Last week, a California appeals court ruled that counties can take custody of troubled kids even if the parents are not to blame.

The case involved a then 17-year-old girl who repeatedly ran away from home, had her first child at 15 and continued to run away, later giving birth to another child, despite her mother's efforts to protect her.

The ruling highlights the decades-long debate of when government agencies should step in and whether officials should be doing more to keep families together. Michelley Talley, social welfare faculty at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, joined the show to talk more about it.