Fostering the Future

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Executive Summary
So, this is how it is in foster care, you always have to move from foster home to foster
home and you don?t have any say in this and you are always having to adapt to new
people and new kids and new schools. Sometimes you just feel like you are going crazy
inside. And another thing, in foster care you grow up not knowing that you can really
be somebody. When I was in foster care, it didn?t seem like I had any choices or any
future. All kids deserve families. They need a family, to have someone, this is father,
this is mother?they need a family so they can believe in themselves and grow up to be
somebody. This is a big deal that people don?t realize. I wish everyone could
understand.
- Former Foster Youth
All children need safe, permanent families that love, nurture, protect, and guide them.
This was the starting point for the work of the Pew Commission on Children in Foster
Care and a steady compass throughout our deliberations.
Foster care protects children who are not safe in their own homes. For some children, it
is literally life-saving. But for too many children, what should be a short-term refuge
becomes a long-term saga, involving multiple moves from one foster home to another.
On any given day in the United States, half a million children and youth are in foster
care, removed from their homes because of abuse or neglect. On average, children in
foster care have three different placements.1 Almost half of these children spend at least
two years in care, while almost 20 percent wait five or more years.2 While in care, many
children do not receive appropriate services, whether they are infants suffering the effects
of trauma or older adolescents about to leave foster care to live on their own.
The charge of the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care was to develop a practical
set of policy recommendations to reform federal child welfare financing and strengthen
court oversight of child welfare cases. Current federal funding mechanisms for child
welfare encourage an over-reliance on foster care at the expense of other services to keep
families safely together and to move children swiftly and safely from foster care to
permanent families, whether their birth families or a new adoptive family or legal
guardian. At the same time, longstanding structural issues in the judicial system limit the
ability of the courts to fulfill their shared obligation to protect children from harm and
move children safely and appropriately through the system to safe, permanent homes.
Reform in these two areas is a critical first step to solving many other problems that
plague the child welfare system.
1 Based on the latest federal statistics on foster care supplied by the states for the Adoption and Foster Care
Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS). See U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The
AFCARS Report: Preliminary FY 2001 Estimates as of March 2003. Washington, DC: DHHS, 2003.
Available online at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/publications/afcars/report8.htm.
2 Ibid.
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We began our work in May 2003 by developing a set of guiding principles that articulate
what we want for children in the child welfare system. The principles were an important
touchstone throughout our year of deliberations, focusing us consistently on the children
at the heart of the child welfare system.
Our work built on a solid base of federal statutes that emphasize safety for children and
support for families. These landmark laws establish the shared responsibility of the
federal government, the states, and the courts to protect abused and neglected children
and secure safe, permanent homes for them. They have made important and lasting
improvements in the ability of child welfare agencies and the courts to meet the needs of
children who have been abused and neglected. And they reflect the strong and abiding
bipartisan desire to take better care of children who have suffered abuse and neglect. But
more remains to be done.
The Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care?s recommendations focus on what
states and courts need to help children have safe, permanent homes. Our
recommendations would give states a flexible and reliable source of federal funding and
new incentives, as well as help dependency courts secure the tools, information, and
training necessary to fulfill their responsibilities to children. In doing so, our
recommendations also call for greater accountability from both child welfare agencies
Guiding Principles for the Work of the Pew Commission
Preamble: All children must have safe, permanent families in which their physical,
emotional and social needs are met. When children are abused or neglected, these
fundamental needs are not met. The recommendations of the Pew Commission focus
on improving the circumstances for children who are served by the child welfare
system, whether in foster care or in their own homes. The Commission?s work was
guided by the following principles:
1. Children must be physically and emotionally safe and must be protected
wherever they live. When children are removed from their homes, public
authorities have an obligation to ensure that they are safer in out-of-home care
than they would have been at home.
2. Children must have their needs met in a timely manner at every stage of their
development and every stage of public decision making about their futures.
3. Children must have continuity and consistency in care giving and relationships,
including healthy ties to siblings and extended family.
4. Children must have equal protection and care, including attention to meeting
children?s needs in the context of their community and culture.
5. Children and their families must have an informed voice in decisions that are
made about their lives.
