2026 Legislative and Policy Proposals to Invest in Families and Reduce Investigations and Separations, Explained.

By Mahima Golani

In recent years, parent- and youth-led activism in New York City and state have focused on reducing child welfare involvement by strengthening families’ economic stability, expanding community infrastructure for family support and limiting the reach and harm of the child welfare system.

As research has documented, investigations alone leave harmful effects on families and many concerns reported to the state hotline do not require a child protective response. While the city and state have taken steps to reduce the enormous scope of child welfare investigations, New York State’s investigation rate was still 17% above the national average in 2024—and rates are even higher upstate.

The NYC investigation rate was 29 per 1,000 children, while the rate upstate was 40, meaning that investigations are 37% higher outside of the city. Many zip codes across Broome, Erie, Onondaga and other counties have investigation rates that are twice as high as even the highest-impacted communities in the city, with 1 in 6 children experiencing an investigation each year.

Visions developed by Rise, YouthNPower, Black Families Love and Unite and the Narrowing the Front Door Work Group emphasize the need for a limited child welfare agency and expansive and reparative investment in families and communities.

This explainer examines how current legislative and policy proposals align with these visions and with research on investments and practices that curb child welfare involvement.

Significant research highlights how New York can better use the levers of economic policy and neighborhood investment to protect and invest in families.

Policies that protect against economic hardships and setbacks reduce investigations, maltreatment and family separation. Yet the safety net in New York provides too little cash to live on and is unpredictable, burdensome and stigmatizing while leaving families vulnerable to state intervention. 

Economic policy in New York can be redesigned to better protect and invest in families by increasing and shifting cash assistance to unconditionally invest in families, and expanding tax credits and guaranteed income. Expanding support for families of newborns and infants is particularly important to reducing family separation. Many of the following proposals align with recommendations from the Governor’s Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council (CPRAC) designed to cut child poverty in half over 10 years. 

SPOTLIGHT: Coalitions and campaigns including the NEW YORK STATE CASH ALLIANCE, END POVERTY NOW! INCREASE CASH ASSISTANCE, NEW YORK CAN END CHILD POVERTY and SNAP4ALL fight for cash supports and basic needs for New York families.

In addition to cash support, universal access to high-quality pre-K and child care has wide-ranging benefits for children and is among the most effective strategies for reducing both child poverty and child welfare involvement. An additional $1,000 spent by states on child care assistance per person living in poverty is associated with a reduction of 40% in hotline calls, 35% in substantiated maltreatment, 63% in removals, 50% in child fatalities due to maltreatment. A recent study found that New York City’s Universal Pre-K was associated with a 7 to 22% reduction in investigation rates for neglect, and this effect was especially pronounced for the city’s Black and Latino children.

New York State can also shore up access to basic needs, like food and medical care to protect against federal cuts. 

Decades of research shows that where a family lives influences a wide range of outcomes, including health and mental health, economic mobility, crime and child development. 

Neighborhood conditions shape family stress, safety, connection and access to resources in ways that can safeguard against or compound hardship. They determine what is easily available to families—or not—in daily life: access to quality schools and childcare, safe public spaces and services, reliable transit, social gathering spaces, or collective action networks. Much neighborhood research has focused on the social fabric—the relationships between people and between informal groups and associations, neighborhood organizations and institutions, that knit a community together. Studies have offered some evidence that child welfare involvement can be reduced by strengthening the social fabric, which enhances access to basic needs and social support networks.

Neighborhood-based strategies can offer another tool to support families and combat family stress and separation.

Parents who rely on city programs and services report needing navigation support that is cross-agency, supportive and peer-centered. Families facing hardships confront barriers like mistrust, stigma and shame, time scarcity and fear of judgement and consequences, including ACS involvement. They name solutions including trusted messengers, peer-based models, neighborhood proximity and proactive outreach. Word of mouth is how parents 
say they learn about resources––through people and organizations they trust. 

