A Personal Vision of the Future of Child Welfare Law (PDF)

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Volume 41 2007 Looking Ahead: A Personal Vision of the Future of Child Welfare Looking Ahead: A Personal Vision of the Future of Child Welfare Law Law Donald N. Duquette University of Michigan Law School Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjlr Part of the Courts Commons, Family Law Commons, Juvenile Law Commons, and the Legal Education Commons Recommended Citation Recommended Citation Donald N. Duquette, Looking Ahead: A Personal Vision of the Future of Child Welfare Law, 41 U. MICH. J. L. REFORM 317 (2007). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjlr/vol41/iss1/15 This Conclusion is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected].  LOOKING AHEAD: A PERSONAL VISION OF THE FUTURE OF CHILD WELFARE LAW Donald N. Duquette* The participants in the Thirtieth Anniversary Celebration of the Child Advo- cacy Law Clinic were all challenged to envision the future of child welfare and to address these questions: What should the law and legal institutions governing children's rights and child and family welfare look like in thirty more years? What steps are necessary to achieve those goals? After setting out the historical and opti- mistic circumstance in which the Child Advocacy Law Clinic was founded, this Article responds to the organizing questions by presenting the author's vision of the future of child welfare law and practice. When families fail children, what inter- ventions and what process is appropriate? A premise is that our society expects too much of the child welfare system. If America adopted policies to support children and families farfewer children would enter the child welfare system and the courts, thus freeing up capacity to respond to children who really need the assistance. This personal vision of the future of child welfare discusses nine interconnected dimensions of child welfare law and policy: 1) America will address child poverty and strengthen its policies supporting children's families and the institutions that help children grow and develop into healthy and productive citizens; 2) America will be better at preventing child abuse and neglect; 3) Child protective services, the entry point into the child welfare system, will rely more on a rehabilitative ap- proach and less on the punitive, fault-based accusatory response of today; 4) Formal legal process, apart from adjudication, will rely more on problem-solving approaches that include the entire family; 5) There will be less reliance on the courts for routine management of cases, with rights-based application to the courts only where coercive, involuntary action is required to protect the child or to protect parents and children from an overzealous state intervention; 6) Dispositional or- ders will be based on a comprehensive assessment that includes the entire family, generally provide for more contact between parent and child, and rely more on a cadre of professional foster parents; 7) Permanency and stability for the child will remain a centerpiece of American law and practice, but, after the finding of paren- tal unfitness at adjudication, more persons will participate in the permanency decisions and the range of acceptable permanency options will expand; 8) Legal services for children and families will be better organized and also more broadly conceived than today with private and preventive law playing a large role; 9) The education of lawyers and other professionals in child welfare will be more sophisti- cated and increasingly interdisciplinary. * Clinical Professor of Law and Director, Child Advocacy Law Clinic, University of Michigan Law School.  University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform INTRODUCTION In the following pages, I present my personal vision of the future of child welfare law, policy, and practice. Part I provides the his- torical context in which the Child Advocacy Law Clinic and many of the child advocacy organizations of today were developed. This is also the background for America's current child welfare law and policy. Part II contains my reflections on the future of justice for children. Drawing heavily from the presentations at the thirtieth anniversary symposium and the articles in this issue plus my own experience, I set out my own vision of what I hope child welfare law and policy will look like by 2036. I. FOUNDING OF THE CHILD ADVOCACY LAW CLINIC In 1975, the Harry A. and Margaret B. Towsley Foundation of Ann Arbor challenged the University of Michigan with a three-year grant to develop an interdisciplinary program addressing the prob- lems of child abuse and neglect and improving professional training and education in the field. The Law School, the School of Social Work, and the Medical School Departments of Pediatrics and Psychiatry were to collaborate in developing courses, clinical teaching