Why are the Flaws in the Foster Care System not Being Reform

Foster Care Abuse

Lance Helms

PRIVATE AGENCIES

Uses of Private Agencies

Statistics

• Young boy born addicted to drugs

• Custody given to his rehabbed, heroin addicted father after warning signs were presented to the judge by the child's case worker

• An aunt and Grandmother were fighting for custody of the young child, opposing the father

• After one day living with his father social workers reported that Lance had a black eye

• Three weeks after being in the father’s custody, two year old Lance Helms was beaten so badly by his father’s live-in girlfriend that his organs ruptured, causing his death

Statistics

• 78.2% of children get abused by their parents every day

• 6.8% of children get abused by parents paramour

• The most common types of abuse are neglect (78.3%), physical (10.8%), and sexual (7.6%). 30% of these abused children will abuse others later in life

• 326 children died in foster care in 2014 and 1,138 foster children ran away from their foster homes

• The highest abuse rate comes from the private agencies and the dependency system

Kinship/ Dependency System

• Private agencies were established by state agencies to lessen their workload so they can be more productive

• Private agencies are becoming so desperate for housing for the children that they are accepting foster parents that do not have clean background checks

• State Agencies no longer monitor private agencies to make sure they are following DCF regulations

• Rocky Road Inc. (private agency) had 100 licensing violations and continued to receive children from state agencies

• Private agencies foster licenses do not expire, and only get revoked for extreme reasons

• When one parent loses custody over the child, the foster care system tries to place the child with family such as the opposite parent, grandparents, aunts, or uncles before placing them into foster homes

• This system offers a familiar environment to a child that is not always aware of the situation that is taking place

• Pam Mohr- “A lot of times the foster-care homes that we have are no better than the parents’ home…The politicians seem to think that if you remove the kids, then everything will be wonderful. They’re wrong.”

Why I Was Interested In This Topic...

• Private foster agencies are 1/3 more likely to abuse children than state supervised homes

• 4 children in private-run agencies have died in the past 5 years as a result of abuse and/or neglect

• Private agencies that place children with foster parents are paid by the state

• Private Agencies are given permanent licenses, leaving them unaccountable (even when children are injured and molested)

Misuse of Foster Care Money

Audits in New Jersey

Statistics

History of Foster Care

• The state has to follow key guidelines when they distribute money to foster families

• New Jersey alone has gotten two audits within three years

• In 2000, the state was forced to return $191,000 to Federal officials

• It is estimated that they may have to return more than 10% of the $70 million in special foster care money that they received from the federal government

Work Cited

Brindle, David. "Society: Social Care: Call for 'crucial' Reviews." The Guardian (London), 13

Mar. 2002. Web. 26 Apr. 2016.

"Fixing Foster Care Flaws." The Denver Post, 28 June 2000. Web. 26 Apr. 2016.

“Foster Care: Background and History - FindLaw." Findlaw. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 May 2016.

Jones, Richard Lezin. "Federal Audit Find Flaws In Foster Care In New Jersey." The New

York Times. N.p., 7 Aug. 2003. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.

Miller, Bob. "On the Edge of Darkness." California Journal, 1 Aug. 1996. Web. 5 May 2016.

Rainey, James. "A Child Dies, and Legal System Is Blamed." New York Times, 28 Apr.

1995. Web. 26 Apr. 2006.

"Statistics on Foster Care." FosterClub. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 May 2016.

Therolf, Garrett. "Private Foster Care System, Intended to save Children, Endangers Some."

N.p., 18 Dec. 2013. Web. 2 May 2016.

• In New York State, it costs approximately $29,000/yr to keep one child in the foster care system

• The Federal Government spends $4.4 billion every year to tend to the daily financial care of foster children

• The law provides about $1,870 a month to care for each child. The foster family receives about 40% of that amount and the rest goes to the agency to pay for social workers, office rent and other expenses.

Question

Disabilities

One out of every three Foster Children will have a disability

Controversies with Race and Disabilities

• Foster families are refusing to house foster children with disabilities (they require more work and effort than children without disabilities)

• Group homes are filling up with disabled children that individual foster families are refusing to care for

• The councils were not recruiting sufficient carers from black and ethnic minority communities

• Most people looking to adopt children want a Caucasian baby

Foster Care Timeline

Race in Foster Care

• Established around the 1500s
• English Poor Laws allowed for poor children to be placed into indentured service until they become adults
• Orphanages

• Caucasian children= 42% of all foster children
• Black/African American= 24%
• Hispanic= 22%
• American Indian/Alaskan Native = 2%
• Asian= 1%
• Native Hawaiian= 0%= 525 children

Why are the Flaws in the Foster Care System not Being Reformed?

Foster Care Statistics

• Approximately 415,129 children were in the foster care system on September 30, 2014
• 264,746 children enter foster care every year
• Every two minutes, one minor becomes a foster child

What is Foster Care?

Foster Care is a 24-hour Federal system in which minors are placed in homes away from their family to improve the quality in which they are living.

QUESTION

Why are the Flaws in the Foster Care System not Being Reformed?

ANSWER

MONEY

&

HOUSING

The Foster Care System