To the End of June : The Intimate Life of American Foster Care (9780547999531) (44 page)

14.
[>]
   
remove children from their homes at will:
Ibid.

15.
[>]
   
(usually in religious-run institutions or orphanages) once removed:
Ibid.

16.
[>]
   
post–World War I:
Ibid., 88.

17.
[>]
   
a mix of the two:
Dorothy Roberts,
Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare
(New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2002), 7.

18.
[>]
   
first established in Illinois:
Alexia Pappas, “Welfare Reform: Child Welfare or the Rhetoric of Responsibility?”
Duke Law Journal
45, no. 6 (April 1996, Twenty-Seventh Annual Administrative Law Issue): 1301–28.

19.
[>]
   
character evaluations from neighbors and clergy:
Susan Tinsley Gooden, “Contemporary Approaches to Enduring Challenges: Using Performance Measures to Promote Racial Equality Under TANF,” in
Race and the Politics of Welfare Reform
, ed. Sanford F. Schram, Joe Soss, and Richard C. Fording (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003), 255.

20.
[>]
   
“mothers' aid law”:
Pappas, “Welfare Reform: Child Welfare or the Rhetoric of Responsibility?”

21.
[>]
   
“other racial extraction”:
Gooden, “Contemporary Approaches to Enduring Challenges.”

22.
[>]
   
by and large for white children:
Robert B. Hill, “Institutional Racism in Child Welfare,” in
Child Welfare Revisited: An Africentric Perspective
, ed. Joyce Everett, Sandra P. Chipungu, and Bogart R. Leashore (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004), 57–76.

23.
[>]
   
“moral character, etc.—as it [saw] fit”
: Pappas, “Welfare Reform: Child Welfare or the Rhetoric of Responsibility?”

24.
[>]
   
during cotton-picking season:
Susan Tinsley Gooden, “Examining the Implementation of Welfare Reform by Race: Do Blacks, Hispanics and Whites Report Similar Experiences with Welfare Agencies?”
The Review of Black Political Economy
32, no. 2 (December 2004): 27–53.

25.
[>]
   
another for whites:
Ibid.

26.
[>]
   
were effectively dismantled:
Ibid.

27.
[>]
   
welfare queen with too many kids:
Ibid.

28.
[>]
   
poor enough to receive welfare:
“Brief History of Federal Child Welfare Financing Legislation” (Washington, DC: Child Welfare League of America, July 2003).
http://www.cwla.org/advocacy/financinghistory.htm
.

29.
[>]
    Of all children served in 2009 who had been in foster care for at least twenty-four months, only 30.5 percent had two or fewer placements, according to
Child Welfare Outcomes: Report to Congress
, a report created 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). This data comes from chapter 5, Table V-2, “2009 Outcomes 6 and 7, Achieving Stable and Appropriate Placement Settings.”
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cwo06-09/cwo06-09.pdf
.

30.
[>]
   
more thoroughly funded and supported, foster care:
All the information in this section comes from the study by Ronald C. Kessler et al., “Effects of Enhanced Foster Care on the Long-Term Physical and Mental Health of Foster Care Alumni,”
Archives of General Psychiatry
65, no. 6 (June 2008): 625–33.

 

6. Surge Control

 

1.
[>]
   
been in care for a little over two years:
Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS),
Preliminary FY 2011 Data (October 1, 2009 Through September 30, 2010), Estimates as of July 2012
(Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children's Bureau, No. 19, 2012).
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/afcarsreport19.pdf
.

2.
[>]
   
though this has come down some:
Ten years earlier, in 2001, the average length of a foster care stay was 32.5 months.
The AFCARS Report, Final Estimates for FY 1998 Through FY 2002 (12)
(Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children's Bureau, October 2006).
http://archive.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/afcars/tar/report12.pdf
.

3.
[>]
   
three or more years: The Long Road/One Year Home Symposium: Proceedings
(New York: Children's Rights, November 2011).

