Among
the most bizarre criticisms of family preservation is the allegation that it
dominates federal funding priorities.
These
attacks apparently are linked to passage of the Family Preservation and Family
Support Act of 1993. That law has been wrongly characterized by critics,
and some media, as providing $1 billion for family preservation.
The
$1 billion was spread over five years -- and it was not just for family
preservation. Far from it.
The
law allows states to spend the money they get through this law on a huge array
of services -- even foster care and adoption. A state can, if it so chooses,
receive its entire allocation under this law and spend not one dime on family
preservation [1]. The so-called “Adoption and
Safe Families Act” (ASFA) – the 1997 law effectively abolishing
"reasonable efforts" -- continues the Family Preservation and Family
Support Act under a new name, “Promoting Safe and Stable Families,” but it
dilutes the act still further by allowing even more of the money to be spent on
adoption [2].
But
even if all the money had been earmarked for family preservation, it still
would have been dwarfed by the money available for what still is the
best-funded child welfare "service" -- foster care.
Compared
to the gigantic, open-ended entitlement for foster care, $1 billion spread over
five years is barely noticeable. Before the 1993 law was enacted, the most
conservative estimate indicated that the federal government spent at least
eight times more on foster care than on services to keep children out of foster
care [3]. Because foster care is an
"entitlement," that is, for every eligible child states automatically
get partial reimbursement, the ratio hasn’t improved. Indeed, in Fiscal Year 2002, the most recent for which data
are available, the federal government spent at least nine dollars on foster
care and three more dollars on adoption for every dollar spent to prevent
foster care or speed reunification.[4].
States
also can use other federal funding streams for a wide variety of social
services, including child welfare.
Unfortunately, there is evidence that states actually are using one of
these funding streams to take dollars out of the pockets of impoverished
families in order to pay for keeping their children in foster care.
The
program is Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).
This
program is the successor to Aid to Families with Dependent Children
(AFDC). As such, it is
specifically intended to provide support for impoverished families, either
through direct assistance or programs to help them achieve self-sufficiency.
But in
2002, states used at least $1.2 billion in TANF money for foster care.[5]
Some of
this money was, in fact, well spent – it went to kinship care programs to help
extended family members care for their children. But it appears that hundreds
of millions of dollars in TANF money is being spent on foster care with
strangers.
For
example, in Connecticut alone, more than $100 million in TANF funds has been
diverted from providing low-income families with day care subsidies into foster
care with strangers, and even child abuse investigations.
In
other words, the money that could help an impoverished single parent keep her
job and avoid a “lack of supervision” charge instead has been diverted to
investigating that parent, taking away her children, and paying middle-class
foster parents to take care of them.[6]
While
this is perfectly legal, it is an unconscionable transfer of funds from
America’s poor to subsidize child welfare agencies and pay middle-class
strangers caring for foster children.
The
funding bias in favor of foster care is one of the main reasons why so many children
are needlessly placed.
Although
family preservation is less expensive in total dollars, because of federal and
state funding formulas, foster care may cost less for a state or locality
making a placement. In Pennsylvania, for example, for every dollar a county
spends on foster care, it gets an average of 85 cents back from the state and
federal governments.[7]
The
National Commission on Children found that children often are removed from
their families "prematurely or unnecessarily" because federal aid
formulas give states "a strong financial incentive" to do so rather
than provide services to keep families together [8].
This
does not mean that local governments "make money" on foster care. It
does mean that foster care often costs them less than programs to keep children
out of foster care.
And
some private agencies do indeed make money on foster care. These agencies are paid for every day
they keep a child in foster care.
If they return a child home -- or get a child adopted -- the
reimbursement stops. That creates
a strong incentive to let children languish in foster care.
Since
adoption generally takes longer than reunification, however, there also is an
incentive for private agencies to press to change the “goal” in a child’s “case
plan” from reunification to adoption.
