When Parents Are the Threat

The baby girl named Chloe was born prematurely, and when routine tests showed that she had been exposed to cocaine, a staff member at Rochester Methodist Hospital in Olmsted County, Minn., contacted local child-protection officials. In the past, Chloe would simply have been moved into the foster-care system, and her mother Oksana, 34, who immigrated to the U.S. from Belarus nine years ago, would have had a tough time getting her out. But Minnesota is taking a new approach toward parents who are deemed to be a threat to their children. Social workers met with Oksana, who has asked that her...