LINCOLN — Growing up, Terrell McKinney didn’t cross paths with the child welfare system directly.

But the North Omaha native knew plenty of other children who had gone through an abuse or neglect investigation or been removed from their homes and placed in foster care.

That’s hardly a surprise, given that more than half of Black children in the United States experience a child welfare investigation before they reach adulthood, a higher rate than for any other racial or ethnic group, according to a 2017 national study.

In addition, more than 1 in 10 Black children wind up in foster care before age 18, as do 1 in 6 Native American children — two and three times the rate for children overall, another national study found.

Now a state senator, McKinney has launched a legislative study of the outsized number of Black and Native children in Nebraska’s child welfare system. He said their disproportionately high involvement contributes to the broader problems facing Black and Native communities.

“The disproportionality is a driver in low educational outcomes, low health outcomes, involvement in the juvenile justice system” and in adult prison sentences, he said. “The child welfare system in Nebraska is horrible.”

McKinney’s study is among recent efforts to rethink long-standing disparities in child welfare in light of the racial reckoning brought about by the killing of George Floyd in 2020. A former Minneapolis police officer was convicted of murder in connection with Floyd’s death, which focused national attention on policing policies and racial inequities.

Now, some advocates are drawing parallels between law enforcement and the child welfare system, suggesting that child welfare be renamed the “family regulation system” or “family surveillance system” for its effects on minority communities.

“While the intent is to provide supports and services to ensure these families can safely remain together, the system does not always accomplish this and can have the opposite effect,” Allison Derr, senior staff attorney with Nebraska Appleseed, wrote in a May blog post.

“Children and families very frequently emerge from this system even more traumatized and harmed, with their families invaded, policed, separated and thrown into cycles of system involvement and poverty,” she said.

“And this is often unjustifiably so in response to reports of clear poverty or those based in racism.”

Both Black and Native communities have traumatic histories of families being torn apart — Black children who were separated from their families during slavery, Native children who were taken from parents and placed in abusive boarding schools designed to erase their culture.

Evidence of their disproportionate involvement in the modern child welfare system, both nationally and in Nebraska, has been around for decades. The disparities start with higher numbers of calls to the state’s child abuse and neglect hotline and extend throughout the system.

Reports from multiple sources show that Black and Native children are more likely than peers of other races to be investigated, removed from their homes, stay longer in foster care, experience multiple placements, and age out of foster care without either being adopted or returned home.

In Nebraska, Black children are 3.4 times more likely to be investigated for child abuse or neglect than White ones, according to a recent Human Rights Watch study. The disparity between investigations of Black and White children is the third largest of any state.

The same study showed that Native children in Nebraska are 4.63 times more likely to be investigated than White ones. The disparity is the fourth largest of any state.

In 2020, Black children were 2.6 times more likely to wind up in foster care than their proportion of Nebraska’s child population would predict, according to an analysis by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.

Native children were 3.9 times more likely to be in foster care than their proportion of Nebraska’s child population. That was in 2020. Just seven years earlier, the proportion of Native children in foster care was as much as 7.9 times greater.

Black children in Nebraska spent longer in foster care than White children — 661 median days for Black children versus 399 days for White children, according to the latest quarterly report from the state’s Foster Care Review Office. Differences occur even for the youngest children. Black children ages 0-5 spent 547 median days in care versus 353 median days for White children.

Anahi Salazar, policy coordinator for Voices for Children in Nebraska, reminded state lawmakers at McKinney’s interim study hearing that disproportionality is more than just data.

“Behind each number is a child who experienced the trauma of removal, the turmoil of instability in placement changes and less of cultural connection, and the legal undoing of relationships and family ties,” she said.

Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services officials did not testify at the Friday hearing, opting to submit written testimony instead. In a statement to The World-Herald, officials did not directly address racial and ethnic disparities in child welfare.

“(The department) is statutorily obligated to respond to allegations of abuse or neglect made to the Child Abuse & Neglect Hotline,” the statement said. “The hotline receives over 30,000 calls annually and cannot control the demographic makeup of reports received.

“The ultimate decision to remove a child from a home is not DHHS’s. Law enforcement may take a child into protective custody or a court order is required to remove,” the statement continued.

“DHHS continues to initiate programs such as alternative response to keep children in their home if possible. In addition, thorough and ongoing mandatory training is required for all new hires and current staff to ensure that strict processes are followed for what is in the best interest of the child.”

Advocates point to multiple factors that contribute to disproportionalities in child welfare.

One is a Nebraska law requiring everyone to report suspected abuse or neglect, with the aim of preventing cases from falling through the cracks. Last year that resulted in more than 34,000 reports, which led to more than 18,000 investigations. But only 6% of the reports were substantiated as abuse or neglect, a total of 2,080 cases, according to DHHS records.

Schalisha Walker, child welfare program coordinator for Nebraska Appleseed, said the law means calls coming in from people with little knowledge of a family or of what constitutes abuse or neglect under state law. Reports also are influenced by callers’ personal opinions and biases.

“There is a lot of interpretation to be made,” she said.

Child welfare workers can bring their own potential biases and blind spots to the job of investigating reports and deciding how to handle children and families, Derr said. Salazar called for more training so workers better understand cultural differences and strengths among minority communities.

Another factor is the broad definition of neglect in Nebraska law. The definition includes a child being “deprived of necessary food, clothing, shelter or care,” conditions that typically result from poverty rather than from parents who don’t care about their children, Derr said.

Larger numbers of Black and Native children live in poverty, compared with White children, which makes them more likely to be involved in neglect cases.

State records show that some 80% of Nebraska cases labeled as child maltreatment are because of neglect. That can mean having the utilities turned off in a house or having little in the cupboards to eat. It can also mean allowing children to play outside unsupervised or living in crowded conditions.

Neglect remains the most common reason for children to enter Nebraska’s child welfare system despite the state’s increased use of alternative response, a program aimed at helping families reported to the state hotline without involving them in the child welfare system.

Legislative Bill 1000, introduced by State Sen. Ben Hansen of Blair during the last legislative session, sought to narrow the definition of neglect. Among other things, the bill would have limited neglect to situations in which parents willfully refuse to provide care for their children, despite having the ability to do so. The bill failed to advance and was indefinitely postponed.

Derr said the current situation means that some families are reluctant to seek help because they fear being reported by community agencies.

But school officials and law enforcement authorities are the most frequent reporters of child abuse or neglect. Law enforcement officials report cases to HHS as well as investigate cases. In Nebraska, they also are the ones charged with removing children from homes, which exacerbates mistrust of law enforcement, McKinney said.

On Friday, the senator said he hopes his legislative study will bring attention to disproportionality and lead to solutions rather than lip service.

“I hope that today will spark a real intentional effort and conversation to make the necessary changes to improve our child welfare system for our children and families,” he said.