Blog Post 10, Option 1

I believe that Roberts did a very good job in supporting most of the claims that she made. She references many different studies and research professionals throughout her writing. She also doesn't just site one source but provides several examples for each new idea.

The first place I think she does very well with this is on pages 16-19 when she talks about the separation of children from their parents. She states, "The child protection philosophy that has reigned for the past three decades has served Black families poorly. The worst part of this punitive approach is that it unnecessarily separates Black children from their parents." Roberts supports this with a "national study of child protective services by the U.S. Departmetn of Health and Human Services [which] reported that 'minority children, and in particular African American children, are more likely to be in foster care placement than receive in-home services, even when they have the same problems and characteristics as white children'" (Roberts, pg. 17). She later states that "the most critical choice they (caseworkers) make is whether to remove the child from the home or to provide services to the family while keeping it intact" (Roberst, pg. 17). This separation causes a lot of pain and trauma to the child. Roberts quotes the director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, Richard Wexler, "Children do not oblige us by hating their parents the way we may think they should. Often, neglected children love their parents just as much as our children love us. Tearing children from their parents almost always leaves emotional scars" (Roberts, pg. 18). She also quotes Seth Farber, a psychologist, "One does not need to be a child psychologist to realize the devastating effect of removing a child from parents with whom he or she is deeply bonded" (Roberts, pg. 18). Though Roberts is making strong claims, she is successfully supporting them with numerous reliable sources.

I also really liked the way Roberts explains the relationship of poverty and the child welfare system. She explains it as a "parallel" or correlation, but not necessarily a causation. She says, "Why is the child welfare system filled with poor children? There are three types of associations between poverty and child maltreatment: maltreatment may be indirectly caused by parental poverty, detected because of parental poverty, or defined by parental poverty" (Roberts, pg. 27). Roberts then breaks them down into the three different types and explains them in more detail with her sources. 

Overall, I think that Roberts is very strong in supporting her claims. Nothing stuck out to me as questionable or unsupported within these first 3 chapters of Part 1. I like how she uses her own words but also pulls together countless outside resources to support what she says.