The System Fails to Screen for the Most Dangerous Risk - Us

I was raised with two worldviews, one ancient, one modern.

My mother is Ethiopian, from a culture that is rich, spiritual, and thousands of years old. It follows its own values, traditions, and rhythms, with little influence from the Western world. My father is African-American, born and raised in the United States. I was born and raised in Liberia, West Africa, a nation shaped by its own history but closely tied to the United States. My classmates were the children of missionaries, diplomats, and business leaders from across the globe.

From a young age, I understood something many people never have to: there is no single “right” way to parent. Culture shapes everything.

That truth grounded me. But when I entered the child welfare system as a child protective investigator, I quickly realized the system didn’t require that understanding. Yes, we received training on cultural competence, but training alone doesn’t expose professionals to this reality.

I remember one case vividly. A mother, a migrant worker, left her five children in the care of her 14-year-old daughter while she went to work for days at a time. She was arrested for child neglect and lost custody of all her children. But this wasn’t neglect. It was a cultural difference.

I tried to explain to my colleagues: in many cultures, including mine, this is normal. My parents had nine children. As the oldest girl, I helped raise my younger siblings. In much of the world, there are no childcare centers on every corner. Parents rely on older children or relatives. That’s not “inadequate supervision.” It’s just a different way to parent.

I remember that mother in court, trying to understand what was happening through an interpreter.

I still think about those siblings. When they entered foster care, they were split into different homes. One child was Baker Acted multiple times. The older children were placed in group homes. Though we were able to advocate for reunification within a few months, I often wonder: What were they exposed to during their time in care? Did their mother receive the tools and support to repair the harm the system caused? What healing was even possible after that kind of disruption?

The child welfare system claims to rely on standardized tools and objective assessments. But what’s written in statute is interpreted through people. And people come with histories, biases, traumas, and blind spots. We ALL do.

And I’ve seen what happens when those blind spots are weaponized.

In one of my podcasts, I shared a hypothetical example: a young woman who grew up in a home with domestic violence becomes a child protective investigator. She’s educated, qualified, but hasn’t dealt with the trauma from her own childhood. She begins investigating families. She walks into a home like mine, where a proud father asserts authority over his household. Her unresolved trauma whispers: This reminds me of my father. That whisper becomes a removal. Her projection becomes the case plan.

This doesn’t just happen with investigators. It happens with Judges. With therapists. With evaluators. With case managers. With anyone who holds power over a child’s fate.

The system doesn’t screen for emotional wellness. It doesn’t ask if people have done the work to heal. It doesn’t check for bias or worldview. And even if it did, who would enforce it?

Families are forced to comply with recommendations made by people who may be unwell, unhealed, or completely unaware of their own cultural assumptions. That’s the dangerous lie of the child welfare system: that it’s neutral, objective and fair.

In reality, it’s a free-for-all.

Caregiver assessments use words like “diligent,” “vigilant,” “protective,” and “appropriate” but those words are entirely subjective. They mean whatever the person holding the clipboard decides they mean. There is no true standard, just people with unchecked power, shaped by their own beliefs and experiences.

We say the system is about safety. But safety for whom? Who gets to define what safety looks like?

Let’s be honest: child welfare values are rooted in whiteness. That’s the cultural standard families are held to. It’s baked into policy and procedure. And that’s why, even when Black professionals are in charge, we still see racial disparities. The structure hasn’t changed. It just changed faces.

And here’s a hard truth: any parent who claims they’ve never made a poor decision is in denial. We’ve all had lapses in judgement. But only some of us are punished for them. Only some of us are surveilled, judged, and pathologized. And it’s rarely about the behavior, it’s about who you are, where you live, and how close your parenting style is to white, middle-class norms.

Until we confront the fact that this system gives professionals the power to act on their own trauma, bias, and cultural judgments, without checks, without accountability, we will never stop harming families.

There is no policy fix for projection.

There is no training that can erase someone’s worldview.

But there is one thing we can do:

Take the power away.

Until this system demands emotional health, cultural humility, and real accountability from those who wield power, no family should be at the mercy of someone else’s unhealed wounds.