what is foster care reform

the contents by NLM or the National Institutes of Health. Current race and socioeconomic disparities in foster care entry generally mirror disproportionalities in rates of child maltreatment (Sedlak et al., 2010), adverse childhood experiences (Child Trends, 2019; Sacks & Murphy, 2018), and a range of other social, economic, and health characteristics that are associated with child maltreatment and the need for substitute care. Can predictive analytics root out the social workers most likely to break up black families? Early detection and timely intervention will reduce childrens exposure to maltreatment and, for those who need it, increase the likelihood that foster care is an effective intervention. Shaw TV, Barth RP, Mattingly J, Ayer D, & Berry S. (2013). Administration for Children and Families. To date, however, youths perspectives are not well-integrated into data systems or performance evaluations. In the meantime, years have passed without meaningful improvements in the care and conditions of children in foster care. And yet, it is not evident that compliance with current mandates achieves meaningful improvements in child well-being. One foster parent voicing these concerns is Pastor Anthony Favors, who has been a foster parent for over 10 years in three different states. When and to whom children exit foster care is among the areas where the federal government has provided substantive guidance and funding to states. Determining the best interests of the child. Osborne C, Warner-Doe H, LeClear M, & Sexton H. (2019). Experimental evaluations of professional foster homes for children with specialized needs are essential to inform this debate. A variety of data points illustrate how far we are from that ideal system: high rates of placement instability for children in long-term foster care, low rates of adoption among older children and children with special needs, and high rates of post-reunification victimization and reentry to foster care, to name a few. Youth in group home care: Youth characteristics and predictors of later functioning, The Journal of Behavioral Health Services & Research, Who cares: A national count of foster homes and families, In search of a silver bullet: Child welfares embrace of predictive analytics. Barth RP, Greeson JK, Green RL, Hurley S, & Sisson J. Norman RE, Byambaa M, De R, Butchart A, Scott J, & Vos T. (2012). In Mallon GP & Hess PM, Child Welfare for the Twenty-first Century: A Handbook of Practices, Policies, & Programs. However, in other areas, benefits may be short-term; for example, extended foster care is associated with increased college enrollment and reductions in short-term homelessness, but does not improve rates of college completion or longer-term homelessness (Courtney & Hook, 2017; Dworsky & Courtney, 2010). Over time, there have been many concerns regarding the safety and care for children within the foster care system. The multitude of workers performing small roles may lead to a duplication of effort in some areas, and lack of responsiveness in others, as no individual is in command of all the facts, nor tasked with looking at the big picture. When adoption is the goal, the best and most common path is when childrens foster or kinship caregivers want to adopt them: these adoptions occur more quickly, save children the difficulty of attaching to yet another parental figure, and are least likely to disrupt (Semanchin Jones & LaLiberte, 2010). To help reform the system, kinship relatives and family friends willing . Thoughtful and rigorous evaluation is especially critical because foster care reform efforts, through federal policy, regulation, and formal guidance, have been largely additive, layering more protocols, priorities, and requirements to foster care practice over time. Efforts to evaluate and improve system performance emphasize metrics that ignore critical components of foster care, such as the quality and appropriateness of the foster care placement, and dismiss the unique circumstances of the individual child. In 2018, Congress passed and the president signed into law what has been described as the biggest overhaul of the child welfare system in 40 yearsthe Family First Prevention Services Act (Bipartisan Budget Act, 2018). Information memorandum: Promoting social and emotional well-being for children and youth receiving child welfare services (ACYF-CB-IM-1204). Administration for Children and Families. Lawsuits can be effective in forcing system reforms (Center for the Study of Social Policy, 2019), but states are given many years to meet the terms of the settlement agreement, and many remain under court monitoring for decades (Font & Gershoff, 2020). We are thankful for the support of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for infrastructure support (Grants R01HD095946, P50HD089922, P2CHD041025, and P2CHD042849). - Plans for CCWIS-compliant data systems should all include creation or expansion of birth-match and predictive risk modeling to improve early detection and intervention for children likely to enter foster or who are at high risk of maltreatment. The lack of support for kinship care and a shortage of foster parents mean our foster care system unduly and unnecessarily relies on restrictive, institutionalized group homes. This is problematic for two reasons. (2020, January Instead, accountability for individual cases is increasingly vested in court processes, with federal and state funds redirected to parents attorneys, guardians ad litem, and court-appointed special advocates or CASAs (Administration for Children and Families, 2019a). Foster care can also be understood as formal care, typically provided by adults who are not related to the child, but may include formalized kinship care. Youth self-reports of their well-being can augment external data indicators on child well-being. Additional actions could help HHS better support states use of private providers to recruit and retain