Fear of change should not thwart child-welfare reform

Fear of change should not thwart child-welfare reform

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/app...08/-1/SPORTS09

As in most lines of work, nobody in child welfare likes to be told
that the way they've been doing things for years is wrong.

So sometimes people get defensive. They nurse their grudges and wait
for the next horror story about the death of a child known-to-the-
system, then exploit it to scapegoat reform.

That's what really was on display Sunday as those who want to undercut
Iowa's first tentative steps toward fixing child welfare exploited the
horrible death of Ziarah Williams to claim that the "pendulum had
swung too far" toward keeping families together.

But that ignores where the pendulum was when it finally began
swinging.

For years, Iowa was captive to a "take-the-child-and-run" approach to
child welfare. In 2006, a child was more likely to be torn from
everyone loving and familiar in Iowa than in almost any other state.
Iowa took children at a rate far above the national average and more
than five times the rate of Illinois - a state repeatedly cited as a
national model for keeping children safe.

Even with the 2007 reforms, Iowa's rate-of-removal almost certainly
remains far above most states.

Critics of reform say Iowa's fanatical dedication to child removal
makes children safer. But I know 15,000 children who might disagree.
They're the 15,000 children whose records were examined in a landmark
study to see who did better in later life: children placed in foster
care or comparably-maltreated children left in their own homes.

The researcher zeroed in on the "in-between" cases - those where there
is a real problem in the home, but the decision could go either way.
He found that the foster children were far more likely to get
pregnant, far more likely to be arrested and far less likely to be
able to hold a job than the children left with their own parents.

Still another study found that foster care alumni had twice the level
of post-traumatic stress disorder of Gulf War veterans and only 20
percent could be said to be doing well.

As for safety, if Rehka Basu's outstanding recent reporting isn't
enough of a reminder of the risks of leaving children to the tender
mercies of the state ["Abused in State Care, Still Looking for
Answers," March 30] consider what this study found: One in three
foster children reported being abused by a foster parent or another
adult in a foster home.

In response to this mountain of evidence, critics offer only horror
stories: "I had a case once..." "I know a family where..." Tragically,
some of the stories are true. But sadly, the same kinds of horror
stories existed before the reforms. And for every such case, there is
another of a child who has lost everyone he knows and loves to
needless foster care. When anecdotes collide, it's time to look at the
data.

The data show that reforms are making Iowa children safer - not safe
enough, but safer. Reabuse of children - a standard measure used by
the federal government to evaluate states - is down significantly.
Workers waste less time on false reports and less serious cases, so
they have more time to find children in real danger.

None of this means no child ever should be taken from parents. But the
research is overwhelming: Foster care is an extremely toxic
intervention that must be used sparingly and in very small doses. For
years, Iowa prescribed mega-doses of foster care. As the state finally
comes to grips with the harm it has done, it should not be thwarted by
those who put their fear of change ahead of what's best for children.

RICHARD WEXLER is executive director of the National Coalition for
Child Protection Reform, www.nccpr.org.