Child Protection Services under fire to help Black families
Parents, attorneys, activists and community supporters of the bill gathered in the Minnesota House after the final committee hearing of last year’s legislative session on March 28, 2019. Kelis Houston is second from the right in the second row, seated between Rep. Rena Moran and activist Sharon Greene. By: Dwight Hobbes, The Spokesman-Recorder
"The narrative has been created by Hennepin and Ramsey County that Black parents are abusive, use drugs, are so stressed out by poverty they beat their kids,” Kelis Houston of Village Arms, a nonprofit supporting African American families impacted by Child Protection, told the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder (MSR).
The repercussions of this narrative have proven disastrous for many of the state’s Black children. Concerned parents and their advocates are determined to redress these harmful practices through a bill in this year’s state legislative session because "Black Families Matter".
A September 12 MSR story, “The fight to keep more Black kids in their homes,” introduced the proposed Family Preservation Act. Due to the grave importance of this legislation to the Black community, this second MSR story further examines the practices that are “severing Black children from life as they know it,” in the words of one advocate, and talks with the people who are insisting this stop.
