[House Hearing, 105 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
CHILD PROTECTION PROGRAMS IN FLORIDA
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES
of the
COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
DECEMBER 14, 1998
__________
Serial 105-99
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Ways and Means
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
60-952 CC WASHINGTON : 1998
COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
BILL ARCHER, Texas, Chairman
PHILIP M. CRANE, Illinois CHARLES B. RANGEL, New York
BILL THOMAS, California FORTNEY PETE STARK, California
E. CLAY SHAW, Jr., Florida ROBERT T. MATSUI, California
NANCY L. JOHNSON, Connecticut BARBARA B. KENNELLY, Connecticut
JIM BUNNING, Kentucky WILLIAM J. COYNE, Pennsylvania
AMO HOUGHTON, New York SANDER M. LEVIN, Michigan
WALLY HERGER, California BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland
JIM McCRERY, Louisiana JIM McDERMOTT, Washington
DAVE CAMP, Michigan GERALD D. KLECZKA, Wisconsin
JIM RAMSTAD, Minnesota JOHN LEWIS, Georgia
JIM NUSSLE, Iowa RICHARD E. NEAL, Massachusetts
SAM JOHNSON, Texas MICHAEL R. McNULTY, New York
JENNIFER DUNN, Washington WILLIAM J. JEFFERSON, Louisiana
MAC COLLINS, Georgia JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio XAVIER BECERRA, California
PHILIP S. ENGLISH, Pennsylvania KAREN L. THURMAN, Florida
JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada
JON CHRISTENSEN, Nebraska
WES WATKINS, Oklahoma
J.D. HAYWORTH, Arizona
JERRY WELLER, Illinois
KENNY HULSHOF, Missouri
A.L. Singleton, Chief of Staff
Janice Mays, Minority Chief Counsel
______
Subcommittee on Human Resources
E. CLAY SHAW, Jr., Florida, Chairman
DAVE CAMP, Michigan SANDER M. LEVIN, Michigan
JIM McCRERY, Louisiana FORTNEY PETE STARK, California
MAC COLLINS, Georgia ROBERT T. MATSUI, California
PHILIP S. ENGLISH, Pennsylvania WILLIAM J. COYNE, Pennsylvania
JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada WILLIAM J. JEFFERSON, Louisiana
J.D. HAYWORTH, Arizona
WES WATKINS, Oklahoma
Pursuant to clause 2(e)(4) of Rule XI of the Rules of the House, public
hearing records of the Committee on Ways and Means are also published
in electronic form. The printed hearing record remains the official
version. Because electronic submissions are used to prepare both
printed and electronic versions of the hearing record, the process of
converting between various electronic formats may introduce
unintentional errors or omissions. Such occurrences are inherent in the
current publication process and should diminish as the process is
further refined.
C O N T E N T S
__________
Page
Advisory of December 2, 1998, announcing the hearing............. 2
WITNESSES
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees
(AFSME), Local 3041, Carol Ann Loehndorf....................... 46
Broward County Foster Parents Association, Linda Day............. 67
Children's Home Society of Florida, Kathryn R. O'Day............. 70
Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption:
Dave Thomas.................................................. 6
Jan Hefner................................................... 6
Florida Department of Children and Families:
Linda F. Radigan............................................. 18
Johnny L. Brown.............................................. 33
Florida Dependency Court Improvement Program, and Seventeenth
Judicial Circuit of Florida, Hon. Kathleen A. Kearney.......... 14
Handy, Inc., Eileen Donais....................................... 74
Jenne, Hon. Ken, Broward County, Florida......................... 10
Meyer, Christine, Seventeenth Judicial Circuit of Florida........ 43
Sanderson, Hon. Debby P., Florida State House of Representatives. 8
Talenfeld, Howard M., Colodny, Fass & Talenfeld, P.A............. 37
Youth Law Center, Howard M. Talenfeld............................ 37
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Jane Addams Hull House Association, Chicago, IL, Gordon Johnson,
statement and attachments...................................... 85
Koenig, Hon. Julie, Circuit Court Judge, Seventeenth Judical
Circuit of Florida, letter..................................... 87
CHILD PROTECTION PROGRAMS IN FLORIDA
----------
MONDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1998
House of Representatives,
Committee on Ways and Means,
Subcommittee on Human Resources,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:09 a.m., in
the City Commission Chambers, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Hon. E.
