Across the country, an unregulated system is severing parents from children, who often end up abandoned by the agencies that are supposed to protect them.
Across the country, unregulated “shadow” foster care is severing parents from children who often wind up abandoned by the system that’s supposed to protect them.
Listen 15 min MORE One mother was left with heartbreak and questions after she lost her son to the foster care system. Illustration by Alex Charner for Latino USA.
Baby Joseph had an infectious smile, and he sweetly danced his little moves to Baby Shark when his mom streamed the song on YouTube. Like most moms, Leah Garcia videoed it all. Unlike most moms, it’s now all she has left of her baby son, an archive of just five months of life, the age when he was taken from her by LA’s child protective services.
Just over one year later, Joseph Chacon died in foster care, one of more than a dozen children to die in the last five years while in the custody of LA’s Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS).