The State of Arizona took Jade’s child away.
We can help Jade get her back.
Donate to Jade
All funds go directly to Jade and help her remove barriers to getting her child back.
Jade’s Story
Jade’s story has been reported by Shoshana Walter for both the New York Times Magazine and the Reveal podcast (see linked articles for more).
Jade gave birth to a healthy, beautiful baby girl in February, 2021. She felt an overwhelming sense of love for her baby.
I remember looking at her and thinking how tiny and precious. She was a part of me, like if someone took my heart and it was now separated from me and I could see it over there.
A week later, an investigator with Arizona’s Department of Child Safety (DCS) took her child away.
Hospital staff had made a report to DCS because Jade was taking Suboxone, a legally-prescribed medication used to treat opioid addiction. Jade had done her research and made sure Suboxone was safe to use during her pregnancy. Doctors, medical researchers, and public health experts have found that Suboxone and other treatments are safe and recommended for pregnant individuals who struggle with addiction.
Jade is one of the thousands of people across the country who have been reported to child protective services for taking treatment medications like Suboxone during pregnancy. These reports lead to investigations where people’s lives are picked apart and scrutinized. Everything suddenly matters a lot—past mistakes, struggles with addiction, employment, or housing, and even emotional reactions to being investigated all go into the report. This process exposes people to a host of misconceptions and biases held by investigators and judges. And it can set off a chain of events that lead to a family being torn apart.
Now Jade only gets to see her daughter for four hours a month. She’s missing so much.
Milestones, first words, first haircut. Yeah, I’ve just missed so much of her firsts. It’s not just depressing or sad, it’s this deep brokenness that I have to live with every single day.
To get her back, she must meet certain requirements. To do this she needs regular employment and financial security, stable housing, a reliable car, and other resources. These needs are interconnected, and she needs support.
“All my life, I really looked forward to being a mother and I feel like I’m having that basic human experience taken from me.”
— Jade Dass
FAQ’s
-
Check out the NY Times Magazine article (above) and the Reveal podcast (above) for more on Jade’s story.
Arizona’s Department of Child Safety is a state child welfare agency. These agencies are meant to promote the safety and well-being of children. This gives them broad discretion to investigate families and even remove children in cases of suspected “abuse and neglect.”
The majority of children taken from their parents by these agencies are alleged to have been neglected. Most states define “neglect” in a way that interprets poverty as neglect.
Additionally, due to federal and state laws, pregnant and birthing people are reported to child welfare agencies for any evidence of substance use or prenatal exposure. This includes use of either illicit drugs or prescription medication. This mandatory reporting exposes parents of newborns to investigations and family separation based on the idea that prenatal exposure to substances is harmful, even if there is no evidence of harm or adverse effects. The response is investigation and punishment rather than resources and treatment.
In Jade’s case, there was no evidence of neglect, and the child was healthy. Child welfare reports, investigations, and court proceedings do not have to be fair or accurate. They do not need to rely on facts or evidence. And there is no way to fight them. Generally parents must comply or risk losing parental rights, and never seeing their kids again.
There are glaring racial disparities in the people targeted by the family policing system—the people tested for substance use during pregnancy, the families investigated, and those who ultimately get children removed.
Parents must complete a care plan, a series of tasks including things like counseling, drug tests, classes, home inspections, appointments, and meeting various requirements.
Jade’s child was taken because she was using a prescribed medication, because health care workers reported her, because the DCS investigator claimed her child was being neglected, and because the government has designed a response to poverty and addiction that punishes people rather than helping them.
-
Donations will help Jade get her child back. She must meet requirements and tasks that require resources she doesn’t have. She needs help securing housing, a dependable car, and regular employment.
-
Jade’s Cashapp handle is listed, so that goes to her directly. The GoFundme was set up by a doula in Vermont and Jade has confirmed that she gets regular pay-outs from GoFundme from those donations.
-
Jade needs support, and hopefully she will be able to get it and satisfy the requirements to get her kid back.
More broadly, the federal government and states must change how they respond to concerns about child welfare, substance use, and poverty.
For more on the child welfare system, check out Dorothy Roberts.
To learn what can be done, check out JMac for Families.
More on the Issue
“The family policing system (or the so-called “child welfare system”) was not designed to protect children or support families. Instead of giving families what they need to thrive — such as stable housing, affordable child care, educational supports, and quality health care—this system investigates parents and tears children from their homes. Like the criminal legal system, the family policing system surveils, criminalizes, and punishes disproportionately Black, Latine, and low-income children and families.”
— Just Making A Change for Families (JMACforFamilies)
“The child welfare system’s main response to the problems caused by poverty is to mandate a set of tasks for parents to complete or to remove children from their homes — not to provide the material resources that would meet families’ needs.”
— Dorothy Roberts, author of Torn Apart and Shattered Bonds
“Welfare in Arizona largely goes not to helping poor parents financially but rather to the state’s Department of Child Safety — an agency that investigates many of these same parents, and that sometimes takes their kids away for reasons arising from the poverty that they were seeking help with in the first place.”