foster families. There is widespread variation across and within states about the population served in foster care and the experience of being in foster care, and as a result, it is challenging to draw generalized conclusions about the effects or biases of the foster care system. Foster care plays an important role for children who need to be removed from their homes due to abuse or neglect. There is no doubt that maltreatment can result in severe and lasting harm to children. For example, the Youth Thrive Survey is designed for children aged 12 to 20 and taps into five key dimensions: youth resilience, social connections, knowledge of adolescent development, concrete support in time of need, and cognitive and social emotional competence (Center for the Study of Social Policy & Metis Associates, 2018). (2018). Bethesda, MD 20894, Web Policies Yet, understanding childrens experiences within their foster homes is critical to making real progress on issues of placement instability and negative well-being outcomes. 42 U.S.C. A narrower approach to early detection is a birth match system, which identifies newborn children of parents with serious histories of child abuse or neglect perpetration or who have had their parental rights involuntarily terminated to a previous child (Shaw et al., 2013), thereby allowing states to initiate an assessment of the newborn childs safety and to offer preventive services. There is no systematic tracking of states use of ASFAs provisions, but available data indicate that use of the reasonable efforts bypass is rare, whereas states commonly assert compelling reasons not to file for termination after 15 months (Berrick et al., 2008; Bevan, 2009; U.S. General Accounting Office, 2002). Some states or agencies have systems where they disseminate prospective adoptive families profiles to childrens caseworkers and ask caseworkers to contact them about potential matches. The effect of CASA on child welfare permanency outcomes, Tuition assistance programs for foster youth pursuing postsecondary education, Improving family foster care: Findings from the northwest foster care alumni study, Effects of court-appointed special advocate intervention on permanency outcomes of children in foster care. Thus, it may be possible to have a quasi-competitive market, through which prospective foster families select the (public or private) agency that best meets their needs. Center for the Study of Social Policy, & Metis Associates. Sedlak AJ, Mettenburg J, Basena M, Peta I, McPherson K, Greene A, & Li S. (2010). Child and Family Services Reviews Round 3 Findings 20152016. Sarah A. Font, Pennsylvania State University in the Department of Sociology and Criminology and is a faculty member of the Child Maltreatment Solutions Network. Longstanding challenges in recruitment and retention limit the ability of agencies to set high standards for licensure or to have an adequate pool of foster homes from which to select the best match for each child. Improving early detection of children at risk of serious harm is a necessary strategy for child protection, but it will only be effective if detection leads to an appropriate and timely response. Essential elements of implementing a system of concurrent planning, The Human Need for Belonging: Moving from Harm to Healing [Plenary Session]. (2012c). Permanency and the educational and economic attainment of former foster children in early adulthood, Foster care and best interests of the child: Integrating research, policy, and practice, Socioeconomic resource environments in biological and alternative family care and childrens cognitive performance. As states move toward Comprehensive Child Welfare Information Systems (CCWIS) per federal requirements (Federal Register, 2016), ensuring the new systems enable use of these promising technologies is critical. Adoption or guardianship are considered appropriate alternatives when reunification is nonviable. of Social Servs., 1988; Kevin Bom et al. The differences in stability rates for SUPPORT RELATIVES IN PROVIDING FOSTER CARE AND PERMANENT FAMILIES FOR CHILDREN 3 IMPACT OF RELATIVE FOSTER CARE: What is Known from the Research Injury and mortality among children identified as at high risk of maltreatment, Child Welfare Law and Practice: Representing Children, Parents, and State Agencies In Abuse, Neglect, And Dependency Cases. Despite substantial investments in promoting adoption for children who cannot be reunified, more than 120,000 U.S. children are waiting for adoption on any given day (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2018), many of whom are older, are a member of a large sibling group, or have significant psychosocial or health care needs (Macomber, 2004; Snowden et al., 2008). America's Shadow Foster Care System: A Call to Reform By FindLaw Staff on January 03, 2022 A recent article in The New York Times Magazine tells a harrowing story, which raises a hypothetical. Evidence for immune activation and resistance to glucocorticoids following childhood maltreatment in adolescents without psychopathology. Following is a summary of our policy recommendations for improving foster care. These policy preferences simultaneously reflect ideas about childrens best interests and a logistical consideration of resources. However, the federal government does not track the well-being of children in foster care; the Child and Family Services Reviews, which are the primary mechanism through which child welfare systems are evaluated, focus on process evaluation indicators (e.g., length of time in care) and considers measure like needs assessment and service referral to be indicators of well-being. Developmental issues for young children in foster care, Its time to stop confusing poverty with neglect. Moreover, even if successful, such efforts are unlikely to replace the need for foster care: available data indicate that the U.S. uses foster care at similar or lower rates than countries with more generous social welfare regimes, such as Sweden or Denmark (EuroChild, 2010; OECD Family Database, 2010). Standardized assessments such as the Home Observation for the Measurement of the Environment (HOME) Inventory (Caldwell & Bradley, 2018) or the Structured Analysis Family Evaluation (SAFE: Consortium SAFE, 2011), have been used by some child welfare agencies in home studies for prospective foster or adoptive families (Selwyn, 2011). It seems that states are free to conduct more expansive background checks and to refuse licensure to anyone with a known history of child maltreatment, but for an effort seeking to increase consistency in licensing standards, it is unclear why lax and discretionary standards for child safety are desirable. We also foresee several unintended consequences of the legislation that could be mitigated with state action. 