programs, continuing professional education, and re- search and writing. Dr. Harry Towsley was himself a pediatrician. His awareness of and concern for the plight of abused children stemmed from the leadership of pediatricians such as Henry Kempe and Ray Helfer, who in those years led the way in raising consciousness about child maltreatment and urged a broad na- tional response to the problem. The Towsley grant spawned substantial child-focused programs at the University of Michigan, including the University of Michigan Hospital's Child Protection Team, the School of Social Work's Family Assessment Clinic, and the Law School's Child Advocacy Law Clinic. The Towsley Grant came in the context of a national movement that generated legislation and programs throughout the nation.' 1. Many of the macro forces in child welfare came to bear on the development of the UM program. Take my personal story as an example. From 1969 to 1972, prior to attending law school, I worked as a child protection and foster care caseworker for the Michigan De- partment of Social Services in Muskegon County, where I was among the first child protection caseworkers in the State of Michigan. In law school I served as Robert Burt's research assistant for the Child Abuse and Neglect volume of the ABA/IJA Juvenile Justice Standards Project. After I graduated from UM Law School in December 1974, I took a posi- tion as an Assistant Professor of Human Development and Pediatrics at Michigan State [VOL. 41:1  A Personal Vision of the Future of Child Welfare Law 319 The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act ("CAPTA") was passed by Congress in 1974 to improve states' responses to child abuse and neglect.2 CAPTA created the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect and provided funds to the states for child abuse prevention, mandatory reporting laws, and the appointment of guardians ad litem for children when judicial proceedings became necessary to protect the child. In 1975, the U.S. Children's Bureau released regulations for child abuse reporting laws. The ABA/IJA (Institute of Judicial Administration) Juvenile Justice Standards Project was underway during this period and its volume on child abuse and neglect was released in 1977.4 Howard Davidson, Direc- tor of the ABA Center on Children and the Law, stated in his talk at the thirtieth anniversary symposium that the Child Abuse and Neglect volume was very controversial. The drafters were unhappy with the termination of parental rights section and asked Marty Guggenheim, another participant in the Thirtieth Anniversary, to draft a new version of that chapter. In the end, the Child Abuse and Neglect volume, while influential, was never passed by the ABA General Assembly. In 1973, Marian Wright Edelman founded the Washington lob- bying group for children, the Children's Defense Fund. In 1974, adoptive parents founded the North American Council on Adopt- able Children ("NACAC"), still a strong voice for foster care reform. The Juvenile Law Center of Philadelphia was founded in 1975 as a non-profit legal service and is now one of the oldest pub- lic interest law firms for children and youth in the United States. 6 In 1977, the ABA created the National Legal Resource Center on Child Advocacy and Protection, now known as the ABA Center on Children and the Law, the principal child welfare legal policy University School of Human Medicine. At the time of the Towsley grant I was working very closely at Michigan State with Dr. Ray Heifer, M.D. one of the pioneer pediatricians in child abuse and neglect. In August 1976, as a lawyer with a background in social work and medi- cine, I started work at UM Law School with the title of Director of the Child Advocacy Clinic, which really did not exist yet. Our first class of six students started in September 1976. 2. Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974, Pub. L. No. 93-247, 88 Stat. 4 (amended and reauthorized by the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003, Pub. L. No. 108-36, 117 Stat. 800 (codified at 42 U.S.C. §§ 5101-5119 (2000 & Supp. 2004))). 3. 39 Fed. Reg. 43,937 (Dec. 19, 1974) (formerly codified at 45 C.ER § 1340.1-1 to 1340.3-8 (1976)). 4. ROBERT BURT & MICHAEL WALD, IJA-ABA JOINT COMM'N ON JUVENILE JUSTICE STANDARDS, STANDARDS RELATING TO ABUSE AND NEGLECT (1977). 5. See, e.g., Reform Foster Care Now, http://reformfostercare.blogspot.com/ (last vis- ited Aug. 28, 2007) (featuring NACAC blog postings and links to websites advocating for foster care reform). 