Studies show flaws in child foster care system
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
By Barbara White Stack, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Jelani Freeman spent 11 years of his life in foster care, left at 18
without a birth or adoptive parent to help him, worked his way through
college, sometimes with three jobs, and now, at 23, is a legislative
fellow in U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton's office while finishing graduate
work at American University.
Freeman was among the former foster children interviewed by the Pew
Commission on Children in Foster Care for a report, "Foster Ca
Voices From the Inside," to be released today.
It describes problems in the nation's child welfare system from the
perspective of the children, foster parents and birth parents.
They mention many of the same shortfalls that are described in a
report issued three weeks earlier and sponsored by another
philanthropic group, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
The Packard analysis of foster care, one in its series of reports
called "The Future of Children," included interviews with children
like Freeman, as well as documentation of problems by experts. The
survey found that many foster children do not attend school regularly
and often do not receive routine medical care.
The Pew Commission report, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts,
found that despite the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act, which was
supposed to limit the time children languish in foster care, the
majority of the nation's 500,000 foster children will remain in care
longer than three years and live in at least three different homes.
Freeman, who became a foster child at age 8, lived in four different
homes in Rochester, N.Y. What is remarkable about his experience,
however, is that he had only two caseworkers during his 11 years in
care.
The second one, David Addams, kept his case for nine years, providing
some stability for a youngster who'd lost his family and would never
be adopted.
Addams even drove to Buffalo, N.Y., where Freeman was attending
college, to check up on him after Freeman turned 18 and was no longer
officially in Addams' caseload.
"He was a great social worker," Freeman said in a telephone interview
yesterday.
That, however, is not an experience many foster children have, both
reports say, because of high turnover among caseworkers.
The Pew Commission will issue recommendations later this spring for
improving the child welfare system.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04049/274487.stm

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