> Foster kids don't get locked in cages.

Not locked in cages ? What do you suppose happens to these kids if they were to, say, go back to their biological parents. Just walk out. And before you say "no bars, no locks", it is actually the case that large pieces of the justice system has no bars either.

Something is a cage if you can't leave. If violence will be used to return you to that place, that takes the place of locks. Those kids are very much locked up.

> We have people in our homes checking on the kids at least once per week. They get seen outside of our home without us around several more times per week. These kids are in constant contact with people in the system, therapists, their bios, etc. If we were harming them, people would know.

If you were PHYSICALLY harming them, yes. Psychologically you must realize that those people, for those kids, are a threat. Each of those individuals is a risk for them to get placed away from you, again. If they see something (even misinterpret something, totally out of context), they will get ripped out again. My point is this is the exact opposite of safety, this is far worse than daily beatings. In other words, those people are there to protect family judges and child care investigators from getting accused of causing abuse, they aren't there for the safety of the child at all.

Reminds me of the scene in "instant family" in the hospital where the child sees the foster parents trying to tell the truth about the nail accident. IMMEDIATELY the child panics, tears in her eyes, and refuses, with an initial angry fit and shouting to her foster parents (whom she really does not want to lose) to let the child care worker talk to anyone but her. Why do you suppose she has this reaction ? Do you not see the treat ? Do you think it would have been the first time that sudden re-placement for a dumb reason without asking her happened to her ?

Here it is: https://youtu.be/GcrDSzfaydo?t=220

And let me assure you, compared to what you sometimes read in child protection papers, this was a very mild reaction by that child. Very often a child will respond to such an event by running away. I hope you can understand where such a reaction comes from.

And let me ask you. If you had zero control over your own life, but had 10 people regularly have a conference and if at that conference decisions are made, they are implemented with brutal violence on you. Would you consider this a way to avoid harm to you ?

No. You wouldn't. Such a situation would inflict harm. You would never feel safe. You would never feel in control. Which is of course exactly my point.

Which is why you are harming those kids. And I get it, you can't fix it. You can't stop it. That unfortunately doesn't change the fact that you are harming them. But as I'm sure you've heard often in foster care: the world just isn't fair.

> We form and break bonds as humans, ALL THE TIME. Being able to form and break bonds is a necessary and healthy part of life. If a child can't form a bond they will have more issues develop as they mature.

First, we're talking about parental bonds. Those are definitely not formed all the time, outside of birth. Do you form bonds on which you will be totally reliant for 20 years "all the time" ? I sure as hell don't. Nobody does, not even kids.

> How is child placement supposed to make child abuse go down? Child placement exists because there are parents who are not currently able to make safe choices for their children. Child placement is not meant as some deterrent. The legal system is supposed to be the deterrent in this situation.

The idea is that children who are abused get placed, stopping the abuse. This is not happening, which brings the whole point of placement in question.

> Children shouldn't get beaten. Ever.

No, you should NOT HARM CHILDREN. And when you don't have a choice, you should pick the one with MINIMAL harm for the children. This does NOT mean you should protect children from everything, that itself is child abuse.

Aside from the fact that the vast majority of cases there was no beating of the children by the parents, so this just doesn't apply. Does it apply to your foster kids ? But even where it does: the damage done by placement is far greater than the damage a parent does by beating child. That's the point I'm making here.

Furthermore, children will explore boundaries. That means they will push you until you react with violence (e.g. ideally a slap). If you let them push and push and push, you and the child will lose control and it will lead to disaster, because their behavior will intensify and intensify without bound. So I do hope you make this very important exception to the simplistic "no beating children, ever" statement.

Simplistic catch-all answers just lead to disaster in kids, just like everywhere else.

> ... the investigators will do their best to help the parent find and build a support network so that the child(ren) can have a safe place to stay while the parent works.

I have calculated how much time an investigator can spend on a child before a decision to placement is made by taking their working hours (optimistically, without lunch or bathroom breaks), divided by caseload. I came to 23 minutes per month. That includes the court case (there is no investigator in the actual court case by the way, just a short report by the investigator is read). Explain to me how these people do what you say they're doing ? How do they even drive to the house of these children (of course, plenty of stories online with claims investigators never saw the child before placement, and nobody in court, save the parents, saw the children before the case, so there's that). Can you explain how they even check anything in those 23 minutes ? Because what you're saying sounds very, very hard to believe.

So allow me to say: no, they don't. Investigators just don't do this. They may send childcare workers that do this (and as said, judging by stories online, they often don't), but they are most certainly not doing this themselves.