Some
parents are vicious. Some parents are sadistic. Some parents brutally beat,
rape, torture, and murder their children.
Those
cases get intensive public and media attention -- as they should.
But
the typical foster child was not taken from a parent like that. Such cases
represent a tiny fraction of the child protective services caseload.
Out
of every 100 children investigated as possible victims of abuse, six are "substantiated" victims
of all forms of physical abuse, from the most minor to the most severe, about
three more are victims of sexual abuse. .
Many of the rest are false allegations or cases in which a family's
poverty has been confused with neglect.[1]
Far
more common than a child who comes into care because he was beaten are children
who come into foster care because the foodstamps ran out or because an illness
went untreated after parents were kicked off Medicaid or because a single
mother trying to stay off welfare could not provide adequate supervision while
she worked. Indeed, the former director of intake for child protective services
in Denver, Colorado acknowledges that some children are taken just because
their parents are down on their luck, out of work, or unable to provide adequate
shelter.[2]
|
CASE HISTORY: JAMES NORMAN James
Norman was a widower living in Chicago. He took enormous pride in his
children, and in how he was raising them. But after he developed a heart condition,
he was unable to work full time. Then he fell behind on his bills. Then the
electricity to his apartment was cut off. Then the helping hand of child
protective services struck. A
CPS worker found a messy home with food spoiling in the refrigerator because
there was no electricity. Instead of offering help with housekeeping and
utility bills, the worker immediately removed the Norman children. James
Norman took three buses and walked a mile at each end of the trip to visit
his children. After nearly a year, Norman's lawyers had arranged the
financial help that child protective services was supposed to provide, and a
court hearing was scheduled to determine if James Norman's children finally
could come home. But 12 days before the hearing, James Norman's heart finally
gave out. He died at age 38. In the last years of his life, James Norman had
a weak heart, but it took the child "protection" system to break it
-- and to make orphans of the Norman children. James
Norman left a noble legacy. A class-action lawsuit leading to a settlement
that provides emergency cash -- called "Norman money" -- and other
help to families in danger of losing their children to foster care. "At
least our example helped other people," says Norman's younger daughter,
Jamie.[3] Unfortunately,
even that legacy was undercut during the Chicago Foster Care Panic (see Issue Paper 2). Terrified by
the anti-family preservation crusaders, workers became afraid to use
"Norman money" to try to keep families together. A court-appointed
monitor found that the funds are "underutilized" and "the
shockingly low rate of children going home in Cook County is alarming." [4] |
·Three separate studies since
1996 have found that 30 percent of America’s foster children could be safely in
their own homes right now, if their birth parents had safe, affordable
housing.[5]
· A fourth study found that “in terms of reunification, even substance abuse is not as important a factor as income or housing in determining whether children will remain with their families.” [6]
· A study of
"boarder babies" -- children who spend months in hospitals, found
that the biggest single factor causing their forced hospital stays was lack of
housing.[7]
· Families struggling to
keep their children out of foster care are stymied by two major problems:
homelessness and low public assistance grants, according to two New York City
studies. [8]
· A study of "lack
of supervision" cases in New York City by the Child Welfare League of
America found that in 52 percent of the cases studied, the service needed most
was what one might expect -- day care or babysitting.[9] But the "service" offered most often was foster care.
· Courts in New York
City and Illinois have found that families are repeatedly kept apart solely
because they lack decent housing.[10]
· In Genesee County, Michigan,
which includes Flint, from 2000 to 2003 the foster-care population doubled –
and even the head of the county child welfare office says one of the main
reasons is they’re removing children from women forced to leave their children
with unsuitable caretakers while they go to jobs they must take under the
state’s welfare laws.[11]
· In California,
homeless children were given emergency shelter only on condition that they be
separated from their parents, until a successful lawsuit put an end to the
practice.[12]
· 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.[13]
And across the country, several
people who have run child welfare systems have acknowledged that their own systems
take away too many children.
· In Washington D.C., where the
foster care system was run for several years by the federal courts, the first
receiver named by the court to run the agency found that between one-third and one-half
of D.C.'s foster children could be returned to their parents immediately -- if
they just had a decent place to live. [14]
· A former District Administrator
in Broward County Florida estimated that 35 percent of the children in that
counties foster care system could have remained safely in their own homes had
the right kinds of help been provided. [15]
· And the former head of one of
the nation’s largest child welfare systems, Los Angeles County’s puts the
figure at up to 50 percent. [16]
Compounding the problem: Child welfare workers sometimes are in denial about the importance of providing concrete help to families.
