Family Poverty is Not Child Neglect Act is Reintroduced

John Kelly - The Imprint

Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wisc.) has been trying to separate poverty from neglect in federal policy for awhile now. She is trying again this year: Moore has re-introduced the Family Poverty is Not Child Neglect Act, a bill she first offered up in 2018 to revise the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, or CAPTA. 

States can apply for and receive grants under CAPTA for specific purposes related to child protection systems, and Moore’s bill adds caveats to two of those allowable uses: “the intake, assessment, screening, and investigation of reports of child abuse or neglect,” and “enhancing the general child protective system by developing, improving, and implementing risk and safety assessment tools and protocols, including the use of differential response.”

In terms of intake and investigation, Moore would add that states must ensure “reports concerning a child’s living arrangements or subsistence needs are addressed through services and benefits and that no child is separated from the child’s parent for reasons of poverty.”

For risk and safety tools and policies, the bill adds that states “shall not authorize the separation of any child from the child’s parent or guardian on the basis of poverty.”

Imprint reporter Michael Fitzgerald wrote in depth on the Family Poverty is Not Child Neglect Act last year; click here to read that piece. As a teenage college student, Moore had to relinquish custody of her child to a relative. 

“The child welfare system must reflect the reality that simply being poor is not child neglect and sufficient reason alone to separate families, creating unnecessary trauma and hardships,” Moore told Fitzgerald. “I know firsthand that in child welfare cases, where poverty is the only issue causing hardship, children benefit from remaining with their families and accessing the resources they need.”