Transcript - Foster Care Briefing | |||||
| August 8, 1997 | |||||
MS. KATY MENGES |
Thank you all for being here. My name is Katy Menges, and I am the director of Public Affairs of the National Center for Policy Analysis. Today, the National Center for Policy Analysis is releasing a study that is the culmination of two years of work by the Institute for Children. The study, which is in our packet, is entitled "The State of the Children: An Examination of Government-Run Foster Care." With the lives of the nation's most vulnerable children hanging in the balance, policymakers are currently attempting to untangle the bureaucracies and complexities of foster care. However, they have been trying to do so without the benefit of even the most basic information such as the number of children in foster care in every state. Seventeen years ago, the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 required that every state establish an information system to collect data on these children in foster care. But unfortunately, the federal government did not specify what data had to be collected. This study, having taken two years to gather accurate data, asked three of the most pressing questions in child welfare -- how many children are in foster care; how many of these children are legally free to be adopted; and how well are the states doing at finding adoptive homes for them. The failures of the current system are costly in a great many ways. Not only will the nation spend $12 billion on public agency child welfare this year, but we can't count the costs of the lives of these children who do not have permanent homes. Why are the states not doing a better job at placing these children with families? One of the reasons may be that there's a reverse incentive placed by the government on the states for these children. The government pays the states for the number of children in foster care per day, so there are no financial incentives to move children out of foster care. Further, the federal government doesn't require the states to actively seek adoptive homes for all free-to-be-adopted children. I want to read a statement from United States Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa. In a press release issued today he states, "We know that many families are willing to adopt children, including those with the most challenging of circumstances. This report tells exactly where these kids are. It's a virtual road map to building more families." And from United States Senator Larry Craig of Idaho and co-chairman of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption, he says in a news release today also, "Foster care is supposed to be a temporary solution for children, yet the federal government has created financial incentives for states to keep these children in foster care. As an adoptive parent, I believe it should be a national priority to get children out of the system and into loving, nurturing families." U.S. Representative Todd Tiahrt from Kansas says, "The report issued today by the National Center for Policy Analysis, "The State of the Children: An Examination of Government-run Foster Care," should command the attention of Congress, governors, local communities, and private citizens. It is time to undo the imbalanced focus created by the federal law, the Adoption Assistance Act of 1980." "It is time for governors to have maximum flexibility over their state child protective systems, and it is time for private initiatives to have the opportunity to serve these disadvantaged children." I would now like to introduce the co-authors of this study. Conna Craig is the president and trustee of the Institute for Children. Ms. Craig graduated with honors from Harvard College. And while at Harvard, she wrote her honors thesis on the relationship between research legislation and child abuse. She lived in Japan as a Harvard graduate fellow, and she studied child abuse and related issues. She traveled throughout the world to research foster care and adoption practices. She's advised legislators and scholars in China, Hong Kong, Papa New Guinea, and the United Kingdom. In 1976 -- 1996, Ms. Craig was named recipient of the First Annual Salvador (?) Prize for American Citizenship. She herself is a foster child adopted into a family that has, to date, cared for over 100 foster children. She spent her entire life involved and very much aware of the client side of the foster care equation. The other co-author, Mr. Derek Herbert, is the associate director for the Institute for Children. Derek directed the institute's two-year study on public agency child welfare for every state and collected most of the state-by-state data. He is also the co-author of this report and speaks frequently about foster care. Please welcome Ms. Craig and Mr. [Herbert].
MS. CONNA CRAIG
Imagine RFK Stadium filled to the brim with children. RFK seats about 50,000. At the beginning of this fiscal year, there were 53,642 children legally free for adoption and waiting for what most kids want, a family who loves them; one that will never disappear; a safe place to grow up; and a last name. | These 53,642 children are part of a much larger group of system kids. They've been called a lost tribe. Six hundred and fifty thousand children will spend all, or part, of this year in government-run foster care. Foster care was supposed to be a temporary solution for children who have been abused or neglected, but for kids in care far too often it's anything but temporary. One in ten foster children remain in the system longer than seven years. This year, some 15,000 system kids will turn 18 in foster care. They will graduate, if you will, left to navigate early adulthood virtually on their own. It does not have to be that way. One of the biggest barriers in helping children who are in foster care find permanent, loving homes has been a lack of data. The Institute for Children over the past two years has gathered and confirmed the number of free-to-be-adopted foster children in every state. We offer this report today, including recommendations both for state and federal-level policymakers as a promise to these kids that we haven't forgotten them. The Institute for Children maintains that there's no such thing as an unadoptable child. There are people waiting in line to adopt kids who are HIV positive, people more than willing to adopt teens and children of every age, ethnic background, and with every type of disability. It's our hope as an organization that this will mark the first step for these children in finding homes.
MR. DEREK HERBERT
Let me just make some brief remarks about the methodology of this state-by-state study. Discovering the true number of foster children in every state and legally free-to-be-adopted in every state was not an easy task. | States vary as to where they are in implementation of their data tracking systems. In some states, it's very easy; they can push a button and they know where their kids are. They know how many there are, and they know their characteristics. In others, it's much more difficult. I can recall one conversation with a department director who told me that the only way that he could get this information was to pull out each file of each child in state care, go through it, and make notes on the information we were requesting. In the end, that's exactly what he did and, as a result, we had the information which was previously unavailable. In other states, it was difficult to get directors to disclose the information at all, which was supposed to be public information. One state had a series of meetings to decide whether or not they would share the information with us, eventually decided that they wouldn't and who ended up contacting their governor to prompt them to share this information with us. But the good news is we have written documentation from every state about the number of children in state care and the number of children who are legally free to be adopted and need homes. It's a starting point for understanding the size and scope of the foster care system. And it's our hope that these findings in this study will help with the families and permanency for all America's foster children. | ||