4.
[>]
   
nearly five and a half years:
This investigation was launched by Children's Rights and was published in
The Long Road Home: A Study of Children Stranded in New York City Foster Care, Executive Summary
(New York: Children's Rights, November 2009), 7. Also, most of New York's foster kids are from the city, and the state ranked fortieth in the nation for speed in getting them home in 2009. For timeliness to adoption, it ranked forty-fourth, according to the same study.

5.
[>]
   
28 percent of the general population:
“Foster Care by the Numbers,” a fact sheet produced by Casey Family Programs.
http://www.casey.org/Newsroom/MediaKit/pdf/FosterCareByTheNumbers.pdf
.

6.
[>]
   
supposed programs it never ran:
Benjamin Weiser, “City Slow to Act as Hope for Foster Children Fails,”
The New York Times
, November 6, 2007.

7.
[>]
   
9 percent of children between one and five:
Fred H. Wulczyn, Lijun Chen, and Kristen Brunner Hislop,
Foster Care Dynamics, 2000–2005: A Report from the Multistate Foster Care Data Archive
(Chicago: Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago, December 2007).

8.
[>]
   
foster kids nationwide are fifteen or older:
Data is for the period ending September 30, 2011, and is taken from
Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) Preliminary FY 2011 Data (October 1, 2009 Through September 30, 2010)
, estimates as of July 2012.

9.
[>]
   
depression, anxiety, or substance abuse:
Fred H. Wulczyn et al.,
Foster Care Dynamics, 2000–2005: A Report from the Multistate Foster Care Data Archive
.

10.
[>]
   
were once in foster care:
From “Facts on Foster Care in America”
ABC Primetime
, May 30, 2006.
http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/FosterCare/story?id=2017991&page=1#.T_2iuGjDPww
.

11.
[>]
  
rather than cumulative or comprehensive:
J. G. Orme and C. Buehler, “Foster Family Characteristics and Behavioral and Emotional Problems of Foster Children: A Narrative Review,”
Family Relations
50, no. 1 (2001): 315.

12.
[>]
   
provide stimulating environments for their kids:
Richard P. Barth, Rebecca Green, Mary Bruce Webb, Ariana Wall, Claire Gibbons, and Carlton Craig, “Characteristics of Out-of-Home Caregiving Environments Provided Under Child Welfare Services,”
Child Welfare
87, no. 3 (2008): 5–39.

13.
[>]
   
group home facility than in a family home:
Different studies cite different figures, as costs can vary widely depending upon whether the foster care is enhanced, or on what type of congregate care is offered. One report claimed that group home or residential care can cost between three and seven times more than family foster care: Madelyn Freundlich,
Time Running Out: Teens in Foster Care
(Children's Rights, Juvenile Rights Division of the Legal Aid Society and Lawyers for Children, November 2003), 133. Another report said the monthly cost could be six to ten times higher for institutional care, or two to three times higher if the family is providing treatment foster care: Richard P. Barth,
Institutions vs. Foster Homes: The Empirical Base for a Century of Action
(Chapel Hill, NC: Jordan Institute for Families, June 17, 2002), ii.

14.
[>]
   
disproportionate number of minority children in care:
Ramona Denby and Nolan Rindfleisch, “African Americans' Foster Parenting Experiences: Research Findings and Implications for Policy and Practice,”
Children and Youth Services Review
18, no. 6 (1996): 523–55.

 

7. Chutes and Ladders and Chutes

 

1.
[>]
   
or the birth of a new sibling:
See, for instance, Howard J. Bennett, MD, “Nocturnal Enuresis: Bedwetting in the Older Child” (Charleston, SC: The National Association for Continence),
http://www.nafc.org/online-store/consumer-leaflets-and-pamphlets/for-parents-and-children/nocturnal-enuresis-bedwetting-in-the-older-child-3/;
and “Secondary Nocturnal Enuresis,” an information page published by the National Kidney Foundation at
http://www.kidney.org/patients/bw/BWbedwetSecondary.cfm
.