671(a)(31), State plan for foster care and adoption assistance (2010). Pryce J, Lee W, Crowe E, Park D, McCarthy M, & Owens G. (2019). Child well-being: Where is it in our data systems? Once in foster care, children are entitled to a permanency plan that has as its goal the placement of the child in a permanent family, either through reunification with their birth parents, adoption, guardianship, or permanent custody by a relative (Adoption and Safe Families Act [ASFA], 1997). Considering my two decades of personal and professional experience . ASFA retained the essence of the reasonable efforts requirement but allowed for the requirement to be bypassed in aggravated circumstances, as defined by each state (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2012). Prospective adoptive families can view the profiles and those with approved home studies can inquire with the childs caseworker; profiles are strengths-based and therefore typically do not provide information about childrens behavioral health needs or other factors that families may weigh. NSCAW II baseline report: Introduction to NSCAW II final report, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Extended foster care delays but does not prevent homelessness, What happened? (2016). Aging Out. Notably, the CFSRs typically result in a Program Improvement Plan for every state, as no state consistently meets federal performance benchmarks (Administration for Children and Families, 2017). Bom Kevin Miller P, Gorski P, Borchers D, Jenista J, Johnson C, Kaufman N, Levitzky S, Palmer S, Poole J, & Rezin J. McMillen JC, Zima BT, Scott LD, Auslander W, Munson M, Ollie M, & Spitznagel E. (2005). Pitchal ES, Freundlich M, & Kendrick C. (2009). Developing predictive models to support child maltreatment hotline screening decisions: Allegheny County methodology and implementation. When entitlements collide: Title IV-E and Medicaid in a Family First world. Associations between child maltreatment, autonomic regulation, and adverse cardiovascular outcome in an urban population: The HELIUS study, Policy implications of foster family characteristics. DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dept. Criminal investigations in child protective services cases: An empirical analysis, Defining Reasonable Efforts: Demystifying the States Burden Under Federal Child Protection Legislation, Foster parent parenting characteristics that lead to increased placement stability or disruption, As treatment options dwindle, Wisconsin sends children out of state for mental health care, Report from the child welfare workforce survey: State and county data and findings, The differential effects of concurrent planning practice elements on reunification and adoption, Ethical analysis: Predictive risk models at call screening for Allegheny County, Hearings: In one Georgia county, the indifference to foster parents stings. Casey consultants provide intensive consulting and technical assistance to child welfare agencies to boost outcomes for children and families. However, older children and children with specialized needs still face many barriers to adoption, and policies that financially incentivize states to increase older child adoptions appear ineffective (Brehm, 2018). The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the Although current policy allows relatives to be turned down for foster care placement in select circumstances, states have recognized that application of existing preferences for kin have resulted in decisions that were foreseeably harmful to children (Center for Arizona Policy, 2018; Riley, 2019), especially when screening or oversight of kinship placements is inadequate (Jonathan R. v. Governor Justice, 2019). What does it take to change this picture? However, prospective foster families have limited information upon which to evaluate agencies, and once licensed, families typically cannot change agencies without beginning the licensure process anew. If the assessment tool has implications for the caseworker or agencyi.e., it is used for performance evaluation, or for decision-making that could increase the workload burdenthe potential for manipulation of the result is heightened. Administration for Children and Families. Suppose a state child protection agency gets a call that a child may be abused or neglected. Careers, Unable to load your collection due to an error. youth make the transition from foster care to independence. National Association for Regulatory Administration. Policy changes aimed at reducing the number of children who end up in foster caremany championed by . (2020). Information memorandum: National Model Foster Family Home Licensing Standards (ACYF-CB-IM-1901) (IM-1901). Foster care: Recent legislation helps states focus on finding permanent homes for children but long-standing barriers remain. HB 114 - Increasing Georgia's Adoption Tax Credit: Increases the tax credit for families that adopt a child from foster care from $2,000 to $6,000 per year for five years. However, the relevant policy question is not, Should relatives be given preference over a comparable non-relative foster