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and courts so the public can assess how well its institutions are protecting vulnerable
children. The key components of the Commission?s financing recommendations are:| Preserving federal foster care maintenance and adoption assistance as an
entitlement and expanding it to all children, regardless of their birth families?
income and including Indian children and children in the U.S. territories;| Providing federal guardianship assistance to all children who leave foster care to
live with a permanent legal guardian when a court has explicitly determined that
neither reunification nor adoption are feasible permanence options;| Helping states build a range of services from prevention, to treatment, to postpermanence
by (1) creating a flexible, indexed Safe Children, Strong Families
Grant from what is currently included in Title IV-B and the administration and
training components of Title IV-E; and (2) allowing states to ?reinvest? federal
and state foster care dollars into other child welfare services if they safely reduce
their use of foster care;| Encouraging innovation by expanding and simplifying the waiver process and
providing incentives to states that (1) make and maintain improvements in their
child welfare workforce and (2) increase all forms of safe permanence; and| Strengthening the current Child and Family Services Review process to increase
states? accountability for improving outcomes for children.
The Commission?s court recommendations call for:| Adoption of court performance measures by every dependency court to ensure
that they can track and analyze their caseloads, increase accountability for
improved outcomes for children, and inform decisions about the allocation of
court resources;| Incentives and requirements for effective collaboration between courts and child
welfare agencies on behalf of children in foster care;| A strong voice for children and parents in court and effective representation by
better trained attorneys and volunteer advocates;| Leadership from Chief Justices and other state court leaders in organizing their
court systems to better serve children, provide training for judges, and promote
more effective standards for dependency courts, judges, and attorneys.
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Understanding Titles IV-E and IV-B
Title IV-E of the Social Security Act is the largest source of federal funding for child
welfare, accounting for nearly half of federal child welfare spending in state fiscal
year (SFY) 2000.1 The two largest IV-E programs?Foster Care and Adoption
Assistance?are permanently authorized, open-ended entitlements. This means that
states may claim federal reimbursement on behalf of every income-eligible child they
place in a licensed foster home or institution, and every income-eligible child who is
adopted from foster care. States may claim reimbursement for three types of services:
(1) maintenance payments to foster and adoptive families, intended to help cover the
costs of shelter, food, and clothing; (2) placement and administrative costs, including
case management, eligibility determination, licensing, and court preparation; and (3)
training for staff and foster and adoptive parents.
Title IV-E income eligibility is based on each state?s Aid to Families with Dependent
Children eligibility standards that were in place when that cash welfare program was
replaced by the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant in 1996. The
AFDC eligibility requirements include income, asset, and deprivation tests, resulting
in an administratively burdensome IV-E eligibility determination process. Moreover,
because the 1996 standards have never been adjusted for inflation, the number of
children who meet IV-E eligibility requirements will continue to decline over time.
Title IV-B provides flexible funds that can be used by states for a broad array of child
welfare services. There are no federal income or other eligibility requirements. Title
IV-B funds may be used for family preservation services, community-based family
support services, time-limited family reunification services, and adoption promotion
and support services. These funds, however, represent a relatively small pot of
money, accounting for just five percent of all federal spending on child welfare in SFY
2000.2 Furthermore, unlike IV-E, IV-B funding is not an open-ended entitlement, but
rather a mixture of capped entitlement dollars and discretionary funding?meaning
that the overall funding level is subject to the annual appropriations process. Title
IV-B accounted for only $693 million in federal child welfare spending in FY 2004,
compared to $4.8 billion for Title IV-E foster care and $1.6 billion for IV-E adoption
assistance.3
________________
1 Bess, R., Andrews, C., Jantz , A., et al. The Cost of Protecting Vulnerable Children III: What Factors
Affect States? Fiscal Decisions? Occasional paper No. 61. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2002.
As indicated in this report, in recent years states have also used three major non-dedicated federal
funding streams to support child welfare services?the Social Services Block Grant (representing 17
percent of all federal child welfare spending in SFY 2000), the Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families block grant (15 percent), and Medicaid (10 percent).
2 Bess, R., et al, 2002.
3 The Congressional Budget Office. See http://www.cbo.gov/factsheets/2004b/FosterCare.pdf.
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Recommendations
Financing Child Welfare
1. Because every child needs a safe, permanent family, the Commission recommends:| Providing federal adoption assistance to all children adopted from foster care;
and| Providing federal guardianship assistance to all children who leave foster care
to live with a permanent, legal guardian.
