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Aid for foster care debated
Aid for foster care debated
Bush looks to give states more freedom, limited money By Pamela Brogan / Gannett News Service WASHINGTON -- State welfare officials, the Bush administration and child care advocates agree that the nation's state-run foster care system, temporary home to 542,000 abused and neglected youngsters, needs to be overhauled. "It's clear the system is not functioning well," said Susan Orr, the Health and Human Services official who runs the federal program that helps finance state foster care programs. "All you have to do is read the papers. It doesn't matter what state you are in. Children are lingering in foster care." But there is no consensus on how much the federal government should pay states to run their programs. The Bush administration is proposing a plan to revamp state-run foster care programs with what it calls "flexible funding." Under that plan, federal foster care payments would be capped at $5 billion a year and sent to the states in a lump sum. In exchange, states would have more autonomy to run foster care programs with fewer federal strings. Administration officials project that the federal payment for foster care will climb from $4.6 billion, or $625 per child, this year to $6 billion in 2013, or $966 per child. Advocates for foster children say Bush's proposed solution would function as a block grant subject to budget cuts by deficit-minded lawmakers. "They just want to eliminate one of the last federal entitlements for children," said John Sciamanna, a lobbyist for the Child Welfare League of America. Some state officials are skeptical, as well. "It's kind of scary to think about capping funding for this program," said Barbara Riley, deputy director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. "It's not just about the growing number of children but the rising costs of the services." The number of children in Ohio's foster care program increased 32 percent from 1992 through last year -- from 17,285 children to 22,883. Bobbi Pedersen, 45, a foster parent in Columbus, Ohio, has been a surrogate mom to 20 kids over the past 13 years and knows how to navigate the maze of government foster care regulations. She opposes any cap on federal funding. "Services for these kids are getting more and more expensive," said Pedersen, who has three foster care children and four adopted children who were formerly in foster care. But Pedersen also said the system needs updating to better serve kids. "It seems we now have accountability through paperwork, taking away any possibility to find creative solutions to the problems of these children," she said. Officials in California also say a cap on foster care spending is a bad idea. California receives more than $1 billion a year in federal money for foster care programs, or almost a quarter of what the government spends on those programs nationwide. Capping the money would limit the state's ability to finance counseling and drug abuse programs for parents and families that are designed to keep children out of foster care, said Dianne Edwards, director of the Sonoma County Human Services Department. Statistics showcase the magnitude of the problems affecting the foster care system: * A Department of Health and Human Services review of 37 state child welfare-foster care programs found that all 37 failed to meet goals set by the federal government. Finding homes for foster children is "one of the weakest areas" of state-run programs, Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at HHS, told Congress on June 11. * State agencies field about 3 million reports each year of abuse and neglect cases affecting foster children. * Foster care-related programs account for more than half of what the federal government spends on child welfare programs. * The number of children adopted from foster care has increased from 31,000 in 1997 to 51,000 in 2001, but there are still about 130,000 children waiting to be adopted. |
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