Voluntary foster care placement is an option in the majority of states in the United States, yet there is a paucity of legal research dedicated to studying and improving the mechanism. This Article will provide legal analysis of voluntary foster care placement options across the country with qualitative data over twenty-five years. The Article offers both a descriptive and normative analysis of the voluntary placement process. In doing so, it distinguishes true voluntary placements from (in)voluntary placements into foster care, which mask themselves as uncoerced.
By proposing due process guardrails, such as access to attorneys at the outset, limiting scope and time periods for contractual placement, and decoupling voluntary placement agreements from child welfare investigations, this Article re-imagines a model voluntary placement option. Ultimately, it proposes a feminist, pro-choice, pro-parent, pro-child, and truly voluntary placement that can empower mothers who face limited reproductive choices to retain autonomy and select the choices that are safest for their own families.