A study of cases in Milwaukee County, Wis. found that housing
problems were a key cause of removal and a key barrier to reunification. But The researchers write that while
birth parents “see housing as a major source of concern …child welfare workers
are less attentive to this concern.”
They continue:
“Perhaps child welfare workers in Milwaukee are more
focused on parental functioning and less attentive to concrete needs such as
housing because of the principles guiding agency practice and the workers’
education and training.
Alternatively workers … may tend to ignore housing as a problem rather
than deal with the cognitive dissonance caused by the recognition that they
cannot help their clients with this important need.” [17]
Just as not every parent is sadistic, not every parent
is blameless, either. There is the broad range of cases in-between the extremes
-- cases where a parent may well be partly to blame, but where intervening to
preserve the family is still the best way to protect the child.
Updated January 1, 2008
1. U.S. Dept. of Health and
Human Services, Child Maltreatment 2001. Available online at
http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cb/publications/cm02 Back to Text.
2.
James B. Meadow, "Homeless Alone" Rocky Mountain
News, Jan. 13, 2000, p.4 Back to Text.
3.
Information about the Norman case comes from: "Introductory
Statement" and "Plaintiffs' Post-Trial Memorandum," Jaqueline
Fields, James Norman et. al.v. Gordon Johnson, the report submitted by the
worker who visited the Norman home, "DCFS Neglects Parents, Creates
Tragedies," an unpublished essay by Norman's Lawyer, Rob Karwath,
"DCFS Hit on Family Separation," Chicago Tribune, Jan. 19,
1990, p.2, Natalie Pardo, "Settlement Too Late for Norman," Chicago
Reporter, January, 1995, p.8. Back to Text.
4.
Jeanine Smith, Norman v. Ryder Fifth Monitoring Report,
Dec. 31, 1993. Back to Text.
5.
Deborah S, Harburger with Ruth Anne White, “Reunifying Families, Cutting Costs:
Housing – Child Welfare Partnerships for Permanent Supportive Housing Child
Welfare, Vol. LXXXIII, #5 Seot./Oct. 2004, p.501.
6. Ruth Anne White and Debra Rog,
“Introduction,” Child Welfare, note 5, supra, p. 393.
7.
City of New York Office of the Comptroller, Office of Policy Management,
Whatever Happened to the Boarder Babies?, January, 1989, pp. 11-12. Back to Text.
8.
Studies cited in Karen Benker and James Rempel, "Inexcusable
Harm: the Effect of Institutionalization on Young Foster Children in New York
City," City Health Report, (New York: Public Interest Health
Consortium for New York City) May, 1989. Back to Text.
9.
Mary Ann Jones, Parental Lack of Supervision: Nature and
Consequences of a Major Child Neglect Problem (Washington: Child Welfare
League of America, 1987), p.2. Back to Text.
10.
New York: Decision of Justice Elliott Wilk, Cosentino v.
Perales, 43236-85, New York State Supreme Court, New York County, April 27,
1988. Illinois: Rob Karwath, "DCFS Hit on Family Separation," Chicago
Tribune, Jan. 19, 1990, Sec. 2, p.2. See also: Juanita Poe and Peter Kendall,
"Cases of Neglect May be only Poverty in Disguise," Chicago
Tribune, Dec. 24, 1995, p.1. Back to Text.
11.
Ron Fonger, “Foster care number swells; welfare-to-work one reason: Official, Flint
Journal, September 9, 2003.
12.
Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support of Motion for
Preliminary Injunction, Hansen v. McMahon, Superior Court, State of
California, No.CA000974, April 22, 1986, p.1; California Department of Social
Services, All County Letter No. 86-77 ordering an end to the practice. Back to Text.
13.
National Commission on Children, Beyond Rhetoric: A New
American Agenda for Children and Families, (Washington, DC: May, 991) p.
290. Back to Text.
14.
Tamar Lewin, "Child Welfare Is Slow to Improve Despite Court
Order," The New York Times, December 30, 1995, p.6. Back
to Text.
15. Shana
Gruskin, “DCF Administrator confident of transition” South Florida Sun-Sentinel, March 25, 2000, p. 8B.
16. Troy
Anderson, “Ways to care for an ailing foster care system,” Daily News of Los
Angeles, December 8, 2003.
17. Mark E.
Courtney, et. al., “Housing Problems Experienced by Recipients of Child Welfare
Services,” Child Welfare, note 5 supra., p.417.