Clay Shaw, Jr. (Chairman of the Subcommittee), presiding.
[The advisory announcing the hearing follows:]
ADVISORY
FROM THE
COMMITTEE
ON WAYS
AND
MEANS
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES
CONTACT: (202) 225-1025
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 2, 1998
No. HR-20
Shaw Announces Field Hearing on
Child Protection
Congressman E. Clay Shaw, Jr., (R-FL), Chairman, Subcommittee on
Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of
Representatives, today announced that the Subcommittee will hold a
field hearing on child protection programs in Florida and other States.
The hearing will take place on Monday, December 14, 1998, in the Fort
Lauderdale City Hall, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, beginning at 10:00 a.m.
In view of the limited time available to hear witnesses, oral
testimony at this hearing will be from invited witnesses only.
Witnesses will include a State legislator, State and local social
service administrators, judicial and law enforcement representatives,
child welfare practitioners, and researchers. Any individual or
organization not scheduled for an oral appearance may submit a written
statement for consideration by the Committee and for inclusion in the
printed record of the hearing.
BACKGROUND:
The Subcommittee has jurisdiction over most Federal foster care and
adoption programs. The first major reform of the child welfare system
in almost two decades, the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (P.L.
105-89), was initiated in the Subcommittee and signed into law just one
year ago. The legislation establishes new procedural requirements to
promote child safety, to shorten the time a child spends in foster
care, and to expedite the adoption process. One of the most important
requirements makes a child's health and safety the paramount concern in
any efforts made by the State to preserve or reunify families. The
legislation also provided States with additional resources from the
Federal Government including the expansion of family preservation
programs and the promotion of adoption services.
The Subcommittee is traveling to Florida to determine what barriers
exist to full implementation of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of
1997 and to exercise oversight over programs established to protect
abused and neglected children. The hearing will provide an opportunity
for the Subcommittee to hear directly from State legislators who, along
with the Federal Government, provide funding for child protection
programs, from judges and appointed legal advocates who adjudicate and
represent abused and neglected children in court, and from child
protection administrators and practitioners who provide services to
maltreated children and their families.
In announcing the hearing, Chairman Shaw stated: ``The Subcommittee
is holding this hearing as part of our ongoing responsibility to
monitor the effectiveness of child protection programs throughout the
United States. The safety of abused and neglected children must be a
paramount concern at all levels of government and in all parts of our
communities. We are especially interested in how the major child
protection reforms enacted as part of the 1997 adoption law are being
implemented in Florida and what more needs to be done to keep children
safe both in their own families and in the foster care system.''
FOCUS OF THE HEARING:
The hearing will focus on what the Federal Government can do to
help State and local governments provide assistance to troubled
children and their families and to keep children safe in the foster
care system. The Subcommittee is interested in learning about the
problems that exist in Florida and elsewhere across the nation that
result in leaving abused children in dangerous situations either by
returning them to unfit biological parents or by placing them in a
child protection system that fails to protect them.
DETAILS FOR SUBMISSION OF WRITTEN COMMENTS:
Any person or organization wishing to submit a written statement
for the printed record of the hearing should submit six (6) single-
spaced copies of their statement, along with an IBM compatible 3.5-inch
diskette in WordPerfect 5.1 format, with their name, address, and
hearing date noted on a label, by the close of business, Monday,
December 28, 1998, to A.L. Singleton, Chief of Staff, Committee on Ways
and Means, U.S. House of Representatives, 1102 Longworth House Office
Building, Washington, D.C. 20515.
FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS:
Each statement presented for printing to the Committee by a
witness, any written statement or exhibit submitted for the printed
record or any written comments in response to a request for written
comments must conform to the guidelines listed below. Any statement or
exhibit not in compliance with these guidelines will not be printed,
but will be maintained in the Committee files for review and use by the
Committee.
