New law meant to improve stability for foster care

[Terra Mater]

For many thousands of America's foster children, prospects for a permanent home and stronger support will be brighter under a new law that bridged Washington's partisan divide and is touted as the most significant child-welfare reform in decades.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081013/ap_on_re_us/foster_care;_ylt=Ajxkys6QXRuK1La7Tzn6QNRvzwcF

[Terra Mater]

Now why is it that when we post about a politician mucking things up we get 100 posts in the first day, but when we post about one doing something right, no one has a single comment?

:alol:

[watersprite]

Well, that's a good bill, as long as the case managers get a lighter load to be able to screen foster parents properly. Right now, the case workers loads are so huge they are impossible to manage, and getting worse.

[Terra Mater]

With the provisions of this bill, they will be able to lighten their loads considerably. Being able to get assistance for tribal children without putting them in the state system is a big help, as is getting assistance for aunts, uncles, grandparents, adult siblings, etc to be able to take in their displaced minor kin.

I was talking with my daughter's caseworker today about the bill and though she hadn't heard of it before, she said it adresses the major drains and overclogs in the system. For her, the only question was how long would it take to trickle down from the federal level to the states.

Now if they would just improve the communications between the different state children's agencies, they could improve the system even farther and lessen the workload of the caseworkers by even more. My daughter's caseworker was telling me about a woman who had been collecting welfare benefits for her two kids that were in foster care. One arm of DES was paying her money for two kids that the other arm of DES was providing money for others to house. Another case I heard of was a woman whose children had been listed as missing in her state, but her ex had taken them from her and had them taken away from him in another state. Because the states do not communicate well with one another, her kids were in foster care for 3 years before she found out where they were and was able to get them back.

The system is stll flawed, but this act is a big fix for a great number of the problems within it.

[brigidrose]

Hi,

We need help here in Illinois. The Foster system is so corrupt that its keeping children that were placed in good homes, with foster parents willing to adopt, and removing them and letting another Foster parent keep them, but they are still not adopted after a year or two. I feel that they are using the children to keep money flowing to the system. How do we start correcting this?

[Terra Mater]

Depends on if the state is really keeping them to keep money flowing into the system (unlikely) or if the "willing to adopt families are having trouble meeting the adoption criteria.

In most states a foster child is not supposed to stay in a foster home for more than a couple of years so they do not get more attached to their foster family than they are to their real family. Its not corruption, its an attempt to preserve a bond with their birth family.

If the family is serious about adopting their foster child and file for an order of adoption, then the foster care agency will extend the time to child is allowed to stay with the family. The catch is, they have to actually file with the courts, not just tell the child "I am gonna adopt you" or even just tell the case worker "I am going to adopt this child." When the papers are files, the judge is informed that the child is a foster child and an order is issued by the court waiving the 2 year maximum.

The greater number of foster families wanting to adopt their foster kids fail to do so due to financial reasons. This new law provides more financial incentives for adopting children out of foster care, especially older youths and those with special needs. One example: federal adoption assistance for special-needs children will no longer be limited to those who come from low-income families.

The reason I find it unlikely that the state agency is trying to keep a child in foster care to keep money flowing in is because they are actually losing money on each child in the system. There are always more kids needing care than there are places to provide adequate care and not one caseworker I have ever known (and I ahve known a lot of them) advocates keeping a child in the system and does all they are able to either reunify the child with the birth family or encourage adoption by the foster family.

There are a few other reasons why the children may not have been adopted by their families including their own wishes. Not every foster child automatically wants a new family. One of my foster sisters actually had it written in her records that she never wanted to be adopted, she preferred to give her mother every chance in the world to get her back. I also did not want to be adopted, my mother's mental handicaps were not her fault any more than my father's mental illness was his fault. I saw no need to punish them beyond my absence.

[Glowingsun]

I think the IDEA is great. Canada should be considering this, too. But their are a few things that will turn disasterous:



Provide more financial incentives for adopting children out of foster care

Incentives are great for keeping employees at companies and making people become more eco friendly.
But why should the government bribe people, who want to have kids in the first place, to adopt foster kids. Who's to say people won't take advantage of these incentives and adopt just for the benefits. Is that really putting foster kids in a better home? There are already bad parents who have baby after baby after baby just to stay on and recieve more from governement assistance and housing.


