Child Welfare Reform

Focus in Foster Families Today is "Reforming the Child Welfare System to Benefit Children"

How foster care is paid for can be quite confusing. Every state does it different, and each state utilizes federal funds for their child welfare programs. In some states, foster parents are considered employees, and are well compensated for their work with children, but receive no other monetary assistance than their monthly reimbursement. Of coarse, that monthly check is meant to be enough to cover the entire cost of raising the children in their home. In other states, like Idaho, foster parents are considered volunteers, and are reimbursed at a very low rate (Don't quote me, but the last time I looked, Idaho foster families were in the bottom five in the nation for reimbursement for their work. We don't do this for the money!). However, we do get additional assistance in buying clothing, and diapers.

But that's just the foster parent end of things. Child Welfare funds pay for the social workers who manage the cases, medical expenses, transportation, court costs, programs to prevent abuse and neglect aimed at keeping the children safely in their own homes rather than putting them in foster care, and a plethora of other things. The federal funds are split in two categories, Title IV-E, and Title IV-B. Now, my understanding of this is, Title IV-B funds are specifically for prevention and reunification programs, and all children and families are eligible for these funds. Title IV-E funds are dedicated to foster care and adoption assistance, and some children, depending on their biological parents' income, are not eligible for these funds. At present, 65% of federal funding goes to foster care, 22% of federal funding goes to adoption assistance, and 11% of federal funding is used for prevention and reunification services. (Confused yet?)

So the problem lies in that the states don't have flexibility to use funds in ways to increase prevention, help the families who are at risk become more stable and safe, because such a large portion of the funds are distributed under Title IV-E. You see, if a family makes just a few dollars more than the poverty line, they don't qualify for IV-E. And, these funds are allocated for foster care services. How do we make changes to this system without jeopardizing useful and needed programs?

The September/October 2006 edition of Foster Families Today focuses on Child Welfare Reform. In the article "President Bush's Proposal: Flexible Funding for Child Welfare" by Jerry Foxhaven, the director of the Joan and Lyle Middleton Children's Rights Center at the Drake University School of Law, he quotes one recommendation from the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care, "give states new flexibility to use nearly half of all current federal IV-E expenditures as they see fit to meet the unique needs of the children in their care." This would free up some of the money to be used when and where needed instead of that money being available only for specific pre-outlined uses.

President Bush has proposed the Child Welfare Program Option. As described in the same article, "The President's Program Option is designed to give states complete flexibility in the use of federal child welfare funds, with less documentation and compliance requirements, but continues outcome measures to ensure child safety protections. The proposal is voluntary. States have the option to "elect in" or "elect out" for a five-year period. However, states could not change their election choice during that five-year period. States that do not select the option will continue operating under the current IV-E entitlement program. States selecting the Program Option would receive annual grants during the five-year time period based upon their previous IV-E eligibility claims, with funding increased equal to the projected growth in foster care spending. An emergency fund is created to allow additional funding to states exercising the option in the event of an unusual increase in foster care caseload or unemployment rates."

Ok, so this was sounding reasonable to me, but I kept thinking..."Bush's idea, what's the catch?" I think Bush has an intention to help, but in his own narrow Republican mind, probably doesn't see the big picture. From the same edition of Fostering Families Today, I found this in the article "Increase Support for the Nation's Most Vulnerable Children" by Joe Kroll who is involved with the North American Council on Adoptable Children, or NACAC. "A better way to ensure that abused and neglected children who cannot live at home are looked after...is to preserve federal foster care maintenance and adoption assistance as an entitlement and to use Title IV-B and Title IV-E administrative and training funds to create an indexed, block-granted fund for prevention, treatment, reunification, post-permanency services, and other assistance out of Title IV-B and the administration and training portions of Title IV-E. This innovative funding idea was recommended by the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care....Congress should (also) build in a "snap-back" provision that would be triggered if the block grant was ever reduced. This would guarantee that the IV-E administration and training provisions would revert to their former open-ended entitlement status if the block grant were ever reduced. As child advocates know from having watched the Title XX Social Services fund diminish by one-third since 1981 after it was block-granted in 1981, protections must be built in when fixed, predetermined allocations for child welfare are made to child welfare funding." He goes on to say, "There are risks in moving to flexible child welfare financing. States may be asked to fall back on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds that come in a fixed amount and are marked mainly for family economic self-sufficiency, not child welfare. Block granting could pit workforce and training needs against access to a greater range of services for children and families. In spite of the challenges, the time has come for greater flexibility and accountability in child welfare financing. That doesn't mean, however, that child advocates should embrace President Bush's proposal. We must continue to advocate for flexibility with the proper levels of protection and support for vulnerable children and their families."

So my point is, there are a lot of people out here who want only to see improvement in the lives of children in our country. But there are even more people out there who have no conception of the real problems that exist, and our child welfare system is hindered in ways that need fixing. There do exist organizations which are studying the problems and working out solutions, but the federal government wants to make it's own solutions. What we need is someone in the government looking at the issue from this side in order to make better recommendations that will produce long-lasting solutions rather than short-term fixes.


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