Alan Dettlaff

speaker

269 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 9 Jul

Alan Dettlaff’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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Nobody Should Believe Me · Rethinking Child Welfare with Alan Dettlaff · 9 Jul 2026 podcast

often white, foster family.

And they see how the child is bonding with that foster parent.

And then things that don't have anything to do with harm to the child start coming into the equation.

So the caseworker starts thinking about all of the access that this child will have if they stay in this nice foster home, the good schools that they'll be able to go to, the good neighborhood that they're growing up in, comparing it to the environment they would be going back to if they were reunified.

And all of those things start to factor into the decision making.

And I've seen many cases where the state will argue for termination, even when the mother, the parent has been doing what she's supposed to do to get her child back.

They'll argue for termination because they will say the child has formed an attachment to the foster parent and is no longer bonded to the mother, even though it was the state that created that lack of bond or dissolved the

bond by refusing any contact other than these once a week visits.

So it's not because there's a risk of harm for the child going back.

It's because they will bring in experts to say that the child is now bonded to the foster parent and it would be harmful to take them out of there.

I would start by saying I believe in those two things, too, that you just said, and I think those are part of an abolitionist future.

I also believe that people have the right to housing, that people have the right to quality public education, that people have the right to health care and mental health care and child care that's free and accessible to everyone.

And I believe that people have the right to eat healthy food that is not dependent on how much of this thing called money that they have.

And I think if we can create a society where those things exist, the incidence of child harm would be much less.

It will not be eradicated.

But I also believe the other thing that I would add to the things that I believe is that when children are harmed,

that we should not do things to them that harm them more.

That's what I think an abolitionist reality is about.

How to do that, like in a 10-point plan, I can't give you.

But I do think we need to start figuring it out.

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