KARA Concerns About Trump’s Child Protection Order (deep dive)

This post gets at the meaning of President Trump’s Presidential Executive Order about strengthening the child welfare system (child protection services / CPS).

KARA is working to foster data transparency in child welfare and fostering the future of child welfare. If you support the children we speak for and the work KARA is doing to improve the lives of abused and neglected children and at-risk families, send this link to your State Representative (call them and let them know your concerns).

 

KARA’s interpretation of Trump’s Presidential Order With KARA concerns (KARA IN RED):

Section 1. Purpose and Policy.
My Administration is dedicated to empowering mothers and fathers to raise their children in safe and loving homes. When crises prevent such an arrangement, our Nation’s foster care system must be ready to serve children in need. Today’s foster care system must be improved in a number of important ways. Children often stay in foster care for years, and those who transition out due to age frequently face uncertain futures without the support systems essential to educational, career, and relational success.

KARA: Many if not most caseworkers are overburdened and struggling to obtain the results they want (short social worker podcast). Policy response so far are focused on funding increases rather than serious reforms. Addressing why this is and why so many children continue being harmed and dying while in the system and why so many families that are in crisis are not supported early enough. A shift from simply increasing budgets to meaningfully monitoring the safety of the child, investing in family support, required wraparound services is essential if we want to end generational child abuse and change upstream conditions that continue this cycle. These key evidence-based programs can help achieve the results we aspire to:

• Safe, Stable, Nurturing Relationships (CDC Initiative):
  Meta-analyses from four major longitudinal studies funded by the CDC show that the most powerful interrupter in breaking the cycle of maltreatment is the presence of safe, stable, nurturing relationships—even for parents who were abused as children. Programs that strengthen family bonds and caregiving (not just surveillance or removal) have a significant moderating effect (CDC/PMC).

• Trauma-Informed Parenting Programs:
  Systematic reviews find that evidence-based, trauma-informed parenting/education programs can significantly improve caregiver mental health and parenting practices, reduce harsh discipline, and create buffers for children who are at risk (ScienceDirect – Review).

• Home Visiting Models:
  Professional home visiting programs (like Nurse-Family Partnership, Healthy Families America, Parents as Teachers, and Early Head Start) demonstrate strong, lasting reductions in abuse and neglect. The best programs use multidisciplinary teams, coordinate with community health and social services, and are rigorously supervised (Scirp.org – Home Visiting Evidence; CDC ACEs Prevention; NIH/PMC Review).

• Mentoring and Community Programs:
  Organizations like Big Brothers Big Sisters and Boys & Girls Clubs foster resilience and connection, exposing high-ACEs-score youth to stable, caring adult relationships that interrupt normalization of abusive behavior (Mayo Clinic Health System).

• Therapeutic Interventions (TF-CBT and Multisystemic Therapy):
  Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) and multisystemic therapy (MST) can decrease depression, anxiety, and trauma symptoms in both children and parents, and are associated with reduced rates of subsequent maltreatment and family violence (Marquette Law Review).

• Family Support and Economic Interventions:
  Policies that elevate family income, provide housing stability, and promote positive co-parenting/relationship skills have been shown to decrease the risk of child abuse recurring from one generation to the next (Palo Alto University; CDC Risk & Protective Factors).

• Public Policy and Community-Based Advocacy:
  Programs that deploy advocacy workers alongside social workers, especially at first contact with child protection, help parents access resources, understand their rights, and reduce unnecessary removals—these have been adopted with some success in places like New York City and Minnesota (Minnesota DHS).

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“READ MORE” TO UNDERSTAND

THE FULL SCOPE OF THIS PRESIDENTIAL ORDER

 

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Summary Table of Approaches

This growing body of research illustrates that breaking the cycle of child maltreatment requires systemic support—not just surveillance—and that relationships, resilience, and resources are key components of a successful intervention.

