Public filings show 13-year-old Jade Smith was reported missing near the Brooklyn Bridge hours before she was found in the East River. A federal lawsuit alleges that New York City’s child welfare system failed at the moments that mattered, from mental health planning to placement oversight to missing-from-care response. This story follows what the record shows, and what the sealed record keeps from view.

No state has ever fully met federal child welfare standards, and families keep paying the price. This DCF Chronicles investigation breaks down ten systemic failures, from collapsing caseloads and placement chaos to service deserts, due process gaps, and oversight that arrives only after tragedy.

When the state takes a child, it claims the power to protect. Across the country, documented cases show what happens when that promise collapses, removals triggered by low-severity claims, warnings ignored in placements, children harmed, missing, or dead, and accountability arriving late, if it arrives at all.

A child welfare case can be decided by what gets typed into a file. This “When Case Notes Lie” installment uses documented court findings to show how falsified reports and distorted records can fuel removals and rip families apart.

Across much of the country, child welfare agencies have used foster children’s Social Security benefits to reimburse government expenses, leaving many youth to age out with nothing. Federal pressure is rising to end the practice. The unanswered question is whether restitution will follow.

Paris Golec says her daughters Abigaile and Natascha were taken from her in May 2017, and that what followed was not protection, it was procedure used as a weapon, across state lines, across courts, and behind closed records. After reading her entire blog, I wrote this to put her account where more people will actually see it, and to expose the systemic failures that allow a mother to report a crisis while the system re-labels it as “civil” and lets time do the damage.

West Virginia’s child welfare system is spending millions to ship foster kids out of state while investigations fail at home, oversight breaks down, and children end up in crisis placements. This report lays out the documented pattern.

Connecticut’s child welfare agency is under fire after two babies died and another nearly overdosed while under its watch. Investigations reveal ignored warning signs, skipped safety checks, and no accountability. Families trusted DCF, but instead children were buried.