'Systemic bias and injustice' in Kandiyohi County fight over child custody

CATHY WURZER: Our next story involves a tense custody battle. Over two children in Kandiyohi County, which is in West Central Minnesota has left the boys stuck in limbo. Minnesota's state law is supposed to prioritize relatives in foster care and adoption, but since 2020, the two children at the center of this story have lived in four foster homes in Minnesota, despite their aunts fight to adopt them.

Sara Tiano reported this story for The Imprint, that's a nonprofit news site covering child welfare in collaboration with the locally-based Sahan Journal. Sara is on the line. Thanks for being here.

SARA TIANO: Hi Cathy. Thanks so much for having me on today.

CATHY WURZER: Let's see if I get the story right. Now, these two boys need a caregiver. They need a living relative to step in. Tell us a little bit about their aunt, who is she, and what's going on just generally speaking.

SARA TIANO: Right. So this case was really interesting to us for a number of reasons. It's not uncommon for folks to reach out to our publication with stories of the challenges they're facing and the child welfare system, but in this case, the aunt who is a woman named Ashley Boone, who lives in Tulsa, has qualifications that most would assume would make her a prime candidate to adopt.

She herself is a child protective services social worker, meaning that as her job, she is the one in Tulsa who takes care of children in foster care and finding them homes, and she's also a licensed foster parent herself. The other piece about this case that really caught our interest was that after years of Ashley fighting to get custody of her nephews, state officials actually stepped in and overturned an adoption contract with the foster parent because they felt the case had been mishandled and that Ashley hadn't been treated fairly.

That is not something that happens a ton. So she had state officials backing her, as well as folks like the local chapter of the NAACP, yet she still can't get the children. Like you mentioned Cathy, she's been trying to bring these two boys in since 2020. As soon as she found out that they had been taken from their parents, she reached out to the social services agency saying that she wanted to care for them. But so far in a number of ways has been barred from doing so, and entered into a pretty intense custody trial this year over it.

CATHY WURZER: So I understand, as you've reported, the court has so far sided with the current foster parents who want to adopt the boys. What's the court's reasoning on this?

SARA TIANO: Right. So that's kind of shifted a little bit over time. At first, the social workers in charge of the case wanted to keep the children local. Like I mentioned, Ashley lives in Tulsa. But they wanted to keep the children local in order to give their parents a chance to get the help that they needed, go through some services, and hopefully be able to reunite with the children themselves.

When it became clear that that was not going to happen and their parental rights were terminated, the argument kind of shifted to this idea that the children had become too bonded to their foster parent, and therefore it would harm them and create a regression in their growth if they were to be moved, even if they were being moved in with a relative like Ashley.

CATHY WURZER: Attachment theory. Can you explain? Does that have legitimacy in psychological studies?

SARA TIANO: That's a great question. I will front load this by saying that there are many people who study attachment theory for a living. I am not one of those people. But basically, it's a concept that dates back to the 1930. It focuses on the importance of a child's relationship with their primary caregiver, and the idea that separation from that caregiver creates adverse developmental effects on the child.

It is a theory that has been gaining a number of critics, especially as it pertains to child welfare because it's quite common to be used in child welfare proceedings, like it was in this case. And a number of both psychological experts, social workers, professionals in the field of child welfare are questioning the legitimacy of the scientific basis for the theory, and the way that it's been used to drive interventions, which often kind of result in families being separated.

CATHY WURZER: By the way Sara, how is the issue of race play into all this? I know that children are Black, the foster mom is white. What of that?

SARA TIANO: So yeah, the children are biracial-- they have one Black parent and one white parent. The aunt is Black, the foster parent is white. You know, how that plays into this particular case, you're going to get a different answer depending on who you ask, right? The folks supporting Ashley believe that she is facing bias, systemic racism. And like I mentioned the NAACP found it concerning enough that they spoke up on her behalf.

And of course, the folks on the side of the foster parent disagree. They think that this is not about race. They think this is about what's best for the kids. The reality in child welfare as many of your listeners may not be surprised to hear is that Black children and families fare worse in the system at every stage. They have higher rates of investigation, they're more likely to have their children removed into foster care, the children end up staying in foster care longer, and there are much lower rates of Black families being reunified as opposed to white families.

CATHY WURZER: Gosh, what does this say about the child welfare field?

SARA TIANO: I'm glad you asked that. I think a lot could be said about this case and what it means. One thing that's important to know is that most kids who are removed from their parents care do have family members who can and want to take care of them to keep them within the family unit.

It's not uncommon for relatives to fight for that, but it's often a more quiet fight. Not everyone has the resources to hire a private attorney, the know-how of the system to navigate it like Ashley does. And the fact that she still can't bring her nephews home really shines a light on maybe some cracks within the way the system is working.

This case also honestly shows how odds can be stacked against Black women specifically in family court. Like I mentioned, Ashley has stellar qualifications and skill sets, and it often appears that those skills, those tangibles were overlooked with those in charge of the case, instead judging her based on things like her body language in the courtroom and other superficial perceptions. But to be fair, family courts make really tough decisions every single day about where children should live in the face of immediate risk.

And what we know less about is how in any one case, children are going to fare in the long run. So it's not an easy job to make these decisions. Folks are having to weigh the concept of moving a child who's doing pretty well, like these kids are, and uproot them again in hopes that they're going to do better in the long run. And that is what an abundance of research suggests that kids ultimately do better when they can stay with relatives

CATHY WURZER: Sara, final story. Can you tell us where this court case is right now?

SARA TIANO: Yeah. So the court case is currently being appealed. Like I mentioned, Ashley still has not been able to bring her nephews home, even through this custody trial. So she's appealing the judge's decision to bar her from adopting them. As it stands, the children remain with the foster parent. And again, by all accounts, the foster parent is doing a great job and the kids are well cared for. But in the meantime, Ashley and her family are still fighting for them.

CATHY WURZER: All right. You laid out quite a story here, Sara. Thank you so much.

SARA TIANO: Thank you.

CATHY WURZER: Sara Tiano is a reporter with The Imprint. She reported this story in collaboration with Sahan Journal. You can read the series at sahanjournal.com.