2.
[>]
   
the child, back in control:
Good descriptions of this phenomenon abound in Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz's
The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog and Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook: What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love, and Healing
(New York: Basic Books, 2006). A succinct description is on page 55.

3.
[>]
   
“Hey, Clarence”:
Name has been changed.

4.
[>]
   
punitive diagnostic centers for months and months:
In the eighties, kids were known to stay in diagnostic centers for years, as bureaucratic
i
's and
t
's were dotted and crossed, and better beds elsewhere were slow to open up, according to Michael Oreskes and Sara Rimer, “Youths Languish in Diagnostic Centers,”
The New York Times
, March 27, 1987.
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/27/nyregion/youths-languish-in-diagnostic-centers.html?pagewanted=all
.

5.
[>]
   
they may land in a hospital:
In May of 2010, the Legal Aid Society launched a lawsuit against the city of New York for detaining children in psychiatric hospitals, in locked quarters, after doctors had recommended their release. The suit also claimed that ACS and its agencies had been using psychiatric hospitals as detention centers, sending children there for disciplinary reasons like breaking curfew or running away. A. G. Sulzberger, “Foster Children Mistreated, Suit Against City Claims,”
The New York Times
, Late Edition, May 13, 2010, “Metropolitan Desk.”

6.
[>]
   
kids in out-of-home care live in RTCs:
“Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Model Programs Guide: Residential Treatment Centers” (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice).
http://www.ojjdp.gov/mpg/progTypesResidentialTreatment.aspx
.

7.
[>]
   
had a history of psychiatric hospitalization:
This study looked at sixteen RTCs and found, interestingly, that all three groups had nearly the same rate of substance abuse. Nan Dale, Amy J. L. Baker, Emily Anastasio, and Jim Purcell, “Characteristics of Children in Residential Treatment in New York State,”
Child Welfare
86, no. 1 (January/February 2007): 16.

8.
[>]
   
behavior on the wall:
Jorge Fitz-Gibbon, Leah Rae, and Shawn Cohen, “Throwaway Kids: Part of a Journal News Special Report on Residential Treatment Centers: Mental Health Care Lacking for Traumatized Kids,”
The [White Plains, NY] Journal News
, October 28, 2002.

9.
[>]
   
serious emotional disturbances:
Ibid.

10.
[>]
   
psychological or otherwise:
Charting a New Course: A Blueprint for Transforming Juvenile Justice in New York State: A Report of Governor David Paterson's Task Force on Transforming Juvenile Justice
(New York State, December 2009), 29.

11.
[>]
   
first two years at Holy Cross:
The data in this paragraph covers 1998 through May of 2000.

12.
[>]
   
“high levels of vandalism”:
Alan G. Hevesi, Comptroller,
A Report by the New York State Office of the State Comptroller: Office of Children and Family Services: Contract C-500158: Pius XII Youth and Family Services, Inc. 2001-R-5
(Albany, NY, 2003), 16.

13.
[>]
   
references had been checked:
In the comptroller's report, auditors found that when residents filed a claim of abuse or neglect, it took the state an average of 183 days to launch an investigation—exceeding the requirement by more than four months. Ibid., 8.

14.
[>]
   
conducted site visits at both facilities:
Ibid., 1, 15.

15.
[>]
   
“corrective action plan” to improve safety:
They also temporarily closed intake and removed twenty children, to reduce pressure on staff. Ibid., 16.

16.
[>]
   
they'd get some response:
Ibid., 18.

17.
[>]
   
shuttered the Chester facility of its own accord:
Ibid., 1.

18.
[>]
   
special ed is all they get:
In a 2003 study of RTCs across New York, the advocacy groups Lawyers for Children, Children's Rights, and Legal Aid found that most RTCs in New York offered only special-ed schools. Madelyn Freundlich,
Time Running Out: Teens in Foster Care
(Children's Rights, Juvenile Rights Division of the Legal Aid Society, Lawyers for Children, 2003), 128.
http://www.childrensrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/time_running_out_teens_in_foster_care_nov_2003.pdf
.