Successful Alternatives to
Taking Children from their Parents
1. Doing
nothing. There are, in fact, cases in which the investigated
family is entirely innocent and perfectly capable of taking good care of
their children without any “help” from a child welfare agency. In such
cases, the best thing the child protective services worker can do is
apologize, shut the door, and go away.
2.
Basic, concrete help. Sometimes it may take something as simple as
emergency cash for a security deposit, a rent subsidy, or a place in a day
care center (to avoid a “lack of supervision” charge) to keep a family
together.
3.
Intensive Family Preservation Services programs. The
first such program, Homebuilders, in Washington State, was established in the
mid-1970s. The largest replication is in Michigan, where the program is
called Families First. The very term “family preservation” was invented
specifically to apply to this type of program, which has a better track
record for safety than foster care. The basics concerning how these programs
work – and what must be included for a program to be a real “family
preservation” program -- are in NCCPR Issue Papers 10 and 11. Issue Paper 11
lists studies proving the programs’ effectiveness. CONTACTS: Charlotte Booth, executive director, Homebuilders
(253) 874-3630,
cbooth@bsihomebuilders.org,
Susan Kelly, former director, Families First (734) 547-9164, susan.kelly
@cssp.org
4. The
Alabama “System of Care.” This is one of the most successful
child welfare reforms in the country. The reforms are the result of a consent
decree growing out of a lawsuit brought by the Bazelon Center for Mental
Health Law. The consent decree requires the state to rebuild its entire
system from the bottom up, with an emphasis on keeping families together. The
rate at which children are taken from their homes is among the lowest in the
country, and re-abuse of children left in their own homes has been cut
sharply. An independent monitor appointed by the court has found that
children are safer now
than before the changes. CONTACTS: Ira Burnim,
Legal Director, Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law (202) 467-5730, ext.
129. Mr. Burnim also is a member of the NCCPR Board of Directors.
The Bazelon Center also has published a book about the Alabama reforms. Paul Vincent, Child Welfare Policy and Practice Group,
Montgomery, Ala. (334) 264-8300. Mr. Vincent ran the child
protection system in Alabama when the lawsuit was filed. He worked closely
with the plaintiffs to develop and implement the reform plan. Ivor Groves, independent, court-appointed monitor, (850) 422-8900.
5.
Family to Family. This is a multi-faceted program developed by
the Annie E. Casey Foundation (which also helps to fund NCCPR). One element
of the program, Team Decisionmaking often is confused with the entire
program, which has many more elements. The program is described at the Casey
website
http://www.aecf.org/Home/MajorInitiatives/Family%20to%20Family.aspx A
comprehensive outside evaluation of the program, found that it led to fewer
placements, shorter placements, and less bouncing of children from foster
home to foster home – with no compromise of safety. CONTACT: Gretchen Test, Annie E. Casey Foundation (410)
547-6600.
6.
Community/Neighborhood Partnerships for Child Protection.
These partnerships, overseen by the Center for the Study of Social Policy in
Washington, are similar to the Family to Family projects. They mobilize
formal and informal networks of helpers to prevent maltreatment and avoid
needless foster care placement. Partnerships in Florida’s Duval County, St.
Louis, Mo. and Georgia have reduced placements and improved safety. CONTACT: Marno Batterson, Center for the Study of Social Policy,
(641) 792-5918,
marno.batterson@cssp.org.
7. The
turnaround in Pittsburgh. In the mid-1990s, the child welfare
system in Pittsburgh and surrounding Allegheny County, Pa. was typically
mediocre, or worse. Foster care placements were soaring and those in charge
insisted every one of those placements was necessary. New leadership changed
all that. Since 1997, the foster care population has been cut dramatically.
When children must be placed, nearly half of all placements are with
relatives and siblings are kept together 82 percent of the time.
They’ve done it by tripling the budget for
primary prevention, more than doubling the budget for family preservation,
embracing innovations like Family to Family and adding elements of their own,
such as housing counselors in every child welfare office so families aren’t
destroyed because of housing problems. And children are safer. Reabuse of
children left in their own homes has declined and there has been a
significant and sustained decline in child abuse fatalities. CONTACT: Karen Blumen, Allegheny County Department of Human
Services, Office of Community Relations (412) 350-5707.
8.