The Commission recommends continuing federal adoption assistance as an entitlement
under Title IV-E and making assisted guardianship a IV-E reimbursable expense. This
will provide an additional route to permanence for children in foster care when adoption
and reunification have been ruled out. Furthermore, because we believe that every child
who experiences abuse and neglect?not just every poor child?deserves state and
federal support in the effort to secure a permanent family, we recommend elimination of
current income eligibility requirements for adoption assistance, and no income
requirements for guardianship assistance.
2. Because every child needs to be protected from abuse and neglect, the Commission
recommends that the federal government join states in paying for foster care for every
child who needs this protection:| Regardless of family income;| Including children who are members of Indian tribes; and| Including children who live in the U.S. territories.
Like the first recommendation, this recommendation reflects a deeply held principle
within the Commission that every child who experiences abuse or neglect deserves the
protection of the federal government. Currently, the federal government shares in the
cost of foster care only for children whose birth families meet outdated income eligibility
requirements for cash welfare. In addition, restrictions on access to federal funds for
tribes and U.S. territories limit the ability of those governments to protect abused and
neglected children. The Commission recommends eliminating income eligibility
requirements for foster care and suggests adjusting federal reimbursement rates as a
means of maintaining cost neutrality. The Commission further recommends giving tribes
and territories equal access to federal child welfare funds.
3. Because every child needs a permanent family, the Commission recommends
allowing states to ?reinvest? federal dollars that would have been expended on foster
care into other child welfare services if they safely reduce foster care use. States could
use these funds for any service to keep children out of foster care or to leave foster care
safely.
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Currently, when states reduce their foster care expenditures, they ?lose? the federal share
of savings associated with that reduction?even though keeping children out of foster
care can require substantial investments in prevention, treatment, and support once a
child leaves foster care. Allowing states to retain the federal share of savings and
reinvest those dollars into a broad range of child welfare services would encourage and
provide tangible benefits to states that actively promote and achieve safe permanence for
children. States could access the federal savings only when they reinvest their own share
of savings.
4. Children need skillful help to safely return home to their families, join a new family,
or avoid entering foster care in the first place. For caseworkers to provide this help,
states need flexible, sufficient, and reliable funding from the federal government. The
Commission recommends an indexed Safe Children, Strong Families Grant that
combines federal funding for Title IV-B, Title IV-E Administration, and Title IV-E
Training into a flexible source of funding. The Commission recommends that
additional funding be provided in the first year, and that the grant be indexed in future
years.| Each state?s grant amount would be based on its historical spending for Title
IV-B and Title IV-E Administration and Training.| In addition, the total base funding level would be enhanced by $200 million in
the first year of implementation.| In subsequent years, each state?s allocation would grow by 2 percent plus the
inflation rate, as measured by the Consumer Price Index.| States would be required to match the federal grant funds, just as they currently
are required to match federal IV-B and IV-E dollars.
The proposed Safe Children, Strong Families Grant would 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. In addition to a broad range of direct services to
children and their families, states could also use these funds for any child welfare training
purpose, including training of private sector employees and court personnel.
Recognizing that flexibility alone is not enough to enable states to build a full continuum
of child welfare services, the Commission recommends providing an additional $200
million in federal funding above the current IV-B and IV-E funding levels. We further
recommend indexing the grant to an annual growth factor to ensure that funding not only
keeps pace with inflation but grows over time.
5. To guarantee that public funds are used effectively to meet the needs of children
who have been abused or neglected and to increase public accountability, the
Commission recommends improvements to the federal Child and Family Services
Reviews (CFSRs).| The CFSRs should include more and better measures of child well-being, use
longitudinal data to yield more accurate assessments of performance over time,
and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) should direct
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that a portion of any penalties resulting from the review process be reinvested
into a state?s Program Improvement Plan.| The federal government should continue to help states build their
accountability systems by maintaining the federal match for State Automated
Child Welfare Information Systems (SACWIS).| Congress should direct the National Academy of Sciences, through its Board on
Children, Youth, and Families, to convene a foster care expert panel to
recommend the best outcomes and measures to use in data collection.