home? Rather, policy must grapple with the circumstances in which kinship care may not be in the best interests of the child (Font & Gershoff, 2020). The amount of time children spend in foster care ranges widely: most children who are reunified spend less than one year in foster care, whereas children who are adopted or waiting for an adoptive placement spend more time in foster care. Re-entering foster care: Trends, evidence, and implications, Comparing outcomes for youth in treatment foster care and family-style group care. The law directed the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) to identify model licensing standards for foster family homes to increase uniformity across states and reduce barriers to recruiting foster and kinship caregivers. (2015). Nor, however, can these system failures be dismissed as mere aberrations. Concerns about race and class bias reflect both historical and current conditions. These data should be available both for research to inform recruitment, retention, and service activities and for placement decision-making. An impact evaluation determines whether foster care as implemented by a particular agency improves, worsens, or has no impact on the safety and well-being of children who are abused or neglected in their home environments. Nonetheless, it is not optimal for individual children who do not reunify with their birth families to be placed in a foster home that is not open to adoption. Each year, over 260,000 children enter the United States foster care system through no fault of their own. Administration for Children and Families. Since emancipation (aging-out), I've worked in non-profits and child welfare agencies directly with youth, social workers, lawyers, juvenile court judges, legislators, agency managers and directors. Under ASFA, however, the bypass is discretionary -- states may (and do) continue to expend federal funds to reunify families regardless of the severity of the anteceding circumstances, including in cases of sexual abuse, chronic maltreatment, or other troubling circumstances. 42 U.S.C. Wulczyn F, Orlebeke B, Hislop K, Schmits F, McClanahan J, & Huang L. (2018). In addition, there may be further opportunities to reduce the need for foster care for example, by increasing rates of uptake and effectiveness of in-home services. Foster care as punishment: The new reality of Jane Crow. For reasons of age and ability, not all children can provide this direct feedback, and it does not replace the need for external data indicators. Aarons GA, James S, Monn AR, Raghavan R, Wells RS, & Leslie LK (2010). (2011). In, Intentions and Results: A Look Back at the Adoption and Safe Families Act, Reuniting children with their families: Reconsidering the evidence on timing, contact and outcomes, The prosecution of child sexual abuse: A partnership to improve outcomes, An examination of oversight and review in the child welfare system, The organizational structure of child welfare: Staff are working hard, but it is hardly working, What counts? 21). Prevalence of psychiatric disorders among older youths in the foster care system. Approximately half of children exiting foster care are reunified with their birth families (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2019). Foster care is a temporary living situation for kids whose parents cannot take care of them and whose need for care has come to the attention of child welfare agency staff. As we have argued elsewhere (Font & Gershoff, 2020), rigorous evaluation provides the best means of identifying the causes of and solutions to longstanding problems. (2018). No place to grow up: How to safely reduce reliance on foster care group homes; Senate Hearing 114273. (2016). Financial subsidies for families adopting from foster care have been expanded multiple times to include a greater number of children, and subsidies are now available for guardianships as well (Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act, 2008). (2016). However, individual policy changes may be inadequate without a more fundamental shift in how foster care systems are evaluated and held accountable for their performance. Policies. V. Superior Court of Los Angeles County, 2020, Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, 2006, Administration for Children and Families (2019b), U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2018, No Place to Grow up: How to Safely Reduce Reliance on Foster Care Group Homes; Senate Hearing 114273, 2015, Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act, 1980, Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) (1997), Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act, 2008, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2018, California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare, 2019, Improving the Well-Being of Abused and Neglected Children, 1996, U.S. Department of Education & U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2016, Administration for Children and Families, 2012a, Administration for Children and Families, 2012c, Administration for Children and Families, 2012b, Center for the Study of Social Policy & Metis Associates, 2018, Administration for Children and Families, 2019a, Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor, 2018, Administration for Children and Families, 2014, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2011, Administration for Children and Families, 2017, M.D. (2014). Approved programs can target any number of outcomes and need not be shown to prevent child maltreatment. INTRODUCTION. 2. Two aspects of accountability are relevant: case-level accountability (liability for ensuring an individual child has a safe and supportive foster care experience) and system-level accountability (liability for addressing systemic problems that constrain the effectiveness of individuals working within the system). - States should pursue some professional foster homes for foster children who require a stay-at-home caregiver with highly specialized skills. March 30, 2022 Whether foster care seems like something you're called to or your are simply curious to learn more, you're in the right place. 