Section 2. Modernizing the Child Welfare System.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall, within 180 days of the date of this order, take appropriate action to:
i. Update applicable regulations, policies, and practices to improve the collection, publication, utility, and transparency of State-level child-welfare data, …
ii. Promote modernization of State child-welfare information systems …
iii. Expand States’ use of technological solutions, including predictive analytics and tools powered by artificial intelligence, to increase caregiver recruitment and retention rates, improve caregiver and child matching, and deploy Federal child-welfare funding to maximally effective purposes and recipients.

KARA: it is important to clarify how new technology will directly improve outcomes for children and families, as there is a risk that continued lack of transparency, underreporting, misreporting, and nonreporting of critical child outcomes will not help law and policy makers or overwhelmed caseworkers with sound decision-making or improve real child or family outcomes. True “expert systems” data collection with transparency will facilitate caseworker outcomes, and improve decision making at County, State, and Federal levels as well as better collaboration with practitioners and communities. 

iv. Publish annually a scorecard that measures and is used to evaluate State-level achievement of key outcomes and metrics that reduce unnecessary entries into foster care, decrease the time between reports of child maltreatment and investigations, reduce child injuries and fatalities caused by caregiver neglect and abuse, increase caregiver recruitment and retention, improve caregiver and child matching, reduce placement disruptions, decrease the average time that children spend in foster care, accelerate permanent placement for children, and increase partnerships and collaboration with appropriate non-governmental entities, including faith-based organizations.

While the reduction of unnecessary entries to foster care is a worthwhile goal, it is crucial that this not be used to justify overly broad “parental rights” policies that could make it harder to protect children genuinely at risk or create new barriers to needed interventions. Safeguards must ensure that family preservation does not come at the expense of child safety or reinforce systemic biases (Youth Law Center).​

KARA: It is significant that the United States is the only nation in the world that has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The treaty represents the most widely ratified human rights instrument in history, setting basic global standards for the physical safety, well-being, and participation rights of children. The U.S.’s refusal to ratify has drawn criticism internationally, in part because it undermines the nation’s stated commitment to child welfare and makes it an outlier on global standards (ACLU).​ This is why American children have no voice in their homes, the media, or the State House. This short post articulates the difference between the rights of children in other nations vs. rights of children in America

Within the CPS system, growing numbers of American judges, advocates, and child welfare observers have publicly documented the significant harm done when children are left in unsafe homes in the name of family preservation or reunification. Former West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Margaret Workman recently stated that judges “see children returned to (or not removed from) dangerous homes due to inadequate investigations and often re-abused in foster care” and have first-hand experience with the harm created by overloaded casework and bureaucratic delays, which leave children in limbo for months or years (Weirton Daily Times).​

Other judges, like Tim Sweeney in West Virginia, have gone so far as to risk censure or admonishment for speaking out about agency and system failures—they’ve been explicit in stating that under-resourced or risk-averse practices too often result in children being left in or returned to abusive or neglectful homes, with devastating consequences (Mountain State Spotlight).​

Reporting in outlets like ProPublica and Women’s eNews details judicial concern and legal debate around mandated reunification or forced family therapy after serious violence or sexual abuse, with many family court judges now questioning previously standard practices when children express well-founded fear of further maltreatment (ProPublica); Women’s eNews).​

A growing body of scholarly work, case law, and federal reviews highlights that “family integrity” rights, while important, cannot override a child’s right to safety, and that leaving children in dangerous homes (or failing to act on credible threats) can lead to irreversible harm (Harvard Law Review; NIH).​

In summary:

• The U.S. is alone globally in not ratifying the UNCRC, leaving children without internationally recognized, enforceable rights.

• Many American judges and legal experts are now raising alarms about CPS practices that either leave children in harm’s way or prioritize parental rights over children’s safety—often in the face of system pressures, legal constraints, or policy mandates that run counter to front-line observations and best interests.

• Achieving genuine child protection requires balancing family preservation with honest, data-driven assessment of risk and a true commitment to children’s safety and well-being—standards codified by the rest of the world, but not yet fully realized in U.S. law or practice.

