Framing child protection as a public health law issue

During their remarks for a University of Michigan symposium on “Rethinking Foster Care”1 a variety of participants addressed foster care, or even rethinking child protection policy as a whole, from ‘the ground up’. Several speakers referenced the model of public health as a useful framework for child welfare policy. During many formal and informal exchanges, many others alluded to public health, touching on themes such as the importance of promoting primary prevention over later intervention, reducing reliance on punitive models for intervention, and relying more on science as a foundation for child welfare policy development. Given the role of public health as a touchstone2 for these views, likely shared by many non-lawyers, this chapter revisits the nature of public health, and the related field of public health law, before considering briefly a few examples that have been raised as embodying a public health application to child welfare.3 A review of historic and recent public health practices and law cannot be comprehensive, but can be instructive for any who would apply public health to child welfare, and who need to be informed by the workings, achievements and weaknesses of the vast field of public health. Moreover, this can avoid oversimplification and maximize the utility of a public health perspective for child protection policy analysis.4</sup