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Studies show flaws in child foster care system
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 Defend your civil liberties! Get information at http://www.aclu.org, become a member at http://www.aclu.org/join and get active at http://www.aclu.org/action. |
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