Reform in El Paso County, Colorado. By recognizing the crucial
role of poverty in child maltreatment, El Paso County reversed steady
increases in its foster care population. The number of children in foster
care declined significantly – and the rate of reabuse of children left in
their own homes is below the state and national averages, according to an
independent evaluation by the Center for Law and Social Policy. CONTACT: Barbara Drake, El Paso County Department of Human
Services, (719) 444-5532.
9. The
Bridge Builders, Bronx, New York. Combine the giving and
guidance of ten foundations with the knowledge and enthusiasm of eight
community-based agencies, then partner with the child protective services
agency and what do you get? A significant reduction in the number of
children taken from their homes, with no compromise of safety, in a
neighborhood that is among those losing more children to foster care than any
others in New York City. That’s the record of the Bridge Builders Initiative
in the Highbridge section of The Bronx. (NCCPR has received a grant to
assist the Bridge Builders with media work). CONTACTS:
Francis Ayuso, Project Director,
ayusof@highbridgelife.org, (718)
681-2222; Mike Arsham, executive director, Child Welfare Organizing Project,
co-chair Bridge Builders Executive Committee,
mike@cwop.org, 212-348-3000. Throughout the City,
the Administration for Children’s Services has made significant progress in
safely keeping children in their own homes. Since 1998, even with
backsliding since 2006 in the wake of highly-publicized deaths of children
“known to the system,” the number of children taken from their parents over
the course of a year has been cut significantly, with no compromise of
safety. Though child abuse fatalities garnered extensive media attention in
2006, such fatalities have declined during the reforms, only to increase in
the wake of the backsliding. Overall reabuse of children left in their own
homes declined significantly when entries into foster care were reduced. Contact: Sharman Stein, Administration for Children’s Services
212-341-0999
10. The
transformation in Maine. After a little girl named Logan Marr was
taken needlessly from her mother only to be killed by a foster mother who
formerly worked for the child welfare agency, the people of Maine refused to
settle for pat answers about background checks and licensing standards. They
zeroed in on the fact that Maine had one of the highest proportions of
children in the country trapped in foster care. The combination of
grassroots demands for change from below and new leadership at the top led to
a dramatic reduction in the number of children taken away over the course of
a year. And while the state still has a long way to go in using kinship
care, the proportion of children placed with relatives has more than
doubled. It’s all been done without compromising safety, earning the support
of the state’s independent child welfare ombudsman. CONTACTS: Dean Crocker, Vice President for Programs, Maine
Children's Alliance, (207) 623-1868 ext. 212,
dcrocker@mekids.org; Mary Callahan, founder
Maine Alliance for DHS Accountability and Reform, (207) 353-4223,
maryec_98@yahoo.com
11.Changing
financial incentives. While not a program per se, making this
change spurs private child welfare agencies to come up with all sorts of
innovations. This is clear from the experience in Illinois. Until the late
1990s, Illinois reimbursed private child welfare agencies the way other
states typically do: They were paid for each day they kept a child in foster
care. Thus, agencies were rewarded for letting children languish in foster
care and punished for achieving permanence.
Now those incentives have been reversed, in
part because of pressure from the Illinois Branch of the ACLU, which won a
lawsuit against the child welfare system. Today, private agencies in Illinois
are rewarded both for adoptions (which often are conversions of kinship
placements to subsidized guardianships) and for
returning children safely to their own homes. They are penalized for
prolonged stays in foster care. As soon as the incentives changed, the
“intractable” became tractable, the “dysfunctional” became functional, and
the foster care population plummeted. And children are safer. Today,
Illinois takes away children at one of the lowest rates in the country.
Independent, court-appointed monitors have found that child safety has
improved. CONTACT: Ben Wolf, Illinois Branch, ACLU,
(312) 201-9760, ext. 420,
bwolf@aclu-il.org
12.
Due process of law. Even the best programs are no
substitute for due process. That means court hearings in child welfare cases
should be open. But that also means it’s urgent for accused parents to have
meaningful legal representation from well-trained attorneys with low
caseloads and solid support staff. It’s not a matter of getting “bad”
parents off, it’s a matter of challenging case records that often are rife
with error, countering cookie-cutter “service plans” that provide no services
and ensuring that families get the help they need. A pilot project to
provide such representation in some counties in Washington State has had such
success in safely keeping families together that even the Attorney General’s
office, which represents the child welfare agency in these cases, favors
expanding it. FURTHER
INFORMATION AND CONTACTS are available from the Washington State Office of
Public Defense at this website:
http://www.opd.wa.gov/Parents%20Representation%20Program.htm
Updated,
January 1, 2008
