To the End of June : The Intimate Life of American Foster Care (9780547999531) (40 page)

Still, if I believe that everything around us touches child welfare—and I do—then Lei's future work, whatever it is, will ripple out. Looking around at all the families clutching their Puerto Rican flags and heading home, Lei said, “I want to get old and say to myself, ‘You have treated people well. That's all.'”

 

Preface

 

1.
[>]
   
daughter, Alicia:
Name has been changed.

[>]
.
[>]
   
more than 400,000 kids:
When I began reporting for this book (September 2007), there were 488,285 children in care nationwide; by September 2011, there were 400,540.
The AFCARS Report
, No. 19 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children's Bureau, estimates as of July 2012).
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/pro grams/cb/resource/afcars-report-19
. When I began reporting for this book (September 2007), there were 488,285 children in care nationwide; by September 2011, there were 400,540. The AFCARS Report, No. 19 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children's Bureau, estimates as of July 2012).
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/pro grams/cb/resource/afcars-report-19
.

3.
[>]
   
veterans of war:
Based on a study of 659 former foster kids conducted by Harvard Medical School, reported in an article by Dave Reynolds, “Foster Kids Experience Far More Trouble as Adults, Study Shows,”
The New Standard
, April 8, 2005.
http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm /items/1655
.

4.
[>]
   
than they are at home:
The Center for the Support of Families, a consulting firm for social service agencies, released a study indicating that 12 percent of the children in Oklahoma's Department of Human Services had substantiated cases of maltreatment while in care, based on a statistically representative sample.
Foster Care Case Review of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services
(Silver Spring, MD: Center for the Support of Families, Inc., February 17, 2011). An Indiana study showed that children in group homes experienced ten times the rate of physical abuse and twenty-eight times the rate of sexual abuse of kids in the general population. A study of kids in Oregon and Washington State foster homes showed one-third being abused by an adult in the home. Both studies were reported in an issue paper entitled “Foster Care vs. Family Preservation: The Track Record on Safety and Well-Being” (Alexandria, VA: National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, updated January 3, 2011).
http://www.nccpr.org/reports/01SAFETY.pdf
.

5.
[>]
   
two years on average nationwide:
The average length of stay in foster care for children in the United States is 25.3 months, as of September 30, 2010, according to
The AFCARS Report, No. 18
(Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children's Bureau, June 2011).
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/resource/afcars-re port-18
.

6.
[>]
   
three years in New York:
The average length of stay for foster children in New York as of 2008 was 36.7 months. Reported in “Child Welfare in New York” (Washington, DC: Children's Defense Fund, January 2010), citing data from U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means,
Background Materials and Data on the Programs Within the Jurisdiction of the Committee on Ways and Means
(2008), Tables 11–62 and 11–72, calculations by CDF.
http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/state-data-repository/cwf/2010/child-welfare-financing-new-york-2010.pdf
.

7.
[>]
   $
15 to $20 billion a year:
The actual figure is difficult to calculate, as child welfare is funded through a combination of federal, state, and local sources. In 2005, the Urban Institute completed the fifth in a series called
The Cost of Protecting Valuable Children: Understanding State Variation in Child Welfare Financing
, by Cynthia Andrews Scarcella, Roseana Bess, Erica Hecht Zielewski, and Rob Geen (May 2006), available at
http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/311314_vulnerable_children.pdf
. Based on an analysis of forty-seven states, the authors found that, in 2004, states spent $23.3 billion in federal, state, and local money on foster care. Although this was the last study of its kind, and foster care enrollment figures have gone down overall since 2004, this same study claimed that federal spending accounted for 49 percent of total foster care spending, state spending for 39 percent, and local spending for 12 percent, and these percentages have likely remained relatively stable. The budget estimate for the lion's share of the federal portion of foster care funding (the federal government also provides capped grants and other monies) for 2012 was $7,256,000,000, according to the Fiscal Year 2012 Budget for the U.S. Government's Department of Health and Human Services, page 91, available at
https://www.acf .hhs.gov/sites/default/files/olab/fy_2012_bibpdf.pdf
. We can assume that the total figure for 2012 is somewhere between $15 billion and upwards of $20 billion.

8.
[>]
   
upwards of $100 billion:
Ching-Tung Wang, PhD, and John Holton, PhD,
Total Estimated Cost of Child Abuse and Neglect in the United States
, an Economic Impact Study published by Prevent Child Abuse America, and
Time for Reform: Investing in Prevention, Keeping Children Safe at Home
, by Kids Are Waiting (KAW), a project of the Pew Charitable Trusts, in September 2007 found that, in 2007, the costs associated with child abuse and neglect were $103.8 billion. The study is available on the Pew Charitable Trusts website at
http://www.pewtrusts.org/news_room_detail.aspx?id=34676
.

9.
[>]
   
I said to Frankie:
Name has been changed.

10.
[>]
   
serious emotional problems:
From the “Facts About Foster Care” page of the watchdog and advocacy organization Children's Rights, based in New York City, citing the American Academy of Pediatrics' “Testimony of Laurel K. Leslie, MD, MPH, FAAP, House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support Hearing on the Utilization of Psychotropic Medication for Children in Foster Care,” May 8, 2008.
http://www.childrensrights.org/issues-resources/foster-care/facts-about-foster-care/
.

11.
[>]
   
by their twenty-first birthdays:
Twenty-two percent of foster care alumni are homeless for a day or more after exiting foster care, compared to 2.6 to 6.8 percent of eighteen- to twenty-four-year-olds in the general population in any given year. Casey Family Programs fact sheet “Foster Care by the Numbers.”
http://www.casey.org/Newsroom/MediaKit/pdf/FosterCareByTheNumbers.pdf
.

