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efforts" clause repealed or amended in order to protect children.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.
And
now it is getting 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’s done 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 2004, seven years after ASFA became
law that the number of children in foster care finally dipped below it’s
pre-ASFA level – by only 2,000 children.[1]
Two years later, the number had fallen by fewer than 3,000 more.[2]
A
more reliable measure of system behavior is the number of children taken away
over the course of a year. And that is still
going up, hitting a record high of 304,000 in 2004.[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 518,000 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 are
getting worse.
Eliminating family
preservation and amending "reasonable efforts" guarantees 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.
We know this, because these
"solutions" already have been tried -- and failed.
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.
Revised
November 4, 2007
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, 2004,
for the number to fall to 518,000 (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. There were more than 515,000 children in foster care
on Sept. 30, 2006. U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, Children Entering and Exiting Care During FY 2006
and Children in Care as of September 30, 2006. These data are not yet online, they were obtained by NCCPR
through a Freedom of Information Act request.
3. Trends, note 1, supra.
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.
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