The California Child Welfare
system is such a disaster that even the state's Department of Social
Services (CDSS) admits families are aggressively torn apart and
children unnecessarily placed in foster care. California has
announced
sweeping reform. But the reform required is for "authorities"
to act like adults and take responsibility.
In a
September 25th press release, CDSS Director Rita Saenz bluntly
assessed why the agency has failed. "[T]he original vision for
supporting and healing families through the child welfare system has
deteriorated into an adversarial and coercive approach."
The result: in L.A. County alone,
more than 160,000 children "came into contact" with Child
Welfare in 2002; 30,000 are in foster homes -- only one form of
foster care.
David Sanders, head of the L.A. County Department of Children and
Family Services,
reports that as many as half of those foster children could have
stayed at home with "appropriate services" rather than
removal. Thus, an L.A. Daily News headline declared that children are
being
"rushed into foster care," where many remain.
Andrew Bridge of
L.A.-based Broad Foundation explained why: money. "The county
will only continue to receive funding for the period it keeps the
child in its care." In various states, including California,
there is a "perverse financial incentive" to place and
retain children in foster care rather than leave them in the home.
Thus, the first way authorities
can take responsibility is to remove the financial incentive to
destroy families.
In a 2002 conference on
Privatization and Government Reform, Laura Dykes
explained how Kansas was reversing that dangerous trend -- through
privatization. "By giving contractors a lump sum, rather than
paying them on a per-day, per-child basis, the perverse incentives
are removed." As a result "adoptions have increased 78
percent since privatization, and the dissolution rate (adoptions that
fail) is only 2.4 percent, compared to 12 percent nationally."
(p.30)
There is a second way for
authorities to become adults. Those who receive a paycheck from the
family court system have another "perverse financial incentive":
to create and extend cases rather than resolve them. Instead, the
family courts should prefer the comparatively private and inexpensive
alternative of binding arbitration whenever applicable.
The crisis of child welfare is
not confined to isolated states. If it were, the Senate would not be
considering a
provision in Welfare Reform Act reauthorization bill to make states
accountable for undistributed child support funds. In 2002, almost
$660 million in child support payments never reached their intended
recipients nor were they returned to payees. The funds "floated"
as parents were "forced to pester the state for every nickel and
dime." Geraldine Jensen, president of the
Association for Children
for Enforcement of Support declared, "If a bank behaved this way it
would go out of business."
This is my point. State officials
and policies should be held to the same standard of accountability --
including criminality -- as that applied to private businesses and
individuals. They should be liable for their gross misconduct,
including the filing of false reports.
This may require the repeal of
legislation such as the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) that offered
federal matching funds to states with compliant child abuse programs.
It offered huge financial incentives to uncover abuse while providing
no checks to protect the wrongfully accused.
CAPTA established the policy of
encouraging false accusations while eliminating accountability. It
encouraged the leveling of anonymous charges through such mechanisms
as hotlines. It extended legal immunity both to child welfare workers
and to false accusers whose gross misconduct
might
deeply injure children.
The solution: refuse to credit
anonymous accusations; hold false accusers responsible for perjury;
make "child welfare" workers liable for misconduct on the
same level as private individuals.
What is the alternative?
In the wake of financial
incentives without accountability, the number of children in
nationwide foster care has doubled from 270,000 in the mid-1980s to
542,000 in 2001. (That figure does not include children who
"graduated" upon turning 18.) Once removed to official
"safety," these children are
far more likely to suffer abuse --
including sexual molestation -- than the general population.
According to
the National Center on Child Abuse and
Neglect, in 1998 six children per 100,000 population were killed in
foster care compared to one per 100,000 in the general population.
For many children, foster care
becomes permanent. In 1999, almost one in seven children in foster
care nationwide had been there for three to four years; almost one in
five had been there for five years or more.
The human cost of rushing
children into foster care does not stop when they reach 18 years old.
According to CDDS data, of youths who "emancipate" from foster care 50% do
not complete high school; 45% are unemployed; 33% are arrested; 30%
are on welfare; 25% are homeless.
Foster care, as it exists, is
often difficult to distinguish from child abuse. Children deserve
better, especially children from troubled homes. They deserve to have
adults in charge -- adults who take responsibility.
Copyright © 2003 Wendy McElroy.
