In 2021, over three million children interacted with the child welfare system and over six hundred thousand were in foster care. These child welfare systems, striving as they may to help children and families in crisis, are themselves in crisis. Seeking relief from these dysfunctional state systems, children and advocacy groups have turned to the federal courts for relief. These plaintiffs have challenged almost every aspect of state child welfare systems, from initial investigation to discharge, and have asked federal courts to mandate everything from targeted reforms to complete overhauls of state systems. But because child welfare systems are often run by, through, and with the oversight of state courts, the Younger abstention doctrine has posed an early obstacle to some of these suits. Courts considering whether to abstain have split on almost every point of Younger’s analysis: whether state courts provide an adequate opportunity to raise federal claims, whether a federal challenge would interfere with the state court proceedings, and whether child welfare proceedings are the kind of proceedings to which Younger applies.

While the literature on Younger abstention is expansive, this last question—whether child welfare proceedings are the kind of proceedings to which Younger applies—has largely been ignored by scholars. This Note fills that gap. Part I details the development of the Younger doctrine. Part II introduces the child welfare system and explores how courts have applied Younger in this context, beginning with an overview of child welfare systems and concluding with an in-depth look at recent decisions by the Seventh and Fourth Circuits. Part III analyzes child welfare proceedings within the Younger/Sprint framework. It argues that certain portions of child welfare proceedings are quasi-criminal, that the extent to which a proceeding is quasi-criminal varies across and within cases, and that neither the Seventh nor the Fourth Circuit has adequately accounted for this heterogeneity. Finally, Part IV offers a solution, proposing that courts should take a piecemeal approach to Younger in the child welfare space.