In
1997, having realized the harm done by the foster care panic -- and under
pressure from the Illinois Branch of the American Civil Liberties Union --
Illinois moved to change direction by changing financial incentives. Illinois now pays for permanence,
rewarding private agencies financially for returning children to their own
homes and for adoptions. The
agencies are penalized for allowing children to languish in foster care.
As
a result, the Illinois foster care population fell from more than 50,000 in
1997[9] to 16,788 as of November,
2007,[10] and as the foster care population has declined, child safety has
improved.[11]
Unfortunately,
at the federal level, the financial incentive to place children is increased by
two other laws. Under the new federal welfare law, if a family is forced into
poverty, no matter what the reason, they may not be able to get public
assistance to help care for their own children (depending on how many years
they have received such assistance), but as soon as their children are taken
away, the foster care system may receive a never-ending subsidy to help foster
parents cover the costs of caring for those children.
The
second law, ASFA, includes bounties to states of up to $8,000 or more per child
for every adoption they finalize over a baseline number. The bounty is paid
when the adoption is finalized, so there is an incentive to place a child with
little concern about whether the placement will really last. Indeed, if the
adoption "disrupts" and the child is placed again, the state can
collect another bounty.
Thus,
states and private agencies now have financial incentives to keep children in
foster care and financial incentives to place them for adoption - but no
financial incentives to keep them in their own homes or return them there.
“What
you have now is an incentive to initially remove the child and an incentive to
adopt them out,” says David Sanders, former head of the Los Angeles County
Department of Children and Family Services, one of the nation’s largest child
welfare systems. “I think when you
put these two together, there is a problem.” [12]
As
for parents, with these new laws in place, the federal government will help
foster parents care for children, the federal government will help some
adoptive parents care for children, and the federal government will help
institutions care for children. About the only parents the federal government
won't help indefinitely are birth parents.
1. Martha Matthews, "HHS Issues Family Preservation
& Support Program Instruction," Youth Law News 15 no.2
(March-April 1994) p.3. See also, Marc Katz, "New Legislation Pours $1
billion Into Family Preservation," Youth Law News 14, no.5
(September-October, 1993) p.8. Back to Text.
2. "Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, Sec.
305. Back to Text.
3. U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee on
Children, Youth, and Families, No Place to Call Home: Discarded Children in
America (Washington DC: Jan. 12, 1990) p.163. Back to
Text.
4. The Urban Institute estimates that states
spent at least $3.8 billion in federal funds reserved exclusively for foster
care, and at least another $1.25 billion on funds reserved exclusively for
adoption. States spent $549
million from child welfare funding streams that can be used for prevention and
family preservation. But these
funds can be used for many other purposes as well. Based on the Urban Institute data, NCCPR estimates that no
more than $400 million of that $549 million – and probably far less – actually
went to prevention, family preservation or family reunification. (Cynthia Andrews Scarcella et. al, The
Cost of Protecting Vulnerable Children IV (Washington DC, The Urban
Institute) December 20, 2004, available online at
http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/411115_VulnerableChildrenIV.pdf ). Back to Text.
5.
Ibid.
6.
Colin Poitras, “Child
Care Funds Lacking,” Hartford Courant, March 25, 2006.
7. Barbara White Stack, "Relatives should get
foster care pay, suit says," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Aug. 16,
2000, p.1. Back to Text.
8. National Commission on Children, Beyond Rhetoric:
A New American Agenda for Children and Families, (Washington, DC: May,
1991) p.290 Back to Text.
9. Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, Children in
Substitute Care: 1985 to Present, available online at http://www.state.il.us/dcfs/foster/index.shtml
10. Illinois
Department of Children and Family Services, Division of Quality Assurance, Executive
Statistical Summary, October, 2004, available
online at http://www.state.il.us/DCFS/docs/execstat.pdf.
11.
Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, Signs of Progress in
Child Welfare Reform available online at http://www.state.il.us/dcfs/docs/SignsJan03.pdf
12. Troy
Anderson, “Government Bonuses Accelerate Adoptions,” Daily News of Los
Angeles, December 8, 2003.
Updated January 1, 2008