As the principal tool for assessing whether states are meeting the goals of safety,
permanence, and well-being for children in foster care, the CFSRs represent a major step
forward in creating real accountability in the child welfare system. However, the
Commission recommends improving their utility to policymakers and the public by better
measuring the well-being of children in foster care and using data that track the
movement and experiences of those children over time. Recognizing the importance of
reliable information systems, the Commission further recommends that federal funding
for SACWIS remain an open-ended entitlement under Title IV-E at the current 50 percent
matching rate.
6. To promote innovation and constant exploration of the best ways to help children
who have been abused and neglected, the Commission recommends that the federal
government:| Expand and improve its successful child welfare waiver program;| Continue to reserve funds for research, evaluation, and sharing of best
practices; and| Provide incentives to states that make workforce improvements and increase all
forms of safe permanence for children in foster care.
Improving outcomes for children in the child welfare system will require experimentation
on a broad scale, rigorous evaluation, and aggressive dissemination of proven practices.
To that end, the Commission recommends building on the success of the child welfare
waiver program by eliminating the cap on the number of waivers HHS may approve;
permitting HHS to approve waivers that replicate demonstrations already implemented in
other states; and streamlining the application and approval process. The Commission
further recommends retaining the Title IV-B evaluation, research, training and technical
assistance set-asides to continue to test new approaches and disseminate successful
results.
The proposed workforce improvement incentive recognizes the fundamental role that
caseworkers play in the lives of children and families in the child welfare system. States
that make lasting improvements in their child welfare workforce would receive a higher
federal matching rate for their Safe Children, Strong Families Grant. The proposed
permanence incentive would build on the successful Adoption Incentives program by
also rewarding safe permanence through reunification and guardianship. States would
receive incentive payments for increasing permanence through any of the three routes to
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permanence so long as overall permanence increases, and could use these payments for
any child welfare purpose.
Strengthening Courts
1. Courts are responsible for ensuring that children?s rights to safety, permanence and
well-being are met in a timely and complete manner. To fulfill this responsibility, they
must be able to track children?s progress, identify groups of children in need of
attention, and identify sources of delay in court proceedings.| Every dependency court should adopt the court performance measures
developed by the nation?s leading legal associations and use this information to
improve their oversight of children in foster care.| State judicial leadership should use these data to ensure accountability by every
court for improved outcomes for children and to inform decisions about
allocating resources across the court system.| Congress should appropriate $10 million in start-up funds, and such sums as
necessary in later years, to build capacity to track and analyze caseloads.
The American Bar Association, the National Center for State Courts, and the National
Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges have developed a set of court performance
outcome measures designed to help state courts improve judicial decision-making and
hasten children?s movement out of foster care and into safe, permanent homes. Such data
are critical to improving court practice, holding courts accountable for meeting their
obligations to protect children who have been abused or neglected, and increasing citizen
awareness of the challenges involved in meeting the needs of those children. The
Commission calls on state court systems to adopt these court performance measures and
make the aggregate information publicly available. Recognizing that state court
resources are limited, we recommend an appropriation of at least $10 million to help state
courts build their data capacity.
2. To protect children and promote their well-being, courts and public agencies should
be required to demonstrate effective collaboration on behalf of children.| The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) should require that
state IV-E plans, Program Improvement Plans, and Court Improvement
Program plans demonstrate effective collaboration.| HHS should require states to establish broad-based state commissions on
children in foster care, ideally led by the state?s child welfare agency director
and the Chief Justice.| Congress should appropriate $10 million to train court personnel, a portion of
which should be designated for joint training of court personnel, child welfare
agency staff, and others involved in protecting and caring for children.| Courts and agencies on the local and state levels should collaborate and jointly
plan for the collection and sharing of all relevant aggregate data and
information which can lead to better decisions and outcomes for children.
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Collaboration between the child welfare agency and the court is essential for lasting
improvements in the child welfare system. Yet, while most federal funding for both the
child welfare agency and the courts requires some type of state or court plan, there is no
explicit requirement for court-agency collaboration. We recommend that states and the
courts be required to demonstrate meaningful court-agency collaboration in the plans
they submit to the federal government.
To further collaboration, the Commission also recommends the development of multidisciplinary,
broad-based state commissions on children in foster care to ensure on-going
collaboration between child welfare agencies and courts, as well as an opportunity to
engage a broader coalition of public and private agencies, systems, and organizations
with an interest in the welfare of children.
