A new child welfare journal, Family Integrity & Justice Quarterly, recently released its inaugural issue, which focused on harms created by the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA). The journal’s editors and writers point out problems with ASFA’s passage and implementation, including the lack of American Indian and Alaska Native leaders in drafting the law, the preference for adoption over other forms of permanence, and built-in biases that continue to perpetuate systemic racism. “We believe the harm and injustice caused by ASFA are overwhelming and must be abolished,” editors-in-chief Jerry Milner and David Kelly write in the forward of the issue. “It is an outdated law with oversized deleterious effects on children, families, and communities.”
Each issue of the journal will address topics in the child welfare field that the editorial team believes needs to be reconsidered to achieve a child welfare system devoted to family well-being. According to the editors, the goal of the journal is to inspire readers to do the following:
- Reflect on how you are causing, contributing, or perpetuating harm
- Integrate lived experience into your work
- Call for congressional action
- Share the publication with colleagues
Volume 2 of Family Integrity & Justice Quarterly will be released in April 2022. It will focus on definitions of neglect and mandatory reporting laws that act as barriers to equity and justice. To learn more, visit the journal’s page on the Family Integrity and Justice Works website.