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Recommendations to Overhaul Nation’s Foster Care System
Recommendations to Overhaul Nation’s Foster Care System
Posted by: laurakujawski on Thursday, May 27, 2004 Topic Human Services After a year of intensive analysis, conversations with professionals, parents, and children, The Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care released far-reaching recommendations to overhaul the nation’s foster care system. The Commission, a national, nonpartisan panel funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and composed of leading experts in child welfare, undertook the first-ever, comprehensive assessment of two key aspects of the foster care system: a federal financing structure that encourages an over-reliance on placement of children in foster care at the expense of other more permanent options for children who have been abused or neglected, and a court system that lacks sufficient tools, information, and accountability necessary to move children swiftly out of foster care and into permanent homes. Reform in these two areas, the Commission determined, will have far-reaching effects for children in foster care and is a critical first step to solving many other problems that plague the child welfare system. The Commission’s recommendations offer a plan for improving outcomes for children in foster care and those at risk of entering care. The Commission proposes a fundamental restructuring of existing resources, as well as targeted new investments that will provide real returns to our children and our nation. Additionally, the Commission’s court recommendations give children a much higher priority in state courts, give courts the tools to better oversee foster care cases, and help to ensure that every child and parent have an effective voice in court decisions that affect their lives. Foster care protects children who are not safe in their own homes. For some, it is life-saving. But for too many children, what should be a short-term refuge becomes a long-term saga, involving multiple moves. Almost half of children spend at least two years in care, and move to at least three different placements. This turbulence and uncertainty can have lasting consequences, for which children and society pay a price. The Role of Federal Financing Current federal funding mechanisms for child welfare encourage an over-reliance on foster care at the expense of other services that might keep families safely together, allow children to return safely home, or move children swiftly and safely from foster care to adoptive families or permanent legal guardians. The Commission’s recommendations require stronger accountability for how public dollars are used to protect and support children who have suffered abuse and neglect. They require redirection of current funding, and give states the freedom to decide whether foster care is the right choice for an individual child, or whether there are other options that might keep children safe and secure. The key components of the Commission’s financing recommendations a Preserving federal foster care maintenance and adoption assistance as an entitlement and expanding it to all children, regardless of their birth families’ income and including Indian children and children in the U.S. territories; Providing federal guardianship assistance to all children who leave foster care to live with a permanent legal guardian when a court has explicitly determined that neither reunification nor adoption are feasible permanence options; Helping states build a range of services from prevention, to treatment, to post-permanence by (1) creating a flexible, indexed Safe Children, Strong Families Grant from what is currently included in Title IV-B and the administration and training components of Title IV-E; and (2) allowing states to “reinvest” federal and state foster care dollars into other child welfare services if they safely reduce their use of foster care; Encouraging innovation by expanding and simplifying the federal waiver process and providing incentives to states that (1) make and maintain improvements in their child welfare workforce and (2) increase all forms of safe permanence; and Strengthening the current Child and Family Services Review process to increase states’ accountability for improving outcomes for children. The Role of the Courts For years, the courts have been the unseen partners in child welfare--yet they are vested with enormous responsibility. Along with child welfare agencies, the courts have an obligation to ensure that children are protected from harm. Courts make the formal determination on whether abuse or neglect has occurred and whether a child should be removed from the home. Courts review cases to decide if parents and the child welfare agencies are meeting their legal obligations to a child. Courts are charged with ensuring that children are moved from foster care and placed in a safe, permanent home within statutory timeframes. And courts determine if and when a parent’s rights should be terminated and whether a child should be adopted or placed with a permanent guardian. The Commission’s court recommendations call for: Adoption of court performance measures by every dependency court to ensure that they can track and analyze their caseloads, increase accountability for improved outcomes for children, and inform decisions about the allocation of court resources; Incentives and requirements for effective collaboration between courts and child welfare agencies on behalf of children in foster care; A strong voice for children and parents in court and effective representation by better trained attorneys and volunteer advocates; Leadership from Chief Justices and other state court leaders in organizing their court systems to better serve children, provide training for judges, and promote more effective standards for dependency courts, judges, and attorneys. http://www.pnnonline.org/article.php...rder=0&thold=0 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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