The best thing to do, to help a child, is to help the family.
But the family is often very unattractive. Adults can be such reprobates: Drug addicted, "lazy", wasteful....
So the state tends to remove the child and inject them into what they know is at best a failing system and at worst a fertile training ground for child abusers.
Better to help the families, never mind that they will have lifestyles you disapprove of. It costs a lot of money. A huge amount.
But it is cheaper in the long run to put aside the moral panic about the behaviour of the grown us....
We should be helping all of society so that families have a low probability of getting into this state in the first place. I have seen communities with strong programs for kids, breakfast served at school, extended evening activities, free organized sports. All of this stuff helps shore up a problematic home life and gives points of contact for well functioning adults and kids to intersect with these kids lives.
Can you imagine being a child in a shitty home life, all you had before the pandemic was your school for being around people who didn't hate or at best were indifferent to you.
More than unattractive, they are often completely hopeless, beyond saving. So when resources are not infinite, better to focus on saving the kids, that has much better chances of succeeding.
But the family is often very unattractive. Adults can be such reprobates: Drug addicted, "lazy", wasteful....
So the state tends to remove the child and inject them into what they know is at best a failing system and at worst a fertile training ground for child abusers.
Better to help the families, never mind that they will have lifestyles you disapprove of. It costs a lot of money. A huge amount.
But it is cheaper in the long run to put aside the moral panic about the behaviour of the grown us....