6. juvenile Law Ctr., About JLC, http://www.jlc.org/index.php/about (last visited Aug. 28, 2007). FALL 2007]  University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform center in the nation. The same year, my friend and colleague Don Bross, from the Denver-based C. Henry Kempe Center for the Pre- vention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect, started the National Association of Counsel for Children ("NACC"). Bross, like myself, was a lawyer working closely with pediatricians responding to child maltreatment. The NACC has been a considerable success. Growing to over 2000 members across the United States, it has be- come the premier membership organization for lawyers who represent children, parents, and state agencies in child welfare law cases. In 2001, the ABA recognized child welfare law as a formal legal specialty and in 2004 accredited the NACC to certify lawyers as specialists in the new field.7 The program is an unapologetic and appreciative imitator of the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical specialties. Also in 1977, Judge David Soukup of Se- attle started a court-appointed special advocate program in his court that eventually spawned a national movement and the Na- tional Court Appointed Special Advocate ("CASA") Association.! Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978. 9 The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 established re- imbursement to the states for the cost of foster care for poor children as an entitlement program and required states to make "reasonable efforts" to prevent the removal of a child from the home and reunify a child with her parent(s).0 On the world stage, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child ("CRC") was adopted in November 1989." The CRC is the most widely ratified human rights treaty in the history of the world, hav- ing been ratified by every recognized government in the world, save one-the United States of America. 2 7. Press Release, Nat'l Ass'n of Counsel for Child., Eighty-Five (85) Attorneys Become Nation's First Certified Child Welfare Law Specialists (2006), http://www.naccchildlaw.org/ training/dociments/NewsRelease6-9-06.pdf. 8. Nat'l CASA, History of CASA, http://www.nationalcasa.org/abouLus/history.html (last visited Aug. 28, 2007). 9. Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, Pub. L. No. 95-608, 92 Stat. 3069 (codified at 25 U.S.C. §§ 1901-1963 (2000)). 10. Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, Pub. L. No. 96-272, 94 Stat. 500 (amended by the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, Pub. L. No. 105-89, 111 Stat. 2115 (codified at 42 U.S.C. § 671(a) (15) (A)-(B) (2000))). 11. Convention on the Rights of the Child, Nov. 20, 1989, 1577 U.N.T.S. 3, 28 I.L.M. 1448. 12. Lainie Rutkow & Joshua T. Lozman, Suffer the Children?: A Call for United States Rati- fication of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 19 HARV. HUM. RTS. J. 161, 162 & n.12 (2006) (noting that Somalia has signed but is unable to ratify the Convention because the United Nations does not recognize its government). [VOL. 41:1  A Personal Vision of the Future of Child Welfare Law When the University of Michigan Child Advocacy Law Clinic ("CALC") began in 1976 in this rich period for child advocacy around the world, it became the first such law school clinical pro- gram to specialize in matters of child abuse and neglect. Our signature approach of representing children, parents and the gov- ernment agency in different counties and with interdisciplinary consultation and advice, began very early in our history. CALC's goals included Towsley's charge to provide interdisciplinary educa- tion in child abuse and neglect but soon incorporated the goals and methodology of the clinical law movement that was also gath- ering strength during this period. One reason for our longevity is the happy coincidence that child advocacy not only addresses an important need in the larger community, but also provides excel- lent clinical legal education experiences. 1 3 There is another aspect of the child advocacy clinic of which I am personally proud and which is regularly celebrated by students in their evaluations. The experience of serving underrepresented and generally sympathetic persons such as allegedly maltreated children nurtures the idealism and altruism with which many law students begin their legal studies. These forces for compassion and public service are scarce and fragile in any society. They can be nurtured and encouraged; or they can be smothered. One of the explicit goals of the Child Advocacy Law Clinic is to nourish and encourage students' natural altruism and commitment to public service. The thirtieth anniversary symposium began with a talk by John E.B. Myers on the history of child protection in America that de- scribed steady progress in extending greater protection and justice for children. 