Apparent in its name, the child welfare system in the United States is child-centered. Isn't that the way it should be? Let's look at how a child-centered system functions and the outcomes:
- The focus of a child-centered system tends toward "rescuing" children from their families, ranging from shipping New York children by the trainload to Midwest families in the mid-1800s to keeping children in foster care until they reach adulthood in the 21st century.
- Funding of the child-centered system in the U.S. has been geared toward removal, foster care, and adoption. The reason is that funding and financial incentives are guaranteed for these purposes but not to help families stay together:
- In 2006 the federal government provided $6 billion in entitlement funding for foster care and adoption support and $637 million in discretionary funding for services that include keeping families together.
- States receive incentive payments from the federal government for placing children in adoptive families but no payments are made to states or parents when children are reunified with their birth family.
What are the outcomes of funding a child-centered system?
- Over the past decade, reunifications of children with their own families have decreased by 7%.
- More youth are leaving foster care at age 18 (increase of 64% aging out over the past decade). With no permanent family and poor prospects for their future, these youth are much more likely to be homeless, incarcerated, and unemployed than other youth their age.
- Without financial and policy incentives aimed at keeping families together, more children are likely to grow up apart from their own families.
What would a family-centered child welfare system look like?
A report from Casey Family Programs describes what happened when Congress authorized the Secretary of Health and Human Services to approve waivers to Title IV-E, a program that pays solely for foster care.
The waivers allow states to use the funds as needed, including for in-home services. States that have implemented Title IV-E waivers include California, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, and Oregon.
What are the results of use of the waivers in these states?
- The amount of and access to services for families greatly increases (currently 40% of families referred for child abuse and neglect receive no services). More families receive family preservation services. Florida has doubled its spending on front-end services.
- More children are either not placed out-of-home or are reunified with their families. In Florida, some counties have reduced the foster care population by 50-60%.
- There is less recurrence of maltreatment and fewer re-entries into foster care.
Even with these good outcomes, however, waivers need to be reauthorized by Congress in order to continue. New legislation (H.R. 6156) has just been introduced in the House of Representatives that would allow up to 10 states to be approved for Title IV-E waivers.What do you think about this issue?
To learn more about Title IV-E Waivers, read the Casey Family Programs report at:
http://www.casey.org/resources/publications/NeedForWaivers.htm
To find out how to contact your federal senators and representatives to share your views about Title-IV-E waivers, visit:
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/contactingcongress.html
To help NFPN determine the level of support for Title IV-E waivers, vote your preference on "Today's Poll" at:
http://www.nfpn.org
