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ACLU Indiana suing for KIN v *stranger fosters*



 
 
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Old June 27th 04, 08:55 PM
Fern5827
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Default ACLU Indiana suing for KIN v *stranger fosters*

DESCRIPTORS; INDIANA, FSSA, CPS, ASFA, KINSHIP CARE, FOSTER CARE.

Subject: Child welfare agency can't get FBI data
From: wexwimpy
Date: 6/26/2004 4:19 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Message-id:

Child welfare agency can't get FBI data
Bureau says state agency cannot use its database to conduct background
checks on family guardians.

By Eunice Trotter

June 26, 2004

The FBI has denied Indiana Child Protection Services access to its
criminal records database, thwarting caseworkers' ability to conduct
national background checks on relatives who want to provide a home for
abuse or neglected children.

The background checks were to begin July 1, when a new law, House
Enrolled Act 1194, is scheduled to go into effect. The law requires an
FBI criminal background check of everyone in a relative's home.

FBI officials formally notified the state this week that Child
Protection Services, or CPS, is not a criminal justice agency and
therefore is not eligible to access criminal records in the Department
of Justice database.

The law puts family members who seek to take in children under more
scrutiny than foster parents.

"If the FBI won't let us have access to the information, then we can't
get it," said state Rep. Dennis Avery, D-Evansville, author of the
law.

Local judges also have said CPS could not have access to juvenile
criminal records for the purpose of doing background checks, said
Avery.

As officials worked to digest the FBI decision, another blow to the
new law came Friday when the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, acting on
behalf of a child in foster care, filed a legal action to have the
child placed with relatives.

ICLU legal director Ken Falk said a motion was left Friday at Marion
County juvenile court, asking a judge to overturn a CPS decision to
place a child in foster care rather than with a relative. The
petitioner in the confidential filing is a court-appointed
representative for the unnamed child.

Falk said the organization wants the legal action to be decided on
behalf of all Indiana children who might be placed in foster care
instead of with suitable relatives.

"What this law would do, in effect, is make it much easier to place a
child with a stranger than with a relative," said Falk, adding that
only local background checks are performed on foster parents.

"Every single person in the system recognizes there are problems with
this law that have to be solved, but they won't be solved by next
Thursday," Falk said.

Marion County juvenile court Judge James W. Payne, who was unavailable
for comment, has been a critic of the FBI background check provision.
He foresaw a bottleneck of children waiting in foster care and a
threat to the state's federal funding. Millions of dollars could be
lost if the state violates federal rules that prohibit state wards
from being in multiple placements.

Annette Biesecker, a lawyer for the Indiana Family and Social Services
Administration, the state agency over CPS, said caseworkers will
continue to perform local background checks, including reviews of the
state's child abuse and neglect database.

She said the administration and other officials will continue to
propose changes in the law to help protect children by keeping them
out of the homes of unsuitable relatives.

"We agree it was a good bill, but it presents certain challenges that
under current law we cannot perform," she said. "We can't make the FBI
give us the information."

Legislators and FSSA officials said they had thought accessing basic
FBI records through the Indiana State Police would have been
relatively simple, though at a cost of $39 per check.

But this method would have taken two or three months to complete for
each person in a household being investigated, and the information
would not have been adequate to determine whether a relative had been
convicted of one of 19 crimes included in the new law.

State Rep. David Orentlicher, D-Indianapolis, co-author of the law and
a member of the Governor's Commission on Abused and Neglected Children
and Their Families, said legislators will make changes to the law
during the coming session.

It is likely the revised law will require more thorough local checks,
which in some cases were not performed at all in the past, he said.

Cathleen Graham, who heads a statewide foster care association, said
her organization supports the intent of the legislation to better
protect children who are being placed with family members.

She said the new law likely will cause children to be moved to several
foster homes.

"It is not a good thing for children to be repeatedly moved from place
to place," Graham said.

Sharon Pierce, executive director of The Villages, the state's largest
foster care agency, said changes to the bill are welcomed.

"I think then it could be a really positive tool to make sure
children's connections with families are not hurt."
http://www.indystar.com/articles/7/158035-9047-009.html














 




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