When "Sesame Street" adds a character and a story line to its fabled neighborhood, people notice. In May, the show's creators introduced Karli, a Muppet in foster care, and this month they revealed the reason for her situation: Her mom struggles with substance abuse.
In supplemental "Sesame Street in the Community" videos available online, Elmo's dad explains to him that "Karli's mother has a disease called addiction. Addiction makes people feel like they need a grown-up drink called alcohol or another kind of drug to feel OK. That can make a person act strange in ways they can't control." Elmo and Karli, a green plush 6 ½-year-old with yellow ostrich feather pigtails, talk about "grown-up problems" and how sharing can help if you're sad or scared.
Karli's separation from her mom might seem too harsh for the "Sesame Street" audience, but because the videos are available online only, parents and caregivers can decide if kids should see them.
In fact, the programming does us all a favor with its honest depiction of what fractures families. Substance abuse is the primary reason for the foster care crisis in this country. And "Sesame Street's" spotlight on it could help redirect our cities and states toward a better approach to confronting it.
Last year, a record 440,000 children were in foster care in the U.S. "Neglect" is the most common reason for removing kids from their families, but it is a very vague category. And too many people assume that neglect means poverty.
As a columnist for the Arizona Republic wrote: "[The Department of Child Safety] removes the most kids from high poverty ZIP codes. That's no coincidence." A caseworker who was featured in the HBO documentary "Foster," about child welfare in Los Angeles County, told Rise Magazine, "This is not a child safety crisis. It's a poverty crisis, a racism crisis." The New York Times ran an article called "Live in a Poor Neighborhood? Better Be a Perfect Parent."
And yet the data doesn't line up. Child poverty has reached historic lows in recent years in the U.S., while the number of children removed from their families is growing. On the other hand, government figures clearly show that counties with high rates of drug overdose deaths and hospitalizations also have high rates of severe child welfare cases. At a recent conference sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, federal and state officials estimated that more than 80% of the nation's foster care cases involved substance abuse.
Unfortunately, specific data linking child welfare cause and effect are inconsistent and somewhat contradictory. Why is it, for instance, that California reports to the federal government its removals due to substance abuse at slightly more than 10% for kids over the age of 1, while in Colorado that number is close to 70%? Or why is Louisiana listing substance abuse as a factor in 8% of cases for kids under the age of 1 when Kentucky lists it in half of its cases?