Allow use of federal funds to assist children who leave foster care to live as legal guardians of relatives — a step which will help an estimated 15,000 children. In the past, such "kinship care" — which experts view as preferable to foster care — was generally not eligible for federal aid.
Canada has this benefit with the aboriginal CFS branches. it has already too many horrible repreccussions. Kids are thrown into a kin's home without screening the relatives and they are ending up abused or dead. All because these abusive parents are afraid cultural genocide will happen to their kids. Funny how they start doting once CFS swoops in.
This law should add that the kids be sent to live with QUALIFIED relatives whome don't have a criminal record or history of abuse of any kind. And also the most severe bad parents should not have any knowledge of where the child is placed for safety reasons. (including animal cruelty.)


Allow direct federal foster care funding to tribal governments, so more American Indian and Alaskan Native children can receive services while remaining in their own communities. Previously, the tribes had to go through state agencies to seek this funding.

This may actually be a good idea.


_Require child-welfare agencies to make "reasonable efforts" to keep siblings together when they enter foster care, and work harder to ensure that foster children receive a stable education and proper health care.
Great idea. in fact it should have been thought of decades ago. My mom and her siblings were placed in foster care. They were placed in home after home and constantly separated from each other.


"Once again, America's child welfare establishment has refused to put its money where its mouth is," Wexler said. "In this big new bill they're all cheering about, there is not one new idea, not one new word, and not one new penny for keeping families together."


This is very true. Some parents lose their kids because the parents have a problem. CFS comes in and takes the kid leaving the parent in an empty house with no support or intervention or help. Where's the FAMILY in Child And Family Services?

[Terra Mater]

I think the IDEA is great. Canada should be considering this, too. But their are a few things that will turn disasterous:


Incentives are great for keeping employees at companies and making people become more eco friendly.
But why should the government bribe people, who want to have kids in the first place, to adopt foster kids. Who's to say people won't take advantage of these incentives and adopt just for the benefits. Is that really putting foster kids in a better home? There are already bad parents who have baby after baby after baby just to stay on and recieve more from governement assistance and housing.
Because most of the kids not getting adopted from foster families are the kids with severe psychological, emotional, and or physical limitations from the abuse and/or criminal neglect they have suffered. The money is not to bribe the families into taking these kids, but to allow the familes to be financially assured of being able to maintain the treatments these kids need.


Canada has this benefit with the aboriginal CFS branches. it has already too many horrible repreccussions. Kids are thrown into a kin's home without screening the relatives and they are ending up abused or dead. All because these abusive parents are afraid cultural genocide will happen to their kids. Funny how they start doting once CFS swoops in.
This law should add that the kids be sent to live with QUALIFIED relatives whome don't have a criminal record or history of abuse of any kind. And also the most severe bad parents should not have any knowledge of where the child is placed for safety reasons. (including animal cruelty.)
Here in the US, even if they are placing the children with relatives, they screen the family.



This is very true. Some parents lose their kids because the parents have a problem. CFS comes in and takes the kid leaving the parent in an empty house with no support or intervention or help. Where's the FAMILY in Child And Family Services?

Actually, the allowing of money for kinship fostering is new and does keep the children with family. Also, here in AZ, DES handles both the kids who have been taken away from their families and the families working hard to do better for the kids who haven't been taken away. Welfare, Food Stamps, Access, and other family assistance programs are handled by the same agency. Every state I have ever lived in has the same cover agency handling both welfare asistance and CPS duties.

I have been involved with the system most of my life, first as a foster child, then when my daughter went mad and DES provided the only options for getting her treatment when our insurance wouldn't, and finally finding placement for her when she became too dangerous to keep at home. CPS didn't take my kid, but they do monitor her care and drugging because at home she kept physically attacking the family. I know where the family is in Child And Family Services, without them, my own family would have been completely destroyed by my daughter's mental illness. Without them, I wouldn't have survived my own childhood.