13). All use of physical or degrading punishment is prohibited, as is any illegal substance use and any excessive legal substance use. Frame L, Berrick JD, & Coakley JF (2006). Each state manages its own foster care system according to federal regulations. Improving the array of placements within communities may also enable children to keep their service providers despite changes in placement. ), or private home of a state- certified caregiver, referred to as a "foster parent", or with a family member approved by the state. (2016). Unfortunately, there is little systematic data collection on states foster home capacity, beyond statewide counts of licensed foster homes (Chronicle of Social Change, 2018). United States District Court, Southern District of Texas, Corpus Christi Division, Achieving better health care outcomes for children in foster care, Placement preferences among children living in foster or kinship care: A cluster analysis. In an ideal system, children in need of temporary or permanent non-parental care would be identified and assisted early in life, when they have the best opportunity to rebound developmentally. Key provisions of prevention services funding include: In order to make the law cost-neutral, FFPSA limits the use of Title IV-E to reimburse states for the costs of congregate care, which is substantially more expensive than family-based foster care. M.D. Overall, the child welfare workforce has undergone a decades-long process of deprofessionalization, in which casework is largely routinized, with checklists, structured assessments, layers of oversight, and increased compliance-related documentation (Ellett & Leighninger, 2006). Reasonable efforts? Some of the standards are focused on the fitness of the foster parents and include a recent physical exam and disclosure of substance use and mental illness. Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor. Relevant historical contexts include (1) the use of family separation during slavery and the exclusion of Black children from child protection agencies (McGowan, 2014); (2) child welfare concerns were used as pretext for separating 2535% of all Native American children from their families and tribes in the decades preceding the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act (Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior, 2016), and (3) early versions of foster care, including orphanages, largely served destitute children, with little emphasis on their safety. On the whole, child well-being is poorly measured in most child welfare data systems (Font & Gershoff, 2020; Jonson-Reid & Drake, 2016). The site is secure. 671(a)(19), State plan for foster care and adoption assistance (2010). In the case of the child welfare system, there are many.There are children and families that come into contact with the system, the administrators, social workers, providers, and community-based organizations that make up the system and provide services, as well as juvenile court . Yet, the most rigorous studies to datewhich use sophisticated methodologies to compare children who experience foster care to children who are exposed to a Child Protective Services (CPS) investigation of maltreatment but remain in their familial homereport largely null effects of foster care (meaning, no significant differences in a given outcome for those who experienced foster care and those left in their familial homes) or a mix of positive, null, and negative effects (for a more detailed review of this issue, please see Font & Gershoff, 2020). Despite evidence that children thrive in stabile and nurturing environments (Britto et al., 2017), there is not clear evidence that longer durations in foster care are harmful (Biehal, 2007; Font et al., 2018), especially if children are in safe, stable placements. Additional research is needed to ascertain whether these assessments reliably predict foster or adoptive home placement stability, child safety, and child wellbeing, and to identify specific exclusion criteria based on assessment results. Cross TP, Chuang E, Helton JJ, & Lux EA (2015). Federal policy has long required that prospective foster parents undergo criminal and child maltreatment background checks (Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, 2006) and that states institute licensure procedures that are aligned with professional standards. When reasonable efforts do not result in safe reunification, the federal government promotes timely completion of adoption or guardianship. For evaluation to be useful, it must be ongoing and integrated into the quality assurance processes of state and local agencies. When a prospective kinship provider meets standards of health and safety and, ideally, has a pre-existing relationship with the child in question, placing the child with that relative is an easy choice. Its recommendations will be made to Congress, federal agencies, state courts, and communities as a framework for strengthening child welfare agencies and the . Health-care coverage for youth in foster careAnd after. Do these changes only apply to families who apply after July 1, 2022? Child Welfare Information Gateway. The severity and duration of abuse and neglect that children experience prior to entering foster care is an important contributor to their social and behavioral health, which in turn impacts their stability in foster care (Aarons et al., 2010), opportunities for permanency (Snowden et al., 2008), and long-term functioning (Norman et al., 2012). Accelerate the goal of eliminating the inappropriate use of congregate care for children and youth through a targeted grant program to spur innovation in (1) preventing congregate care placements and (2) shifting youth from congregate care placements to well-supported family-based care.