By Ted Roelofs: For Complete Post, click here…
Decades ago, Michigan’s Children’s Protective Services program created a list to serve a simple goal: protect youngsters by identifying adults who posed a serious risk to their safety.
There are now upwards of 300,000 names on the state’s Central Registry — indeed, too many, according to a growing chorus of child-safety experts, foster care advocates and parents. They argue that the registry too often flags adults who pose no danger to children, separating families, staining reputations and potentially harming the foster-care system the registry was designed to safeguard.
“One of the unintended things that happened with laws like that in Michigan is that they created a very wide door as to who gets placed on this registry,” said Phil Decter of Evident Change, formerly the National Council on Crime & Delinquency and the Children’s Research Center, a nonprofit focused on improving social support systems.
