A child dies at the hand of a parent.
Within
days, sometimes hours, it becomes known that this child was "known to the
system."
For
most people, such a case is their introduction to the child welfare system. And
naturally, they have one overriding question -- how could it have happened?
For
more than a decade, politicians and self-proclaimed "child advocates"
have suggested an answer that is simple, obvious -- and wrong.
They
blame "family preservation." Or they blame a federal law that
required states and localities to make "reasonable efforts" to keep
families together. Or they blame both.
It
is claimed that "family preservation" is at odds with "child
protection." It is claimed that family preservation must be eliminated and
the "reasonable efforts" clause repealed or amended in order to
protect children. It was even claimed that the "reasonable efforts"
clause causes children to languish in foster care. In fact, "reasonable
efforts" is all that prevents the foster care crisis from being even
worse.
The smear campaign against family preservation was
successful. In 1997, Congress passed the
so-called Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), a bill which effectively makes
optional what was once the “reasonable efforts” requirement in federal
law. Congress was told this would reduce
the number of children in foster care.
In fact, it did the opposite.
Even during recent years when so many other social indicators improved –
crime declined, unemployment declined, even child abuse itself declined – the
foster care population kept going up, reaching a peak in 2000 and only recently
beginning to decline. And, according to
the most recent available data, it wasn’t until 2003, six years after ASFA
became law that the number of children in foster care finally dipped below it’s pre-ASFA level.[1]
A more reliable measure of system behavior is the number of
children taken away over the course of a year.
And that didn’t start to decline until 2006, after reaching a record
high of at least 307,000 in 2005.[3] The only hope for thousands of children rests
with how states and localities choose to use the new power the federal
government has given them.
By and large, they have not used it well.
The demands to abolish family
preservation and "reasonable efforts" come with some great applause
lines. Such demands are said to involve "erring on the side of the
child" or "defending children's rights" or "putting
children first." But abolishing family preservation does nothing of the
kind.
Rather,
this approach requires the massive removal of children from one set of adults
-- their parents -- to another set of adults, foster parents or orphanage
workers, with the decisions made by still another set of adults, judges,
lawyers and, especially, workers for government and private child welfare
agencies. In the 19th Century such workers proudly called themselves
"child savers." Abolishing family preservation puts child savers, not
children, first. And when "child savers" come first, children come
last.
"Putting
children first" is a euphemism for taking more and more children away from
their parents and placing them in foster care. But contrary to stereotype, family
preservation is safer than foster care.
Those
who oppose family preservation say they want to remove children from danger to
safety. Often, it turns out to be the other way around.
The
attempt to scapegoat "family preservation" has had disastrous
consequences for children. Indeed, in some cases, the consequences have been
fatal.
Critics
claim that family preservation "dominates" the system. But even with
the recent decline, the number of children in foster care has increased from
243,000 in 1982[4] to nearly 500,000 today. [5] If those of us who advocate family preservation have been so
"dominant," what are all those children doing in foster care?
Critics
claim children languish in foster care because of the "reasonable
efforts" requirement. But relative to the total child population, there
were as many children in foster care before "reasonable efforts" became law in 1980. Bad as things were before 1997, with the
effective repeal of "reasonable efforts," they got worse.
Eliminating family preservation and
amending "reasonable efforts" guaranteed the needless destruction of
still more loving families, a far higher foster care population than necessary,
and, worst of all, the senseless deaths of more children.
In
the issue papers that follow, we explain what family preservation is and what
it is not. We compare the safety record of family preservation and foster care.
We look at how the children who are really in the system compare with the
stereotype.
And
we look at what happened in cities and states where family preservation was
abandoned in recent years.
Updated0
October 23, 2008
1. As of
March, 1998, four months after ASFA became law, there were 520,000 children in
foster care, (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, AFCARS Report #1,
available online at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/afcars/tar/report1/ar0199.htm
). It took until September 30, 2003, for
the number to fall to 510,000 (U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, Trends in Foster Care and Adoption, available
online at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/afcars/trends.htm
2. Ibid.
3.
Ibid.
4. Leroy Pelton, For
Reasons of Poverty: A Critical Analysis of the Public Child Welfare System in
the United States. (New York: Praeger, 1989), pp.
6. Back to Text.
5. Trends,
note 1, supra Back to Text.