Immigrant Perspectives on the Nature of How Child Welfare Prioritizes Culture and Family

Background: Nationally, minoritized families are shown to experience grave disparities when placed within the Child Welfare (CW) system. Midwestern specific data also reveals poor outcomes for Latino families under surveillance of CW. Little is known about how the Latino immigrant community perceives the system within the Midwest, a geographical context known for being socially and politically punitive towards immigrants.

Methods: This qualitative study examines the perspectives of the Latino immigrant community towards the Child Welfare (CW) system in Kansas, a jurisdiction with a Historically Punitive Social Political Temperament Towards Immigration (HPSPTI). Using the thematic analysis and the HPSPTI framework, a novel conceptualization for this study, a qualitative focus group was created using convenience sampling. Nine Latino Immigrant women (N=9) in a diverse urban/rural county in Kansas were interviewed.

Results: Findings displayed that kinship within the Latino culture was emphasized as a major strength, the child welfare system was seen as ignorant of cultural values for the family unit and that participants saw policies in the system as punitive to Latino immigrant family values. Conclusions observed from the study were that the Kansas CW system operating in a HPSTI, advantages whiteness by operationalizing family from a white cultural lens, ignorance of Latino immigrant family values made the community feel failed by the system and that ignorance of such family strength maybe a factor in the growing number of Latino’s falling into the system.

Conclusion and Implications: This study advances the knowledge of the perspectives Latino immigrants have towards the CW system. As national numbers reflect a growing number of Latino families coming under the surveillance of the system, the findings and conclusions can serve as critical data used to reform the system and decrease systemic harm.