From One Extreme to the Other

Quick to reunify or quick to sever custody? Is there no middle ground between these two extremes?

While some states and social services agencies drag their heels in terms of finding children a stable permanent home, it appears that Kentucky has gone in the opposite direction.

Financial incentives appear to be prompting hasty and unwise decisions that are not necessarily in the best interests of the child.

From 384 in 1999 to 902 in 2005, the number of children moved from state foster care to adoption in Kentucky has steadily increased.

This increase has resulted in $1 million in bonus money which Kentucky received in 2004. The state receives a bonus of $4,000 for each adopted child, and more if the child has special needs.

A whistleblower lawsuit claims that the Cabinet stands to lose millions of dollars if it fails to meet federal time frames. Veteran state social workers have reported being pressured to terminate parental rights.

The bottom line in the parent rights debate:
1.) It's important to prevent children from languishing in foster care.

As my recent blogs will attest, ongoing abuse and repeated abandonment by a parent of their biological children should lead to termination of parental rights -- not reunification.

2.) It is also important to avoid "quick trigger" adoptions if there is not enough evidence to justify the removal.

Kentucky political agenda
- 225 complaints were filed on an anonymous hotline, which was set up by child-protection workers who were concerned about the situation, but fearful of violating confidentiality laws by making their concerns public.

-Social workers in Hardin County reported that supervisors picked adoptive families based on how those families could benefit the Cabinet or because supervisors thought the families were owed a favor.

-Social workers from other parts of the state said supervisors forced them to terminate custody prematurely in order to raise the number of adoptions of foster children.

"Over-correcting the problem"
-In 1999, federal authorities found Kentucky out of compliance with the Adoption and Safe Families Act. Children were languishing in foster care.

-By 2003, the problem still had not been sufficiently corrected and Kentucky faced $1.7 million in fines if the situation didn't improve.

Unsafe adoptive homes
Here's a quote that really disturbs me: The attorney for former state social worker Pat Moore says Moore was fired because she criticized her supervisors for insisting that two foster children be placed with an adoptive family in Verona in Boone County even thought the family, among other problems, allowed a man described in court documents as a pedophile convicted of sex crimes to be around the children.

In her whistleblower suit, Moore said the Cabinet was forcing the adoption to keep its numbers high. Court records show that Cabinet supervisors pushed for the adoption even though those same supervisors acknowledged that the prospective adoptive home should not have been approved and a private foster care agency deemed the home unfit.

According to a memo from Cabinet officials that is included in the lawsuit file, there had been a half-dozen complaints about the prospective adoptive parents, which the Cabinet never substantiated.

In a September 2004 court petition to remove the children from the home, Thomas W. Beiting, a court-appointed guardian, told a judge that both parents had criminal records. Beiting also noted that a son living in the home had been convicted of multiple felonies, including drug convictions, and that the foster mother's brother, a convicted child abuser, had been in the home around the foster children.

"It is obvious that this home probably should have never been approved," said a July 2004 report that summarized a meeting between three regional supervisors and was included in the court file.

But the supervisors went on to push for the adoption. "It is our recommendation that we proceed quickly with the adoption, while building in the greatest safety net as possible," the report said (Foster adoption push).

Where's the logic? To take a child from an unsafe home and place that child with a secure adoptive family - that I can respect and understand.

But to try to use children to repay favors? To place them in adoptive homes that are unsafe? That child doesn't need a safety net. He or she needs a safer initial placement.

Equally disturbing is this quote from a second article: Domestic violence shelter directors say the state is increasingly taking children away from women who have done nothing more than move to a shelter to escape a violent home...Some Cabinet workers have been telling women that shelters aren't an appropriate atmosphere for children (Mothers in domestic violence shelters).

Here's the scenario: Mother is in an abusive situation. She leaves, taking the child with her. That's motherly love. Is she protecting the child? Yes. Caring for the child? Yes. Making sure that the child is sheltered, fed and nurtured? Apparently so. She certainly didn't abandon the child by leaving him or her behind.

So, I would ask the Cabinet to give me a good, strong reason why such a mother might lose parental custody. Is the mother neglectful? Addicted to drugs? Abusive? Or has she just fallen on a period of hard luck, and all she needs is some support in order to pull her life back together?

