their rights of contact with their children, but we should recognize that the parents’ needs are secondary.

Our current policy has not created greater equality and economic security for our children. With every round of welfare reform, we resurrect the image of the family and parental responsibility as the cornerstone for alleviating poverty. We assume that by infusing our morality into parents, it will trickle down to the children. It is time to bury our family rhetoric and examine and respect the individual rights of children. It requires us to look beyond the umbilical cord to create a meaningful future for our youth.