Analyzing the Importance of Religious Matching in the American Foster Care System
At 14, Amal Mohamed left her home in Egypt to join her mother in Detroit, Michigan, a woman she had only seen four times. Eight months after her arrival, she was removed from her mother's care due to what Mohamed's lawyer described as "severely extreme abuse." Mohamed recalls that she agreed to live with her mother because she "felt compelled to give her a chance. I loved her and was looking forward to living with her." Eventually, Mohamed spent a year and a half moving between the Davenport shelter in Detroit and the Guiding Harbor group home, then known as Girlstown Foundation, in Belleville. Despite offers from two non-Muslim families to adopt her, she refused, hoping for a Muslim home to take her in. "I was primarily afraid of losing my identity as a Muslim, more than as an Egyptian because I was open to any Muslim family," she explained. Unfortunately, she never found one.
The lack of religious matching in the foster care system is an issue that doesn't affect many, but for those it does, the impact is profound, thus warranting a discussion about potential solutions to this problem. One potential solution is to adopt mandatory religious matchmaking into the American foster care system. However, this solution creates constitutional concerns, specifically with the First Amendment’s Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses.
Although religious matchmaking likely cannot be mandatory in the broader American system due to constitutional issues, state actors can implement the following solutions to ensure Muslim children at least have the option to feel that their religious concerns are being taken seriously. To achieve this, the state must address the shortage of Muslim families participating in the American foster care system by mitigating discriminatory screening measures and, at the very least, enhancing competency training for non-Muslim foster parents.
When considering potential short-term solutions to the problem at hand, it's essential to recognize that states cannot guarantee a specific number of Muslims will sign up to be foster parents, even with the best recruitment efforts. However, what the state can do to create a more comfortable environment for Muslim children in foster care is to develop an Islamic awareness cultural competency training program. Surprisingly, 83 percent of Americans admit they know little or nothing about the religious beliefs and practices of Muslims. Despite these knowledge gaps, 53% say they don't know anyone who is Muslim, and a similar percentage (52%) say they know "not much" or "nothing at all" about Islam. This lack of familiarity is reflected in surveys where Muslims consistently rank among the least favorably viewed religious groups.
The goal of this program should be to help non-Muslim foster families understand the core tenets of Islam and the ways in which they are practiced. Child Protective Services (CPS) should create the program by collaborating with local Imams, sociologists, and social workers to develop a curriculum that can be transformed into a video series. While this may require states to allocate funding and resources, the long-term societal benefits far outweigh the financial costs. To minimize expenses, the series can also serve as a reference for the future.
On a long-term basis, to prevent Muslim children from being placed in non-religiously matched foster homes, state and nonprofit organizations should work together to increase the recruitment of Muslim foster families. Potential strategies could involve contacting local Muslims to discuss the possibility of fostering children or collaborating with local Mosques to launch campaigns aimed at encouraging Muslim foster family applications. For instance, Imams could promote foster care during Friday sermons or daily prayer services, emphasizing Islam's encouragement to care for orphans and children in need.
In summary, the weight of religious matching is evident in the stories of Muslim children in the foster care system who experience cultural and religious identity crises in adulthood. These issues arise from the scarcity of Muslim foster families, who may be hesitant to foster children due to concerns related to Islamophobia, cultural differences, or privacy. In addressing these issues, the government should reevaluate its approach to religious matching in the American foster care system. This should begin by, at the very least, recognizing the significance of religion in child development and establishing a concrete method for measuring if states are genuinely making "reasonable efforts" to religiously match children.
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In an article titled “Analyzing the Importance of Religious Matching in the American Foster Care System: A Case Study of Muslim Children,” Duriba Khan, a recent graduate of the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Law, calls for a re-evaluation of the current approach to religious matching in the American foster care system. Khan’s paper emphasizes the importance of recognizing the role of religion in child development and highlights the tangible impact it has on children’s lives. Those interested in reading the full paper should follow this link: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4566504.