At a community conversation in Brownsville this fall, residents shared what they wish for neighborhood investment, including: assistance with groceries and toiletries, community clean-up initiatives, grief counseling, respite childcare, and music, art and dance programs, among others. Research shows that local community groups are often central sources of support, care and healing, and can act as primary responders to families in need, just as they do in initiatives that have brought down crime. 

Consistent with research on collective efficacy, a neighborhood-based strategy that invests in community planning and grant-making can strengthen the neighborhood social fabric that protects and supports families. 

Rising advocacy, public awareness and systemic efforts to retrain mandated reporters and reduce unwarranted investigations led to a 10% decline in ACS cases from 2019 to 2024. However, New York state’s investigation rate is still high.

Over-reporting disrupts trusting relationships with teachers and healthcare providers and discourages families from engaging with supportive services. For parents, research shows that fear of being reported to child welfare can be a significant barrier to accessing needed services, like prenatal care, domestic violence services and housing and material supports.

Current mandated reporting policies encourage escalation, with reporters facing the prospect of criminal liability and loss of their jobs or licensure for failing to report. And because New York State’s hotline screens out very few calls, calling the state hotline out of an abundance of caution can expose families to a highly stressful process even in cases that may not warrant or benefit from a child protective investigation, like school absenteeism or teen behaviors and mental health needs that do not meet the threshold for child abuse or neglect.

Hotline calls by education reporters, in particular, are rarely substantiated. Almost 90% of neglect-only calls by education reporters are not substantiated in NYC. In addition, research shows that mandated reporting policies do not increase accuracy in reporting.

SPOTLIGHT: The MANDATED REPORTER WORKING GROUP develops policy solutions that address the devastating harm mandated reporting laws inflict on New York families and communities. The INFORMED CONSENT COALITION raises awareness about the harms of the non-consensual drug testing of perinatal people and their infants.

In addition to mandated reporting reform, it’s essential for New York to bring the state hotline for neglect and abuse up to national best practice standards. Currently, New York screens out only 25% of calls to the hotline while the national average is 50%. As a result, New York’s investigation rate is higher than the national average. At a State Assembly hearing in October 2024, the Office of Children and Families (OCFS) commissioner confirmed that the state hotline (called the SCR) uses no standardized screening tool. 

States following best practices in hotline screening develop screening tools that help hotline staff deeply examine whether state intervention in families is warranted. New York should implement a structured decision-making tool that will allow the SCR to determine whether allegations truly include the legally required elements to accept a report for investigation. New York should also pilot an option for local districts to additionally review and close cases where a CPS response is unnecessary to address danger. Legislation has not yet been introduced.

SPOTLIGHT: The PARENT LEGISLATIVE ACTION NETWORK (PLAN) works through legislative, judicial and media advocacy to reduce the scope and harms of the family policing system, while transforming the ways society supports families.

The punitive burdens of the child welfare system largely fall on Black and Latino communities, with Black families facing particularly heavy impacts. Statewide, Black children comprise 15% of New York State’s population, but represent nearly 25% of all children reported to CPS and an alarming 41% of foster system entries. White children comprise almost 50% of the state’s population but are half as likely to be reported and comprise 25% of children in foster care. In NYC, Black children have been far more likely to enter foster care, remain in foster care and have their legal bonds with their families permanently terminated. 

All of these legislative and policy proposals will address disparity. Advocates and scholars have documented the many ways beyond decision-making bias that racism contributes to child welfare involvement. Historical trauma and intergenerational family separation leave lasting marks, while our weak safety net penalizes single motherhood and locks in the wealth gap. The legacy of redlining and disinvestment in neighborhood basics like schools, sidewalks, grocery stores and greenspaces undermines family well-being. “Weathering” and the chronic stress of everyday racism erode health. Policies aligned with racialized stereotypes, like drug testing, increase family precarity. And child welfare itself compounds inequality with policies that have emphasized family separation, not support, for Black families for more than 100 years.

 

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