These are very important distinctions to make before coming to custodial decisions.

Sources: Foster child adoption push investigated: State unjstly terminates parental rights for federal money. By Valarie Honeycutt Spears, Herald-Leader staff writer.

Mothers in domestic violence shelters face losing their children. By Valarie Honeycutt Spears, Herald-Leader staff writer.

Risks of Reunification

In many schools of science, there is an obvious "pendulum swing" from one extreme to another. Regarding foster care, despite the change in focus between 1980 and 1997, the focus on "family preservation" is still dominent -- despite the risks of reunification and frequency of reentry into the foster care system.

The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 required states to make reasonable efforts to keep children in the home. If the child must be removed, this law also prioritized returning foster children to their family of origin if at all possible. The assumption was that it would harm a child developmentally if that child lacked contact with his or her biological family.

The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 addressed many of the risks and concerns about reunification efforts, such as:

-How long should a child remain in limbo before finally getting a stable, permanent placement?
-If the parent continues to abuse substances and/or children, why not just terminate custody?

Section 101 of 1997 Act states that: "Efforts to preserve and reunify the family shall not include certain parents if they pose a serious risk to the child's health and safety."

Despite the change in focus between those two Acts, American legal and social services continue to uphold the value of preserving and reunifying families whenever possible.

Reunification is not a panacea to the foster care problem.
Just as removing a child from the home can create trauma and emotional disturbance, so too can returning the child to their biological family. Studies indicate that foster children who have been reunified with their biological parents often regress in terms of behavioral functioning.

After being reunified, foster children are at-risk for:
-Higher levels of family dysfunction
-Significantly greater behavior problems than foster youth who are not reunified
-Exposure to violence, poor family functioning and lower levels of social support
-Decrease in monitoring children after they exited foster care
-Less likely to receive mental health services
-Higher risk of re-entry to foster care system
-Greater number of foster placements and placement changes than foster youth who are not reunified

Quote: "Reunification prior to age 4 is associated with children being exposed to more adverse life events by age 6, including exposure to elevated family dysfunction, instability and harm" (Lau).

Sources:
Berliner, L. Is family preservation in the best interest of children? Journal of Interpersonal Violence 8, (1993): p556(2)

Gelles, R. Family reunification/family preservation: Are children really being protected? Journal of Interpersonal Violence, (1993): p557(5)

Lau, A., et all. Going home: the complex effects of reunification on internalizing problems among children in foster care. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 31.4 (Aug. 2003): p345 (14)

How Far We've Come, How Far We Have to Go

I wanted to balance out my earlier post by saying that some positive differences have been made in foster care since the 80's... Here are two examples:

1.) The Adoption and Safe Families Act allows Children's Services to sever custody if the biological parents can’t get act together. This puts some teeth on House Bill 484, and forces the court to make custodial decisions, rather than allowing the child to languish in foster care.

Ultimately, the child deserves permanency. However, each state does it differently. In Ohio, a decision must be made within 12 months. There is an option for two 6-month extensions, in case a parent(s) is really trying and just needs a little more time.

2.) Kinship Care is a relatively new initiative. The increasing number of children entering foster care, combined with the insufficient number of suitable foster homes, have led social service agencies to place foster children with their extended families.

Potential benefits of kinship care: It affirms the value of families. A child is not uprooted from his or her biological roots and family identity. Kinship placements often provide greater stability and continuity of care, and allow for more frequent visits with parents.

Potential problems with kinship care: Since abuse is a pattern in some families, tt’s important to do just as thorough a safety check for kinship care as for foster placement with a non-relative, and just as many caseworker visits and counseling sessions afterward. What if abuse was a pattern in this family? But supervision by social workers is often less intense when a child is placed with relatives.

I want children to be safe. If the foster placement is a positive and healthy one, and the child has established positive ties with the foster parent, and if the child's biological parents are abusive and dangerous, then sever custody. Now. Don't wait another minute. Get that child safe and secure as soon as possible.

If there are safe and loving relatives available, then great. Place the child there. Give the relatives financial and emotional support.

But the problem with bouncing a child from home to home at an early age is that it violates everything we know about child development. More on this tomorrow...