Checkup on foster care over
Posted on Saturday, February 2, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/215503/
Arkansas’ child welfare system does a good job of reunifying foster children with their families on a timely basis, a federal official said Friday.
But she said that the state continues to struggle with finding adoptive homes for children who cannot return to their families.
The evaluations were part of the preliminary findings of a five-day federal review that concluded Friday. Sylvia Kim, a child-welfare program specialist with a bureau of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, explained the initial results of the review to a group of federal and state child-welfare administrators at a Little Rock hotel.
The bureau will send the final results of the review in a written report to the state Children and Family Services Division. If the state fails to meet some federal standards and does not take sufficient action to correct them, it will face federal financial penalties.
“[The review results are ] not always fun to hear, but they’re information that we need to hear to make the system better,” said Pat Page, director of the state’s Children and Families Division, a part of the Department of Human Services.
Federal and state officials reviewed 65 case files of children and families in Pulaski, Pope and St. Francis counties receiving services from the state’s child-welfare system. They also interviewed parents, older children, staff members of the Children and Family Services Division and foster parents.
The Children’s Bureau, a part of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, conducts the reviews to help states improve the safety, permanency and well-being of children and families who are served through state child-welfare agencies.
Some of Arkansas’ strengths included: A strong collaboration with partners and offices such as the Administrative Office of the Courts and the state Human Services Department’s Behavioral Health Division. A good foundation for collecting data to assure quality. A timely response to abuse and neglect reports. Timely reunification of children with their families.
A strong youth advisory board. Providing stability for foster children by placing them with relatives and keeping them in the same school systems. A court system that holds child-welfare hearings “like clockwork.” Reviewers also identified concerns, which included: A lack of direction in serving children who are not removed from their families. A lack of foster and adoptive homes, which Kim said was one of the state’s “greatest needs.” Delays in adoption. A lack of visits by caseworkers with children and parents.
In addition, reviewers found that some areas contained strengths and weaknesses.
For instance, while Kim said that the division has a good system for collecting data, she said that there is no accountability system in place to evaluate the information and use it to shape the division’s practices and training.
“So there wasn’t active use of the information that you had available,” Kim said. “It was very rich, good information.”
Also, she said that there’s a good array of services for children and families, with community health centers throughout the state, but that families and children were not always connected with the services.
“The real issue was the access issue,” Kim said, adding that waiting lists, transportation and funding complications all contributed to the problem.
Also, reviewers were not certain if caseworkers knew and understood how to maneuver through the education system to help the children on their caseloads, Kim said.
Jennifer Ferguson, legal director for Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, said the review evaluated not only the safety of children, but also the services available to help them — two elements necessary for a good childwelfare system, she said.
“As we’ve reported the last couple of years, the performance of the child-welfare system has really diminished and it’s not really improved,” Ferguson said. “I think that this report was confirming some of the things that we’ve addressed in previous reports.”
Page said the review identified some areas the division is already working to address.
“It comes at a good time because we’re in the middle of a lot of change and a lot of improvement, so this is good information to have to help us,” Page said.
In addition to the on-site review, federal administrators also will consider an assessment by the state officials who analyzed Arkansas’ child-welfare system.
The state’s last federal review took place in 2001. Arkansas, like all other states reviewed during the first round of Child and Family Service Reviews between 2000 and 2004, failed to meet all of the federal standards.
State administrators submitted a plan to federal officials explaining how they planned to address the areas where the state fell short during the 2001 review. Federal administrators determined last year that Arkansas met the goals it identified in the plan, rescinding any financial penalties.
Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform in Virginia, said in an interview that the federal reviews are meaningless because they evaluate a small sample of cases.
He said a minimum of 300 cases should be evaluated to reduce the margin for error. Also, reviewers should narrow the measurements of the system to key elements such as safety and getting children into permanent homes.
A message seeking comment Friday afternoon from a spokesman with the Administration for Children and Families, a part of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, was not returned.