4 Despite their missteps and mistakes, that history por- trays people driven by idealism and altruism and by a commitment to improve the lot of children, and thereby, humanity. On the steps to the Michigan Union, the site of Professor Myers' talk, is a brass plate that marks the spot where, in 1960, John F. Kennedy first an- nounced the idea of the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps, a manifestation of the best of the American spirit, is another example 13. See generally Donald N. Duquette, Developing a Child Advocacy Law Clinic: A Law School Clinical Legal Education Opportunity, 31 U. MICH. J.L. REFORM 1 (1997). For a fuller discussion of the education advantages of family violence clinics generally, see Melissa Bre- ger & Theresa Hughes, Advancing the Future of Family Violence Law Pedagogy: The Founding of a Law School Clinic, 41 U. MICH.J.L. REFORM 167 (2007). 14. See generallyJOHN E.B. MYERS, CHILD PROTECTION IN AMERICA: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE (2006). Myers' talk is available through the JLR CALC Symposium website at http://students.law.umich.edu/mjlr/prospectus/calc.html. FALL 2007]  322 University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform [VOL. 41:1 of high idealism. This is an imperfect world with imperfect people. And it is a cynical world. But, in the words of Max Ehrmann, "the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals and everywhere life is full of heroism. ' ,1 II. PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ON THE FUTURE OF CHILD WELFARE LAW, POLICY AND PRACTICE We challenged the thirtieth anniversary symposium participants to envision the future of child welfare. We asked them to take stock of the law and legal institutions governing children, their rights, and their welfare. How does our society ensure that all children receive a full and fair start in life? How do we best support and strengthen families? What is the law's role in that? When families fail children, what interven- tions and what process is appropriate? In my personal vision of the future of child welfare: 1. Our nation will address child poverty and strengthen its policies supporting children's fami- lies and the institutions that help children grow and develop into healthy and productive citizens. 2. America will be better at preventing child abuse and neglect. 3. Child protective services, the entry point into the child welfare system, will rely more on a rehabilita- tive approach and less on the punitive, fault-based accusatory response of today, and interventions will be based on a comprehensive, coordinated assess- ment process that covers the entire family. 4. Formal legal process, apart from adjudication, will rely more on problem-solving approaches that in- clude the entire family. 5. There will be less reliance on the courts for routine management of cases, with rights-based application to the courts only where coercive, involuntary ac- tion is required to protect the child or to protect parents and children from an overzealous state in- tervention. 15. MAX EHRMANN, DESIDERATA: A POEM FOR A WAY OF LIFE (1995), available at http://hobbes.ncsa.uiuc.edu/desiderata.html.  A Personal Vision of the Future of Child Welfare Law 323 6. Dispositional orders will be based on a comprehen- sive assessment, minimize the disruptions to a child's life, generally provide for more contact be- tween parent and child, and rely more on a cadre of professional foster parents. 7. Permanency and stability for the child will remain a centerpiece of American law and practice, but, af- ter the finding of parental unfitness at adjudication, more persons will participate in the permanency decisions and the range of acceptable permanency options will expand. 8. Legal services for children and families will be bet- ter organized and also more broadly conceived than today with private and preventive law playing a large role. 9. The education of lawyers and other professionals in child welfare will be more sophisticated and increas- ingly interdisciplinary. A. Our Nation Will Address Child Poverty and Strengthen its Policies Supporting Children's Families and the Institutions that Help Children Grow and Develop into Healthy and Productive Citizens 1. It's All One; We're All One In the child welfare system of the future, our nation will strengthen its support for children's families and the institutions that help children grow and develop into healthy and productive citizens. National policies that are family friendly and address health care, education, and persistent poverty will create condi- tions under which families can care adequately for their own children, and fewer children will enter the child welfare system. In our complex and free society, we will always have some percentage of parents unwilling or unable to care for their children ade- quately. But child and family-friendly policies could reduce the number of children entering foster care by as much as fifty per- cent.16 With that reduction the system would have fewer children to serve, and thus would be better able to serve those in its care. 16. This is my personal projection, extrapolating from some of the data that follows showing the link between poverty (which our nation could reduce) and child maltreatment FALL 2007]  University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform