The same report found that judges admit they often routinely approve requests to take away children even when they don't really believe the child savers have made an adequate case. Since all that is necessary to make such a determination is for a judge to check a box on a form, the figure undoubtedly underestimated the extent of the problem. Courts in New York City and Illinois have found that families are repeatedly kept apart solely because they lack decent housing. The federal government never seriously enforced the reasonable efforts requirement and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that individuals couldn't even sue to have it enforced. Children do not languish in foster care because of reasonable efforts.
Children languish in foster care because of the lack of reasonable efforts.
Once the children are taken away, they are filed away and forgotten. And none of this is surprising. But if a child is left at home and something goes wrong, workers may be fired, judges transferred, and all face the wrath of the media. That child in that home is a reality before the worker's eyes. The dangers of foster care, physical and emotional, however real, are an abstraction the worker will never see.