WISCONSIN SOCIAL SERVICES: Foster care system fails federal review

WISCONSIN SOCIAL SERVICES: Foster care system fails federal review
Associated Press MILWAUKEE
A federal review found Wisconsin was doing an inadequate job of
protecting and providing services to children in foster care, the
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Monday.
The state could face $1.4 million in penalties if it fails to correct
shortcomings found during the review.
"It's a very big deal," said Charity Eleson, executive director of the
Wisconsin Council on Children and Families. "There are real risks here
for kids, but also real risks for the state in terms of funding
losses. The feds are not going to be issuing any new dollars to deal
with this."
Wisconsin was notified last month it is the 43rd state to fail a
federal review of its foster care system that set new, quicker
timelines for when children must be freed for adoption or returned
home. The review's results were scheduled for official release Monday.
In August, a team of federal reviewers looked at 50 randomly selected
cases from Kenosha, Milwaukee and Outagamie counties and reviewed
statistical child welfare data submitted by the state.
Health and Family Services Secretary Helene Nelson said her department
would make recommendations this spring for additional money for
"targeted programs" to improve the state's child welfare system.
The federal law, called the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997,
requires abused or neglected children be freed for adoption or
returned home within 15 months, unless they have been placed with
family members or authorities can show severing parental ties would
harm the child.
The federal rules require all cases to meet the quicker timelines, a
standard that Wisconsin and the other states so far reviewed have
failed to meet.
The state has two years to improve before facing penalties,
authorities say.
"The good part of the review is it is identifying what is needed,"
said Don Maurer, manager of the intake and support services division
of the Waukesha County Department of Health and Human Services. "The
downside is are we going to get what we need to get there? The common
concerns around counties is — universally — resources, resources,
resources."
Since the law, foster care adoptions increased 78 percent nationally
from 1996 to 2000, records show. Statewide, the number of adoptions
has increased from 654 in 1999 to 1,150 last year.
State records show about 8,200 abused or neglected children were
living in foster homes or in court-ordered placements with relatives
last year. That compares with 11,348 children in those placements
statewide in 1999.
The review's findings include:
• Services offered were not sufficient to ensure children's safety
while they remained in the home.
• Many newly hired caseworkers are assigned caseloads before
completion of a training program.
• The state does not have an array of services in place to address the
needs of children and families to enable children to remain safely
with their parents when reasonable and to help children in foster and
adoptive homes "achieve permanency."
• Local agencies do not make concerted efforts to include fathers in
case planning.
• Children are not receiving mental health assessments.
David Titus, director of the Dodge County Human Service and Health
Department, said almost all of the counties agree with the federal law
but don't know where they will get the additional resources to meet
new federal standards.
Some court observers say they might be seeing an increase in the
number of failed adoptions involving foster children, as a result of
the new law.
"We are being pressured to do more adoptions, and that is a good
thing," Milwaukee County Children's Court Judge Michael Malmstadt
said. "But is the solution to go out and recruit just about anybody to
adopt?"
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