Fern5827
September 3rd 03, 04:40 PM
FWD ascps:
Subject: (GA.) Separating families not the only way
From:
Date: 9/2/2003 9:52 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Message-id: >
Tuesday, Sept. 02, 2003
Separating families not the only way
By RICHARD WEXLER
Fixing child welfare isn't that hard. Just listen to your gut instinct --
and do the opposite.
Gut instinct says: Kyshawn Punter was returned to his stepfather's home
even though the case had more red flags than a Soviet May Day parade. Such
cases seem to happen over and over. So, it is assumed, the state must be
putting too much emphasis on "family preservation" and the answer must be
to tear many more children from their homes.
But that has failed all over the country.
High-profile child abuse deaths almost always are followed by foster care
panics. With workers terrified of having the next Kyshawn Punter on their
caseload, they rush to take away far more children. Over and over again, it
backfires.
In Georgia, the number of children in foster care has more than doubled
since 1985 -- yet the horrors keep coming.
The real reason children "known to the system" sometimes die has nothing to
do with efforts to keep families together. Rather, it's because most
caseworkers, though well-meaning, are underprepared, undertrained and
desperately overwhelmed.
A foster care panic makes everything worse by overwhelming them even more.
With even less time for each case, workers make even more mistakes -- in
both directions.
The only places in the country that are doing child welfare reasonably well
are the ones that have embraced safe, proven programs to keep families
together.
In Alabama, as counties rebuild their systems to emphasize family
preservation, far fewer children are taken away, the rate of reabuse of
children left in their own homes has been cut in half and an independent,
court-appointed monitor has found that children are safer now than they
were before the changes.
Georgia does need to spend more on its most vulnerable children -- but it
also needs to spend smarter, by pouring resources into proven approaches to
keeping more children safely in their own homes. Do that, and workers will
have plenty of time to find children in real danger, and plenty of good,
safe foster homes for those children.
Richard Wexler is executive director of the National Coalition for Child
Protection Reform.
© 2003 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0903/02equal.html
Subject: (GA.) Separating families not the only way
From:
Date: 9/2/2003 9:52 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Message-id: >
Tuesday, Sept. 02, 2003
Separating families not the only way
By RICHARD WEXLER
Fixing child welfare isn't that hard. Just listen to your gut instinct --
and do the opposite.
Gut instinct says: Kyshawn Punter was returned to his stepfather's home
even though the case had more red flags than a Soviet May Day parade. Such
cases seem to happen over and over. So, it is assumed, the state must be
putting too much emphasis on "family preservation" and the answer must be
to tear many more children from their homes.
But that has failed all over the country.
High-profile child abuse deaths almost always are followed by foster care
panics. With workers terrified of having the next Kyshawn Punter on their
caseload, they rush to take away far more children. Over and over again, it
backfires.
In Georgia, the number of children in foster care has more than doubled
since 1985 -- yet the horrors keep coming.
The real reason children "known to the system" sometimes die has nothing to
do with efforts to keep families together. Rather, it's because most
caseworkers, though well-meaning, are underprepared, undertrained and
desperately overwhelmed.
A foster care panic makes everything worse by overwhelming them even more.
With even less time for each case, workers make even more mistakes -- in
both directions.
The only places in the country that are doing child welfare reasonably well
are the ones that have embraced safe, proven programs to keep families
together.
In Alabama, as counties rebuild their systems to emphasize family
preservation, far fewer children are taken away, the rate of reabuse of
children left in their own homes has been cut in half and an independent,
court-appointed monitor has found that children are safer now than they
were before the changes.
Georgia does need to spend more on its most vulnerable children -- but it
also needs to spend smarter, by pouring resources into proven approaches to
keeping more children safely in their own homes. Do that, and workers will
have plenty of time to find children in real danger, and plenty of good,
safe foster homes for those children.
Richard Wexler is executive director of the National Coalition for Child
Protection Reform.
© 2003 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0903/02equal.html