For this to happen, child advocates need to get involved and stay involved in politics-both national and local. Our keynote speaker, U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow, with impressive child advocate cre- dentials of her own, offered a view of the national scene and challenged us to put and keep children first. She encouraged the assembled, especially law students, to get involved in politics and community service. In order to put and keep children on the top of the political agenda, their advocates need to be present, capa- ble, and articulate. Child advocates also should get out of our "silos." We should look more broadly at the forces that affect children and families. Consistent with the old parable about babies flowing downstream, we should go upstream and see who it is that is throwing the babies into the river. An expansive scope of public issues affect children most of all-from family support, health care, and education, to scientific research, the environment, and a balanced budget. Consider the range of issues that affect a child's successful pas- sage to adulthood. First is a healthy pregnancy leading to a live birth. The United States now spends more money per capita on health care than any other nation, 17 yet our infant mortality rate, maternal mortality rate, and longevity are among the worst among the industrialized countries.'8 According to one journalist, if we had a child mortality rate as good as France, Germany and Italy, we could save 12,000 children a year.'9 Child advocates should fight for the human right of all children to live healthy lives. Beyond a successful birth, research shows that experiences in the earliest years of life play a critical role in a child's ability to grow up healthy and ready to learn. Early childhood attachments and stability shape lifelong learning competence. The Zero to Three Policy Center, among others, says "[w] hen early experiences fail to support infants or toddlers, their ability to learn, grow, and succeed is compromised. 2 0 Evidence shows that early childhood and the poor penetration of child abuse prevention measures such as home health visitors, parenting education, etc. 17. BUREAU OF LABOR EDUC., UNIV. OF ME., THE U.S. HEALTH CARE SYSTEM: BEST IN THE WORLD, OR JUST THE MOST EXPENSIVE 3 (2001), http://dll.umaine.edu/ble/ U.S.%20HCweb.pdf. 18. UNICEF INNOCENTI RESEARCH CTR., INNOCENTI REPORT CARD 7, CHILD POVERTY IN PERSPECTIVE: AN OVERVIEW OF CHILD WELL-BEING IN RICH COUNTRIES 14 figs.2.1a & 2.1b (2007), http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/rc7_eng.pdf [hearinafter REPORT CARD]; Nicholas D. Kristof, A Short American Life, N.Y. TIMES, May 21, 2007, atA21. 19. Kristof, supra note 18. 20. Zero to Three Home Page, http://www.zerotothree.org (click on "Public Policy" or "Policy Center") (last visited Aug. 28, 2007). [VOL. 41:1  A Personal Vision of the Future of Child Welfare Law 325 attachments shape lifelong learning competence.2' Yet the re- quirements of children and toddlers are rarely addressed in public policy. As we address the needs of children and toddlers generally, we will attend to the needs of the poor and at-risk population who are most in jeopardy of family failure to the point of involuntary foster care. Educators have told us for years that education begins in the home and that a child should enter school having already devel- oped certain skills. Many interest groups are united on the importance of early childhood education, and it should be a topic of political discussion. In Britain, David Cameron of the Tory party has stated that love and attachment comprise the essential founda- tion for success in school.2 2 This is not "mushy" and sentimental stuff but rather reflects the fact that family relationships matter, and matter greatly, in a child's ability to learn. High school gradua- tion rates in the U.S. are about seventy percent-a figure that reflects the poor starting place of many of our children. 3 Working American families are stressed to the breaking point.2 4 The workplace remains inflexible for parents, especially when compared with our European counterparts, and parents working full-time are stretched financially. America should make it possible for working families to support themselves and their children. When we have done so-when we have developed policies that al- low families to care for themselves, to provide equal opportunities for their children to succeed, to spend more quality time to- gether-we will have actualized the true family values in a way that harmonizes left and right. According to one columnist, "there's no better antidote to the selfish individualism and empty materialism that Americans of all political stripes say is corrupting our country" than to encourage adults to spend more and better time with their 21. See generally Robert Crosnoe, Friendships in Childhood and Adolescence: The Life Course and New Directions, 63 Soc. PSYCHOL. Q. 377 (2000). 