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Foster care alternatives sought
Foster care alternatives sought
BY LAURA KELLAMS Posted on Monday, June 9, 2008 http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/228183/ It’s long been the state’s goal to more quickly find permanent homes for children who otherwise would languish in foster care. Now, child welfare officials are looking for ways to keep some of those kids from being uprooted in the first place. “We need to make sure our workers have all the resources they need to keep kids safe at home, if possible,” said Pat Page, director of the Department of Human Services’ Children and Family Services Division. To that end, Arkansas is taking part in a “policy academy” with the National Governors Association. The aim is to come up with ideas for how to safely reduce the number of children in foster care. Arkansas is one of six states chosen by the association, along with Florida, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and South Carolina. In Arkansas, the number of children in foster care grew 40 percent from 1999 to 2007. During the same time, the number in foster care nationally declined about 10 percent. Susan Golonka, the association’s program director for human services, said states have realized that some children would be better off if they’d never been removed from home at all. “There’s a growing recognition and understanding that while it’s always important to make sure children are safe, we probably remove children more often than we should,” Golonka said. “And once they’re in care, they’re there too long.” The tricky part is figuring out when it’s safe to leave the children in their homes. Arkansas officials will be working with their colleagues in other states and with the association to figure out in broad terms what types of situations lend themselves to a different approach. “Removal from the home itself creates trauma,” Golonka said. “If we have supports we can provide the family and the child in the home, in their community — that, in the long run, can be better for the child.” It could mean requiring parents to take part in substance abuse treatment or mentalhealth care, or helping them find housing or other services from state agencies or local nonprofit agencies or churches. The project is underwritten by Casey Family Programs, a Seattle-based foundation committed to halving the number of children in foster care by 2020. More adoption is part of that, but so is reducing the practice on the “front end,” Golonka said. “It’s pretty ambitious,” she said. In its proposal to the governors group, the state Children and Family Services Division reported that there’s a dearth of substance-abuse programs available to Arkansans. Parental substance abuse accounts for 25 percent of children entering foster care, according to the report. Yet the division estimated that only 7 percent of Arkansans needing treatment for substance abuse got it in 2007. Another problem is the “family preservation” programs — such as those to relieve parents of child-care duties temporarily — have dwindled as the number of children in the system increased, taking a greater share of state resources, the report stated. The “team” working on an Arkansas strategy includes Department of Human Services employees as well as lawmakers and representatives of Gov. Mike Beebe and the juvenile court system. They’ll meet with National Governors Association officials later this month to begin devising a two-year plan by the end of the year. Connie Hickman Tanner, director of Juvenile Division Courts for the Administrative Office of the Courts, is a member of the policy team. She said she wants the group to look closer at short-term foster cases to determine why the children were placed into care to begin with and what happened. She pointed out that in 2007, 11 percent of the children were in foster care for less than 30 days. Another 12 percent were in for less than 90 days. They can find out why it happened that fast — whether the children were returned home quickly or the state found relatives or others to take care of the children. If they went home quickly, the state or other community support groups may have been able to offer help that was effective. “Those two figures make you think... what can we do to strengthen these families ?” Tanner said. Children aren’t necessarily better off in foster care, she said. Two children have died in Arkansas while in foster care in the past month. On the other hand, she and others have complained that the state has been slow to take some children into foster care who they think should be there. Any decisions have to be made case by case, and the state has to have the resources to fall back on to make those decisions with the safety of children in mind, Tanner said. Sen. Sue Madison, D-Fayetteville, said lawmakers and others are beginning to wonder whether there are just too many children in foster care. “We question whether we’re doing well by all of those children, because some of them get moved from house to house,” Madison said. Madison and Rep. Tracy Pennartz, D-Fort Smith, are the legislative members of the policy academy team. Pennartz said the state might be able to shift spending priorities to help the system work better. If there are fewer children in foster care, then the payments made to foster parents could be used instead to support services for biological families. “If we could reinvest some of that money and get these families that type of counseling,... we’d have a much more effective Division of Children and Family Services,” she said An Inconvenient Truth about Child Protective Services, Foster care, and the Child Protection "INDUSTRY" Child Protective Services Does not protect children... It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even killed at the hands of CPS. every parent should read the free handbook from connecticut dcf watch... http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US These numbers come from The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington. (NCCAN) Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS Perpetrators of Maltreatment Physical Abuse CPS/Foster care 160, biological Parents 59 Sexual Abuse CPS/Foster care 112, biological Parents 13 Neglect CPS/Foster care 410, biological Parents 241 Medical Neglect CPS/Foster care 14 biological Parents 12 Fatalities CPS/Foster care 6.4, biological Parents 1.5 Imagine that, 6.4 children die at the hands of the very agencies that are supposed to protect them and only 1.5 at the hands of parents per 100,000 children. CPS perpetrates more abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse and kills more children then parents in the United States. If the citizens of this country hold CPS to the same standards that they hold parents too. No judge should ever put another child in the hands of ANY government agency because CPS nationwide is guilty of more harm and death than any human being combined. CPS nationwide is guilty of more human rights violations and deaths of children then the homes from which they were removed. When are the judges going to wake up and see that they are sending children to their death and a life of abuse when children are removed from safe homes based on the mere opinion of a bunch of social workers. THIS IS AMERICA'S HIDDEN HOLOCAUST Currently Child Protective Services violates more constitutionally guaranteed liberties & civil rights on a daily basis then all other agencies combined, Including the National Security agency/Central intelligence agency wiretaping programs… THE CORRUPT BUSINESS OF CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES BY: Nancy Schaefer Senator, 50th District of Georgia http://www.senatornancyschaefer.com/...s.php?filter=6 This is Child Protection? By Gregory A. Hession, J.D. http://www.jbs.org/node/4632 Mercenary Motherhood: "Memoirs of a Babystealer." http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...nion-rightrail FOSTER CARE IS A 80 PERCENT FAILU. A Brief Analysis of the Casey Family Programs. Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study. By Richard Wexler http://www.nccpr.org/reports/cfpanalysis.doc HOW THE WAR AGAINST CHILD ABUSE BECAME A WAR AGAINST CHILDREN http://www.nccpr.org/issues/1.html Adoption Bonuses: The Money Behind the Madness DSS and affiliates rewarded for breaking up families By Nev Moore Massachusetts News http://www.massnews.com/past_issues/...May/mayds4.htm A recent study has found that 12-18 months after leaving foster ca 30% of the nation’s homeless are former foster children. 27% of the males and 10% of the females had been incarcerated 33% were receiving public assistance 37% had not finished high school 2% receive a college degree 50% were unemployed Children in foster care are three to six times more likely than children not in care to have emotional, behavioral and developmental problems, including conduct disorders, depression, difficulties in school and impaired social relationships. Some experts estimate that about 30% of the children in care have marked or severe emotional problems. Various studies have indicated that children and young people in foster care tend to have limited education and job skills, perform poorly in school compared to children who are not in foster care, lag behind in their education by at least one year, and have lower educational attainment than the general population. *Casey Family Programs National Center for Resource Family Support 80 percent of prison inmates have been through the foster care system. The highest ranking federal official in charge of foster care, Wade Horn of the Department of Health and Human Services, is a former child psychologist who says the foster care system is a giant mess and should just be blown up. http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=2017991 Four rigorous studies have found that at least 30 percent of America’s foster children could be home right now if their parents had decent housing. This study found thousands of children already in foster care who would have done better had child protection agencies not taken them away in the first place. Front-page story in USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...m?csp=34#Close Read the studies online. Casey "alumni" study: "Improving Family Foster Ca Findings from the Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study," http://www.casey.org/Resources/Publi...lumniStudy.htm MIT study: "Child Protection and Child Outcomes: Measuring the Effects of Foster Care," http://www.mit.edu/~jjdoyle/doyle_fo...arch07_aer.pdf Texas comptroller's "Forgotten Children" reports: www.window.state.tx.us/forgottenchildren The bottom line? - Child Protective Services and the Foster Care system for the most part turns out young adults that are nothing more than walking wreckage... CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CONSTITUTIONALLY GUARANTEED LIBERTIES & CIVIL RIGHTS ON A DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY/CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WIRETAPPING PROGRAMS.... CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES, HAPPILY DESTROYING THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT FAMILIES YEARLY NATIONWIDE AND COMING TO YOU'RE HOME SOON... BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION... |
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