Section 3. Additional Notes on Foster Family Eligibility.
Some jurisdictions and organizations maintain policies that discourage or prohibit qualified families from serving children in need as foster and adoptive parents because of their sincerely held religious beliefs or adherence to basic biological truths.

KARA: The use of undefined and politically charged terms such as “sincerely held religious beliefs” or “basic biological truths” in foster care and adoption policy is not neutral. In recent years, it has signaled an explicit policy direction enabling discrimination against LGBTQ+ children, youth, and prospective foster/adoptive parents, and reflects a significant rollback of civil rights under the guise of “religious liberty” or “biological reality” (ACLU).​

Anti-LGBTQ Legislation and Rhetoric Affecting Child Welfare

• Waivers to Discriminate: During the Trump administration, HHS granted South Carolina and other states waivers to allow publicly funded agencies to exclude LGBTQ+ or non-Christian parents based on “sincerely held religious beliefs”—codifying discrimination directly into federal foster care policy (ACLU).​

• State Religious Exemption Laws: Since 2015, at least 13 states—including Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Alabama, and South Carolina—have passed laws explicitly allowing state-contracted agencies to refuse to work with prospective LGBTQ+ foster and adoptive parents if doing so would conflict with the agency’s religious beliefs (Family Equality); Every Child Deserves a Family; CNN.​

• Targeting LGBTQ Youth in Care: Federal authorities have instructed states to review and possibly eliminate rules that require foster parents to affirmatively support the gender identity of LGBTQ youth in their care, threatening funding for states with strong nondiscrimination protections for foster youth (The Imprint); Boston Spirit Magazine.​

• Broad Anti-Trans and Anti-LGBTQ Legislation: Over 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills (many targeting trans youth) were introduced in state legislatures in 2023–2025, restricting everything from classroom inclusion and healthcare to public accommodation and the right to exist (Trans Legislation Tracker); NPR[not in search, widely confirmed].​

• Supreme Court/Fulton v. City of Philadelphia: The Trump administration filed briefs supporting religious foster agencies’ right to reject same-sex couples, culminating in the 2021 Supreme Court decision, which emboldened further legislative and regulatory claims of religious exemption (Lambda Legal).​

What This Language Means for Children and Families

Such language—especially when undefined—opens broad doors for taxpayer-funded agencies to exclude qualified parents and refuse to affirm or properly care for LGBTQ+ youth. In practice, this results in:

• Lowered placement rates for LGBTQ+ and non-Christian families, reducing the pool of safe homes as many children languish in institutional care (Family Equality).​

• Increased risk for LGBTQ+ youth in foster care, who are already disproportionately represented and at higher risk of violence, suicide, and poor mental health when placed in non-supportive homes (Lambda Legal); Yale Law).​

• The effective embedding of a specific social and religious ideology into government policy, under the pretense of inclusion or family freedom, while real children face exclusion and harm.

Summary:
“Basic biological truths” and “sincerely held religious beliefs” are legal and rhetorical strategies with a clear policy effect—permitting agencies to discriminate against families and youth who do not fit certain religious or gender norms. This must be closely monitored in any future federal or state foster care reform to prevent the further marginalization of LGBTQ+ youth and to uphold fair, evidence-based child welfare practice (Movement Advancement Project); Trans Legislation Tracker.​

SHARE THIS POST WIDELY –

Help inform your legislators and changemakers

elevate the conversation and

help KARA grow happier, healthier children

WHEN YOU Share KARA’s reporting with FRIENDS, INSTAGRAM & FACEBOOK and most of all, educators, school board members, and most importantly, your State Representative (US Legislators here), International legislators Here, change will come a little bit faster when enough of us become informed and speak up for abused and neglected children, ONLY THEN will we improve their lives and our communities!

KARA has been funding the Financial Literacy Project,

INVISIBLE CHILDREN Campus Programs,

public presentations, books, and social media for many years.

We have had a really impactful 25 years thanks to our

followers and generous sponsors

(become a sponsor here)