22. See David Brooks, A Critique of Pure Reason, N.Y. TIMES, Mar. 1, 2007, at A21; see also David Cameron MP-Outside Parliament, http://www.davidcameronmp.com/articles/ outside-parliament-archive.php (click on "David Cameron speech on the quality of child- hood") (last visited Aug. 28, 2007). 23. SeeJAY P. GREENE, MANHATTAN INST. FOR POLICY RESEARCH, HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION RATES IN THE UNITED STATES (2002), http://www.manhattuan4nstitute.org/html/cr-baeo.htm. See generaly Nat'l Ctr. for Higher Educ. Mgmt. Sys., Public High School Graduation Rates, http://www.higheredinfo.org/dbrovser/index.php?measure23 (last visited Oct. 10, 2007). 24. See generally SYLVIA ANN HEWLETTI & CORNEL WEST, THE WAR AGAINST PARENTS: WHAT WE CAN DO FOR AMERICA'S BELEAGUERED MOMS AND DADS (1998). For information about the Families and Work Institute, which addresses such issues, see Families & Work Inst., About FWI, http://familiesandwork.org/site/about/history.html (last visited Aug. 28, 2007). FALL 2007]  University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform children. - Stronger families generally will reduce the number of failing families that fall into the child welfare system. Importantly, we can support children and families without tak- ing away the characteristic American incentive to work hard and earn greater rewards in doing so. Home health visitors, affordable child care, national standards for child care, universal voluntary public preschool, expanded Head Start, paid family leave, and in- centives for businesses to make part-time and flex-time work financially viable are all policies on the political agenda that would support, rather than discourage, families' decisions to work. We can protect children by supporting families. Children in the child welfare system are nearly always from poor families. This is not to say that poor people are necessarily poorer parents, but rather that they are under greater scrutiny than others in our society and that they lack the basic tools and resources to allow them to succeed as parents. The Third National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect found that forty-seven percent of children with demonstrable harm from abuse or neglect and ninety-five and a half percent of endangered children came from 26 families whose income was less than $15,000 per year. A poor child is twenty-two to twenty-seven times more likely to be identi- fied as harmed by abuse or neglect.27 Sarah Ramsey began the thirtieth anniversary symposium with a discussion of child well- being that included documentation of the correlation between poverty and child maltreatment2 8 Poverty is inexorably linked to child maltreatment. Impover- ished communities lack the capacity to assist children. Professor Ramsey says, "[h]igh poverty rates indicate what may be insur- mountable problems for the child welfare system. The child welfare system, in isolation, is unlikely to be able to demonstrate a positive impact on the well-being of the majority of children in its care.29 25. Judith Warner, The Family-Friendly Congress?, N.Y. TIMES, Nov. 10, 2006, at A31; see alSOJUDITH WARNER, PERFECT MADNESS: MOTHERHOOD IN THE AGE OF ANXIETY (2005). 26. ANDREA J. SEDLACK & DIANE D. BROADHURST, U.S. DEP'T OF HEALTH & Hum. SERVS., THIRD NATIONAL INCIDENCE STUDY OF CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT: FINAL REPORT 5-3 tbl.5-1, 5-11 tbl.5-2 (1996). 27. Id. 28. Ramsey's talk is available through the ]LR CALC Symposium website at http://students.law.umich.edu/mlr/prospectus/calc.html; see also Sarah H. Ramsey, Child Well-Being: A Beneficial Advocacy Framework for Improving the Child Welfare System?, 41 U. MICH. J.L. REFORM 9 (2007). 29. Ramsey, supra note 28 at 13. [VOL. 41:1  A Personal Vision of the Future of Child Welfare Law 327 In a recent study by UNICEF, America's child poverty rate was dead last among 24 developed counties.0 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, America's child poverty rate remains just below eighteen percent." Child poverty is a terrific drag on the American economy. In January 2007, poverty experts testified before Congress that chil- dren who grow up poor cost the economy $500 billion a year because they are less productive, earn less money, commit more crimes, and have more health-related expenses.3 2 "The high cost of childhood poverty to the United States suggests that investing sig- nificant resources in poverty reduction might be more cost effective over time than we previously thought. 