12.
[>]
   
No state met more than two of the seven criteria:
Robert Pear, “U.S. Finds Fault in All 50 States' Child Welfare Programs, and Penalties May Follow,
” The New York Times
, April 26, 2004.

 

1. King Solomon's Baby

 

1.
[>]
   
so they can share:
Kings 3:16–28, New International Version.

[>]
.
[>]
   
without a warrant:
Technically, in New York, parents have the right to refuse entry to ACS investigators, though it's not always in their best interests to do so. According to the Child Welfare Organizing Project (CWOP), ACS could decide to file a neglect or abuse case in family court, or request a warrant for the parents to come to court. They could also simply return with the police, who can enter the home without permission or court order. Child Welfare Organizing Project,
The Survival Guide to the NYC Child Welfare System: A Workbook for Parents by Parents
,
http://www.cwop.org/documents/survivalguide2007english.pdf;
and Mike Arsham, executive director of the Child Welfare Organizing Project, e-mail correspondence, July 2012.

3.
[>]
   
this law is often ignored:
Arsham, e-mail correspondence, July 2012.

4.
[>]
   
even if they're related:
Data on state licensure requirements is compiled by the National Resource Center for Family-Centered Practice and Permanency Planning at the Hunter College School of Social Work.
http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/socwork/nrcfcpp/downloads/Foster_Home_Licensing.pdf
.

5.
[>]
   
one of the roughly thirty foster care agencies:
As of early 2012, ACS had contracts with thirty-two foster care agencies. A list of current agencies can be found on the ACS website:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/acs/html/home/home.shtml
.

6.
[>]
   
That was Russell:
Name has been changed.

7.
[>]
   
fifty family court cases every day:
According to a spokesperson from the Citizens' Committee for Children of New York, 64,035 petitions were filed in family court in 2008. There are forty-seven judges to hear all of these cases, meaning that each judge hears about fifty-one cases per day. A lawyer with ACS, who spoke with me on the condition of anonymity, said that in her experience, judges heard this many cases daily.

8.
[>]
   
to live in ten or twenty different houses:
Reducing the number of placements is a clear goal in child welfare, and thankfully, as kids spend less time in care we may start seeing a shift in the number of moves these kids make. In New York in 2010, 56 percent of the kids who had been in care for twenty-four months or longer had experienced three or more placements—a 3 percent drop from 2007. From “Child Welfare Outcomes Report Data,” 2010, a report that is published annually by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to meet the requirements of section 203(a) of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA).
http://cwoutcomes.acf.hhs.gov/data/tables/six_one_more_than_24?years[]=2007&years[]= 2008&years[]=2009&years[]=2010&viz=table&states[]=33&state=& region=
.

9.
[>]
   
Oliver's mom, Caitlin:
Caitlin's name, as well as the names of her boyfriend and his family members, has been changed.

 

2. Eye of the Beholder

 

1.
[>]
   
three-quarters of the maltreatment cases in this country:
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children's Bureau, “Child Maltreatment 2010,” reported that there were 695,000 kids who experienced substantiated abuse or neglect in fiscal year 2010. Of these, 78.3 percent suffered neglect; 17.6 percent suffered physical abuse; 9.2 percent suffered sexual abuse.
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm10/cm10.pdf#page=9
.
Still, one-third of New York's foster children have spent three years or more in foster care, according to
The Long Road/One Year Home Symposium: Proceedings
(New York: Children's Rights, November 2011), and in 2006,
ABC Primetime
published a brief wherein they claimed, “It is not uncommon to hear of children who have been in 20 or 30 different homes.” “Facts on Foster Care in America,”
ABC Primetime
, May 30, 2006.
http://abcnews .go.com/Primetime/FosterCare/story?id=2017991&page=1#.T_2iuGjDPww
.

[>]
.
[>]
   
with this as its minimum definition:
The child abuse and neglect definition was obtained from the “Definitions of Child Abuse and Neglect State Statutes Series,” Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2007.
http://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/laws_policies/statutes/define.cfm
.

33.
[>]
   
assistant attorney-in-charge of the Juvenile Rights Practice:
When I met him, Rudy Estrada was the LGBTQ coordinator at New York's ACS, creating training models for working with queer kids, recruiting foster and adoptive parents for them, and developing policies to protect them from further discrimination. Before this job, he was actually suing ACS and state welfare administrations like it, in his job as a staff attorney for Lambda Legal's Foster Care Project in Chicago.

4.
[>]
   
The agency had also hired more detectives and consultants:
Ronald Richter, personal interview, June 14, 2012.

5.
[>]
   
benchmark figures for children's adoptions and reunifications with biological parents have gone up:
A lawsuit was filed in 1989 (
LaShawn v. A. Gray
, C.A. No. 89–1754, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia) against DC's child welfare, seeking whole-scale reform. The case was appealed, but in 1993, a modified eighty-four-page final order was handed down, which mandated, among many other things, that all persons hired as social workers must have a master's degree in social work. See
LaShawn A. v. Dixon, Modified Final Order
(November 18, 1993), 47, retrieved from
http://www.childrensrights.org
. The system was reorganized as a Cabinet-level agency within the District government, and there were many internal changes, so it's difficult to tell what influenced what precisely, but still, according to a major independent audit conducted in 2009, benchmark figures were still not as high as expected. See
An Assessment of the District of Columbia's Child Welfare System (as of January 31, 2009)
(Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Social Policy, April 30, 2009). Also, according to Richard Barth, PhD, professor and dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, there are many other counties that require a master's degree in social work—as well as more than twenty states where the MSWs getting trained spend two years specifically learning about child welfare work.