After the Sandusky child abuse scandal rocked Pennsylvania, the state required more professionals to report suspected child abuse. That led to a strained child welfare system and more unsubstantiated reports against low-income families.

Diane Baird labeled her method for assessing families the “Kempe Protocol” after the renowned University of Colorado institute where she worked for decades. The school has yet to publicly disavow it.

A movement to change the child welfare system asks caseworkers to speak up.

The 147-page report, “‘If I Wasn’t Poor, I Wouldn’t Be Unfit’: The Family Separation Crisis in the US Child Welfare System,” documents how conditions of poverty, such as a family’s struggle to pay rent or maintain housing, are misconstrued as neglect, and interpreted as evidence of an inability and lack of fitness to parent. Human Rights Watch and the ACLU found significant racial and socioeconomic disparities in child welfare involvement. Black children are almost twice as likely to experience investigations as white children and more likely to be separated from their families.

More than 3 million U.S. children were involved in an intervention for suspected abuse or neglect in a single year. Advocates say a disproportionate impact on families of color makes reform urgent.

In at least 36 states and the District of Columbia, child welfare agencies use a child's benefit checks to offset the cost of foster care, often leaving them with a tattered safety net as adults.

It's shockingly easy for CPS to destroy poor, Black families.

Public investments in benefit programs could save tens of thousands of children from being victims of child abuse and have important later-life effects on child welfare and overall health.