0 3 Child advocates should pursue a "human capital agenda" in which our country invests in its people.34 Capital, by its very nature, generates more capital. Likewise investment in human capital will generate even more human capital. The United States became the richest country in the world because in the nineteenth and twenti- eth centuries it had the most schooling and the best circumstances to help people develop their own capacities.? But this advantage is eroding, and unless we change our policies, the current work force will be replaced by a less-educated, less-capable work force, to the detriment of America's competitive position in the world. A similar analysis can be applied to health care. Our country needs universal health care, and our businesses need a govern- ment-backed health care system in order to compete with foreign countries where employer-based health care is not the norm. It was recently reported that the average Fortune 500 company will spend more on health care that it earns in net income.36 Child advocates should align with business. While it may be true that what is good for General Motors is also good for America, it is definitely true that what is good for American children is good for America and American business. 30. REPORT CARD, supra note 18, at 6 fig.l .1. 31. U.S. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS, CURRENT POPULATION REPORTS SERIES P60-233, IN- COME, POVERTY, AND HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE IN THE UNITED STATES: 2006, Report P60, 15 tbl.4 (2007) available at http://www.census.gov/prod/2007pubs/p60-233.pdf. 32. The Economic and Social Costs of Poverty: Hearing Before the H. Comm. on Ways & Means, 110th Cong. (2007) (statement of HarryJ. Holzer, professor and visiting fellow at the Urban Institute, Georgetown University Public Policy Institute), http://waysandmeans.house.gov/ hearings.asp?formmode=view&id=5804#Holzer. 33. Id. 34. David Brooks, A Human CapitalAgenda, N.Y. TIMES, May 15, 2007, atA19. 35. Id. 36. Kristof, supra note 18, atA21 (citing Steve Burd, CEO, Safeway Inc.). FALL 2007]  University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform[ Our society can develop child-friendly social policies for soft- hearted reasons, that is, out of sympathy or compassion for cute kids who cannot care for themselves or out of a sense of moral ob- ligation to the next generation. Or we can develop child-friendly social policies out of old-fashioned, hard-headed self interest be- cause these children are our future workers, our future tax base, and our future contributors to social security. In this increasingly competitive global market place, we need our children to grow up to be positive contributors to our society, rather than being drains on our society-poorly educated, in prison, using mental health services, and failing to support their own children and families. But, whatever our motivation, we should end up with child-friendly social policies. B. America Will Be Better at Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect 1. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure In thirty years, America will be better at preventing child abuse and neglect. In the language of prevention, primary prevention is aimed at the whole population, addressing the underlying causes of child maltreatment.37 The child-friendly policies discussed in the previous section are examples of primary prevention efforts because they are directed at all children in all families. Secondary prevention supports families under special stress or with special needs prior to actual reports of suspected child abuse and neglect. Some programs target specific disadvantaged communities and neighborhoods with special services. Even specific zip codes can identify a population where children are at particular risk for child maltreatment and thus where additional voluntary service would be appropriate. Tertiary prevention refers to treatment strategies aimed at people who have already abused or neglected their children to get them to stop child maltreatment and not repeat their previous behavior. Because child maltreatment has a complex set of contributing causes, any approach to prevention must rely on multiple ways to enhance the functioning of parents and families. 37. Anne Cohn Donnelly, An Overview of Prevention of Physical Abuse and Neglect, in THE BAi-rERED CHILD 579, 579 (Mary Edna Heifer et al. eds., 5th ed. 1997). [VOL. 41:1  A Personal Vision of the Future of Child Welfare Law Dr. Ray Heifer... guides our thinking about the goals of pre- vention: With very few exceptions, if one wishes to prevent something bad from happening, the development of something good must come first. Eliminating cholera and dysentery from our society required the development of sewers and clean water systems. Preventing polio required building polio antibody levels in the bodies of our children through vaccination.... Likewise, to prevent child abuse and other adverse outcomes of the breakdown in the interactional systems within our fami- lies, we must enhance interpersonal skills in those very folks. 