They tell you they’re taking your child for their safety. That’s the phrase. For their safety. Now listen to this. A study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that children in group foster care homes were more than 28 times more likely to be abused than children in the general population. Twenty-eight times. So whose safety are we really talking about?

This is the Father’s Advocacy Network podcast. I’m Adam Neuerburg. Today we’re going inside the homes and group facilities where the state sends the children it says it’s protecting. What kind of abuse happens there. Why the system keeps missing it. And three North Carolina cases where children passed through the state’s own pipeline and ended up dead.

The foster care system exists for one reason. To protect children from harm. That’s the promise. But according to a growing body of research, children placed in foster care may face higher rates of abuse and neglect than children who stay with their families. Even families that Child Protective Services has already flagged. Read that again. Even the families CPS flagged. In the Johns Hopkins study, group homes were the worst, at more than 28 times the general population. But even in traditional foster homes, the abuse rates were significantly elevated. And the abuse takes every form. Physical abuse: excessive discipline, physical punishment, and assault by foster parents or by other children in the home. Sexual abuse, with elevated risk especially in group homes and overcrowded placements. Emotional abuse: isolation, verbal degradation, and failure to provide basic emotional support. And institutional neglect, where warning signs get missed and children’s own reports get ignored.

If you’re a parent listening right now with a child in care, I know that’s hard to hear. But you deserve the truth, not the brochure.

So why does this happen? The report points to several root causes. And none of them are accidents. They’re built into how this system works. Start with screening and oversight. How foster parents get screened varies dramatically from state to state. And follow-up visits after a child is placed are often infrequent, or missed entirely. The Government Accountability Office has repeatedly flagged these gaps. Think about that. The state scrutinizes every corner of a parent’s life before it takes a child. Then it places that child in a stranger’s home, and sometimes nobody comes back to check.

Then there’s caseload. The Child Welfare League recommends 12 to 15 families per worker. According to the report, many workers actually carry 30 to 40 or more cases at the same time. Meaningful oversight becomes nearly impossible, and warning signs go undetected. Now, you know what the system’s answer to that will be. More workers. More money. But that gets it backwards. These agencies are pulling in children whose families could have been supported at home, and then they can’t keep watch over the children they’ve already taken. The fix isn’t a bigger agency. It’s fewer needless removals, and real accountability when a child in state custody gets hurt.

Next, placement instability. Children who go through multiple placements are at significantly higher risk. Every move disrupts a protective relationship and makes the child more vulnerable. And according to the report, approximately one-third of foster children experience three or more placements. About one in three. Three homes or more. Every one of them a new set of strangers.

Now I want to show you what this looks like when it ends in the worst way possible. North Carolina’s child welfare system has come under intense scrutiny after a series of cases where children passed through the foster care and adoption pipeline and ended up dead, under circumstances suggesting prolonged abuse the system never caught. I’m not going to name these children. They deserve better than to be remembered only for how the system failed them. But you need to know what happened. Rowan County. A 13-year-old adopted girl. Her disappearance wasn’t reported until July 2013, even though authorities later determined she had last been seen in November 2011. Her adoptive parents gave conflicting accounts, including a false claim that she had gone to live with a grandmother in Asheville. Her remains weren’t found until 2016, in Chesterfield County, South Carolina. The North Carolina medical examiner concluded she died from, quote, homicidal violence of undetermined means. Her remains showed multiple blunt-force injuries, fractures in various stages of healing, low bone density, and a growth deficit consistent with long-term maltreatment and malnourishment. Fractures in various stages of healing. That means it didn’t happen once. And according to reporting, no post-adoption follow-up or tracking mechanism ever detected that a child placed through the state’s own pipeline was missing. For nearly two years.

Cumberland County. Fayetteville. In November 2023, a 911 call related to a mental health crisis led police to look more closely at one family. What they found was almost unthinkable. Two adopted children had been missing for years. These weren’t children outside the system. Reporting tied them directly to North Carolina’s foster care and adoption pipeline. They were adopted after moving through county child welfare services. In March 2026, a grand jury indicted their adoptive mother on charges including two counts of murder, two counts of concealing a death, kidnapping, and child abuse. According to the indictment, the boy was allegedly intentionally deprived of food and suffered serious bodily injury. The remains of both children were reportedly recovered from a barrel.

Surry County. Mount Airy. January 2023. A 4-year-old adopted boy was taken to Brenner Children’s Hospital after a medical emergency. Child Protective Services contacted the county sheriff’s office on January 6th. He died on January 9th, from a brain injury. His adoptive parents were charged with first-degree murder and felony child abuse. According to search warrant reporting, there were allegations he had been restrained, isolated, and subjected to abuse the adults framed as an exorcism. Four years old. In the home of the people the system approved to be his parents. That placement was supposed to mean permanence. Stability. Safety.

Different years. Different homes. Different counties. The same failure. Children who had already been through state review, placement, or approval still ended up dead, under circumstances suggesting prolonged abuse that was never caught. And North Carolina’s own actions prove this isn’t a few isolated mistakes. In 2025, the state launched PATH NC, a statewide system meant to bring all 100 county social services departments into one data system. And the state has taken over county child welfare operations it deemed too unsafe, including Vance County in May 2025 and Davidson County in January 2026. The sixth such takeover.

So let’s step back and ask how so many children end up in this system in the first place. According to the report, citing federal data, 75 percent of foster care removals start as neglect. Not abuse. Neglect. And poverty is overwhelmingly the driving factor. Children are being removed from loving homes because their parents can’t afford adequate housing, childcare, or food. And then they’re placed into a system where they face demonstrably higher risks. Let that sink in. The family’s problem was money. And if that child lands in a group home, the research says the risk of abuse is more than 28 times the general population. What exactly did we protect that child from?

And the research on what actually works points the other way. According to the report, children who stay with families receiving in-home support show better outcomes than children placed in foster care for similar allegations. Placement with relatives consistently produces better safety outcomes than placement with non-relatives. And community-based programs reduce both maltreatment and unnecessary removals, by addressing root causes instead of symptoms. The answer was never a bigger system. It’s keeping families together whenever that can safely be done, and holding the system accountable every time it takes a child and then fails them.

If CPS is in your life right now, here’s what you can do. This isn’t legal advice. FAN is not a law firm. But these steps matter. One. Document everything. Every interaction with caseworkers, every court date, every service you complete. Names, dates, times, and what was said. Write it down the same day. Two. Know your rights. The report points to the right to an attorney, the right to see the evidence, and the right to a fair hearing. Ask your attorney, in writing, what each of those means in your case. Three. If your child is placed, push for relatives. Ask in writing whether a family member can take your child, and give the agency names. Kinship placements consistently produce better safety outcomes. Four. Watch for warning signs, and write them down. If your child tells you something during a visit, or you see something that worries you, record it that day. Then put it in writing to your attorney and the caseworker, and get the full names of the caseworker and their supervisor. Five. Learn how CPS investigations work in your state, and build your network. Connect with advocacy organizations and parent support groups. You don’t have to do this alone. For help with your case, go to fathers advocacy network dot com slash case help.

The full research report, with every source we used, is at fathers advocacy network dot com, in our foster care research section. If this episode made you angry, good. Share it with one person who still thinks foster care is automatically the safe choice. And follow the show, so you don’t miss the next one. I’m Adam Neuerburg. This is the Father’s Advocacy Network. Let the silenced speak.