In addition to sharing information, effective training is essential for collaboration. To
ensure that courts and agencies each have their own source of funds to contribute to
collaborative ventures, the Commission recommends an annual appropriation of $10
million through the Court Improvement Program to be used for court-specific training as
well as cross-training initiatives that are jointly planned and executed with the child
welfare agency.
3. To safeguard children?s best interests in dependency court proceedings, children
and their parents must have a direct voice in court, effective representation, and the
timely input of those who care about them.| Courts should be organized to enable children and parents to participate in a
meaningful way in their own court proceedings.| Congress should appropriate $5 million to expand the Court Appointed Special
Advocates (CASA) program.| States should adopt standards of practice, preparation, education, and
compensation for attorneys in dependency practice.| To attract and retain attorneys who practice in dependency court, Congress
should support efforts such as loan forgiveness and other demonstration
programs.| Law schools, bar associations, and law firms should help build the pool of
qualified attorneys available to children and parents in dependency courts.
Children, parents and caregivers all benefit when they have the opportunity to actively
participate in court proceedings, as does the quality of decisions when judges can see and
hear from key parties. State court leaders should consider the impact of factors such as
court room and waiting area accommodations, case scheduling, use of technology in the
court room, and translation of written materials. Even with the active participation of
children and families, judges and attorneys will not always have the time and resources to
provide the in-depth information needed for the courts to make fully informed decisions.
We therefore recommend an expansion of the successful, community-based CASA
program.
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Dissonance between state legislation, legal theory, and individual practice on the issue of
legal representation of children creates confusion within the field?to the detriment of
children who need strong, clear advocacy. Limited training for attorneys in dependency
court contributes to the problem. The Commission recommends requiring such attorneys
to complete a multi-disciplinary training program and participate in ongoing training
throughout their careers.
We recognize that compensation for dependency attorneys is generally low and that many
law graduates leave school with substantial educational debt that can deter them from
practicing in this field. We therefore recommend that Congress explore a loan
forgiveness program and other demonstration programs to attract and retain competent
attorneys in the dependency courts. Finally, to further develop the pool of experienced
attorneys willing to represent children and parents in dependency proceedings, we call on
attorneys and law firms to encourage and support the provision of more pro bono services
to children in families and dependency court.
4. Chief Justices and state court leadership must take the lead, acting as the foremost
champions for children in their court systems and making sure the recommendations
here are enacted in their states.| Chief Justices should embed oversight responsibility and assistance for
dependency courts within their Administrative Office of the Courts.| State court leadership and state court administrators should organize courts so
that dependency cases are heard in dedicated courts or departments, rather than
in departments with jurisdiction over multiple issues.| State judicial leadership should actively promote: (1) resource, workload and
training standards for dependency courts, judges, and attorneys; (2) standards
of practice for dependency judges; and (3) codes of judicial conduct that
support the practices of problem-solving courts.| State court procedures should enable and encourage judges who have
demonstrated competence in the dependency courts to build careers on the
dependency bench.
All of the recommendations for improving court performance in dependency cases
require leadership from the top of the state judiciary. Establishing an office on children
in the courts within the Administrative Office of the Courts would demonstrate the
importance of dependency issues to the court leadership, and would help institutionalize
the court?s commitment to children beyond the tenure of individual Chief Justices.
To ensure that dependency cases get the time, expertise, and degree of importance and
attention that children deserve, we urge state court leadership to establish courts or
departments dedicated to these cases. State judicial leadership should also adopt and use
dependency court standards that recognize the unique nature of cases before these courts,
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the relatively large number of parties involved in these cases, and the often extended
timeline of dependency cases.
Finally, to build a cadre of experienced dependency court judges, we recommend that
those judges who choose to build a career on the dependency bench be permitted to opt
out of routine rotation.
Conclusion
Our recommendations are the result of hard choices and difficult compromises. We
believe they offer an achievable plan for improving outcomes for children in foster care
and those at risk of entering care. The recommendations are designed to work together;
no single one satisfies all of our principles or holds as much promise for children as the
recommendations as a whole. Together, they will require some new funding. But just as
important, they will require redirection of current funding and stronger accountability for
how public dollars are used to protect and support children who have suffered abuse and
neglect. We hope that policy makers at the federal, state, and local levels and in the
courts will give our recommendations thoughtful consideration, and we urge swift action
for the sake of half a million children who are waiting for a permanent family.