Recommendations to Overhaul Nation’s Foster Care System

Recommendations to Overhaul Nation’s Foster Care System
Posted by: laurakujawski on Thursday, May 27, 2004


Topic Human Services


After a year of intensive analysis, conversations with professionals,
parents, and children, The Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care
released far-reaching recommendations to overhaul the nation’s foster
care system.


The Commission, a national, nonpartisan panel funded by The Pew
Charitable Trusts and composed of leading experts in child welfare,
undertook the first-ever, comprehensive assessment of two key aspects
of the foster care system: a federal financing structure that
encourages an over-reliance on placement of children in foster care at
the expense of other more permanent options for children who have been
abused or neglected, and a court system that lacks sufficient tools,
information, and accountability necessary to move children swiftly out
of foster care and into permanent homes. Reform in these two areas,
the Commission determined, will have far-reaching effects for children
in foster care and is a critical first step to solving many other
problems that plague the child welfare system.



The Commission’s recommendations offer a plan for improving outcomes
for children in foster care and those at risk of entering care. The
Commission proposes a fundamental restructuring of existing resources,
as well as targeted new investments that will provide real returns to
our children and our nation. Additionally, the Commission’s court
recommendations give children a much higher priority in state courts,
give courts the tools to better oversee foster care cases, and help to
ensure that every child and parent have an effective voice in court
decisions that affect their lives.



Foster care protects children who are not safe in their own homes. For
some, it is life-saving. But for too many children, what should be a
short-term refuge becomes a long-term saga, involving multiple moves.
Almost half of children spend at least two years in care, and move to
at least three different placements. This turbulence and uncertainty
can have lasting consequences, for which children and society pay a
price.



The Role of Federal Financing



Current federal funding mechanisms for child welfare encourage an
over-reliance on foster care at the expense of other services that
might keep families safely together, allow children to return safely
home, or move children swiftly and safely from foster care to adoptive
families or permanent legal guardians.



The Commission’s recommendations require stronger accountability for
how public dollars are used to protect and support children who have
suffered abuse and neglect. They require redirection of current
funding, and give states the freedom to decide whether foster care is
the right choice for an individual child, or whether there are other
options that might keep children safe and secure.



The key components of the Commission’s financing recommendations a



Preserving federal foster care maintenance and adoption assistance as
an entitlement and expanding it to all children, regardless of their
birth families’ income and including Indian children and children in
the U.S. territories;

Providing federal guardianship assistance to all children who leave
foster care to live with a permanent legal guardian when a court has
explicitly determined that neither reunification nor adoption are
feasible permanence options;

Helping states build a range of services from prevention, to
treatment, to post-permanence by (1) creating a flexible, indexed Safe
Children, Strong Families Grant from what is currently included in
Title IV-B and the administration and training components of Title
IV-E; and (2) allowing states to “reinvest” federal and state foster
care dollars into other child welfare services if they safely reduce
their use of foster care;

Encouraging innovation by expanding and simplifying the federal waiver
process and providing incentives to states that (1) make and maintain
improvements in their child welfare workforce and (2) increase all
forms of safe permanence; and

Strengthening the current Child and Family Services Review process to
increase states’ accountability for improving outcomes for children.


The Role of the Courts



For years, the courts have been the unseen partners in child
welfare--yet they are vested with enormous responsibility. Along with
child welfare agencies, the courts have an obligation to ensure that
children are protected from harm. Courts make the formal determination
on whether abuse or neglect has occurred and whether a child should be
removed from the home. Courts review cases to decide if parents and
the child welfare agencies are meeting their legal obligations to a
child. Courts are charged with ensuring that children are moved from
foster care and placed in a safe, permanent home within statutory
timeframes. And courts determine if and when a parent’s rights should
be terminated and whether a child should be adopted or placed with a
permanent guardian.



The Commission’s court recommendations call for:



Adoption of court performance measures by every dependency court to
ensure that they can track and analyze their caseloads, increase
accountability for improved outcomes for children, and inform
decisions about the allocation of court resources;

Incentives and requirements for effective collaboration between courts
and child welfare agencies on behalf of children in foster care;

A strong voice for children and parents in court and effective
representation by better trained attorneys and volunteer advocates;

Leadership from Chief Justices and other state court leaders in
organizing their court systems to better serve children, provide
training for judges, and promote more effective standards for
dependency courts, judges, and attorneys.

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