8 In the future, preventative child welfare services, including ser- vices beyond accusatory child protective services and foster care will be restored. These services have been eroded in the develop- ment of our existing child protection system with its emphasis on reporting and investigation of suspected child abuse and neglect. Earlier visions of child welfare services meant to enhance the devel- opment of children at risk have been "replaced by the expectation that the child welfare field should serve only those children for whom state intervention is essential" to ensure a minimum level of care in as cost-efficient and time-limited a manner as possible. 9 For children and families with specific needs, our society will make services like infant mental health, child guidance counseling, behavior assistance, mental health services, and general health ser- vices widely available. These secondary prevention services will also divert significant numbers of children from the involuntary, coer- cive, and much more expensive child welfare system. Perhaps one of the most promising public health responses to enhance early childhood and prevent child abuse and neglect is the home health visitor. Home visitation for parents is a wide- spread early-intervention strategy in most industrialized nations other than the United States. In these countries, it is free, volun- tary, not income-related, and embedded in comprehensive maternal and child health systems. Although a causative link has not been demonstrated conclusively, countries with extensive home visitor programs generally have lower infant mortality than does the United States. This is despite per capita health spending 38. Id. at 583 (quoting Ray E. Helfer, An Overview of Prevention, in THE BATTERED CHILD 425, 425-433 (Ray E. Heifer & Ruth S. Kempe eds., 4th rev. ed. 1987)). 39. Brenda G. McGowan, Historical Evolution of Child Welfare Services, in CHILD WELFARE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY 10, 35 (Gerald P. Mallon & Peg McCartt Hess eds., 2005). FALL 2007]  University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform in the United States that far exceeds expenditures in other indus- trialized countries.40 Denmark established home visiting by law in 1937 after a pilot program was successful in lowering infant mortal- ity.41 France provides free prenatal care and home visits by midwives or nurses to provide education about smoking, nutrition, alcohol and other drug use, housing, and other health-related is- sues.42 In England, every prospective mother is visited at home at least once before birth, with six more visits typically occurring be- fore the child is five years of age. In the United States, "home visitation has been perceived by many as too costly and unnecessary for all new families. 44 The U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect recom- mended home health visiting in its 1991 report stating that no other single intervention shows the promise that home visitation does.45 Home visitation programs offer an effective mechanism to ensure ongoing parental education, social support, and linkage with public and private community services. The efficacy of prena- tal and early childhood home health visiting has been demonstrated in a number of studies. While we must be cautious in over-selling any social program, 6 such programs have been shown to reduce the number of subsequent pregnancies, the use of wel- fare, the incidence of child abuse and neglect, and criminal behavior.4 7 This non-accusatory support service can increase the number of families providing good quality care for their children and decrease the number of children entering foster care. 40. Gerard E Anderson et al., Health Spending in the United States and the Rest of the Indus- trialized World, 24 HEALTH AFF. 903, 905 exhibit 1 (2005), http://content.healthaffairs.org/ cgi/reprint/24/4/903.pdf. 41. Council on Child and Adolescent Health, Am. Acad. of Pediatrics, The Role of Home- Visitation Programs in Improving Health Outcomes for Children and Families, 101 Pediatrics 486, 486 (1998). 42. Id. 43. Id. 44. Am. Acad. of Pediatrics, The Role of Home-Visitation Programs in Improving Health Outcomes for Children and Families, 101 PEDIATRICS 486, 486 (1998), http://pediat- rics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/101/3/486.pdf. 45. ADVISORY BD. ON CHILD ABUSE & NEGLECT, U.S. DEP'T OF HEALTH AND HUM. SERVS., CREATING CARING COMMUNITIES: A BLUEPRINT FOR AN EFFECTIVE FEDERAL POLICY ON CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT xlvii (1991). 46. DEBORAH DARO, HOME VISITATION: ASSESSING PROCRESS, MANAGING EXPECTA- TIONS (2006), http://www.chapinhall.org/articleabstract.aspx?ar=1438 (click on "full report" and register for free to view a pdf of the full report). 47. David L. Olds et al., Long Term Effects of Home Health Visitation on Maternal Life Course and Child Abuse and Neglect, 278J. Am. Med. Ass'n 637 (1997); David L. Olds et al., Effects of Home Visits by Paraprofessionals and by Nurses, 114 PEDIATRICS 1560, 1566 (2004). [VOL. 41:1