1. All statements and any accompanying exhibits for printing must
be submitted on an IBM compatible 3.5-inch diskette WordPerfect 5.1
format, typed in single space and may not exceed a total of 10 pages
including attachments. Witnesses are advised that the Committee will
rely on electronic submissions for printing the official hearing
record.
2. Copies of whole documents submitted as exhibit material will not
be accepted for printing. Instead, exhibit material should be
referenced and quoted or paraphrased. All exhibit material not meeting
these specifications will be maintained in the Committee files for
review and use by the Committee.
3. A witness appearing at a public hearing, or submitting a
statement for the record of a public hearing, or submitting written
comments in response to a published request for comments by the
Committee, must include on his statement or submission a list of all
clients, persons, or organizations on whose behalf the witness appears.
4. A supplemental sheet must accompany each statement listing the
name, company, address, telephone and fax numbers where the witness or
the designated representative may be reached. This supplemental sheet
will not be included in the printed record.
The above restrictions and limitations apply only to material being
submitted for printing. Statements and exhibits or supplementary
material submitted solely for distribution to the Members, the press,
and the public during the course of a public hearing may be submitted
in other forms.
Note: All Committee advisories and news releases are available on
the World Wide Web at ``http://www.house.gov/ways__means/''.
The Committee seeks to make its facilities accessible to persons
with disabilities. If you are in need of special accommodations, please
call 202-225-1721 or 202-226-3411 TTD/TTY in advance of the event (four
business days notice is requested). Questions with regard to special
accommodation needs in general (including availability of Committee
materials in alternative formats) may be directed to the Committee as
noted above.
Chairman Shaw. The hearing will come to order. I first of
all want to thank the folks here in Ft. Lauderdale, the city
commission, the mayor, and the city manager for allowing me to
come home. I spent many years behind this podium as a
commissioner and as the mayor, so I feel very comfortable in
this room.
I am also very pleased that my friend Phil English from
Pennsylvania is here to be part of this hearing. He also serves
on the Human Resources Subcommittee of the Ways and Means
Committee.
Last of all, and certainly not least of all, I am very
pleased to welcome all of our friends, Dave Thomas, and all of
our other distinguished witnesses for this hearing. I see Ken
Jenne is here with us among the others. Thank you, Phil, for
coming to Florida for this hearing. I know it is a heavy duty
leaving Pennsylvania in December to come to the State of
Florida. We are delighted to see you.
The purpose of this hearing is to continue the Ways and
Means Committee's examination of the Nation's child protection
programs. The children being cared for by the child protection
programs run by the States, counties, and cities of our Nation
are the most vulnerable children in our society today. They
have been abused or neglected by their parents. To protect
them, the State assumes custody and places them either in
foster homes or some other type of foster facility. Now removed
from their parents, some of them are still vulnerable to
further abuse or neglect unless government is vigilant in
protecting them. But government does not always do a good job.
That is why, like many other officials, child advocates and
scholars, we on the Ways and Means Committee have been working
so hard over the past 4 years to improve the Nation's child
protection programs, and that includes adoption laws. The
Federal role is to provide the broad framework for the program,
to provide States with adequate funding to help low-income
families, and ensure program accountability.
The Adoption and Safe Families Act which was written
primarily by our Committee and passed by an overwhelming
bipartisan vote in 1997 is an example of our commitment to
improving child protection programs, in this case, by
shortening the length of time children spend in the limbo of
foster care and by providing States with financial incentives
to increase adoption. Similarly, our legislation on racial
discrimination in foster care and adoption placement which was
enacted in 1996 is further evidence of our commitment to
getting children out of foster care as quickly as possible.
In examining the Federal law and in examining the State
laws and what some of the problems are, we found that many of
the problems were caused by Federal law, which simply put
barriers in the way of adoption. We have cleared away much of
that clutter, and hopefully it will come up and give us great
dividends in placing children in permanent adopting homes.
We are here today primarily in our role of ensuring
accountability. Is the State of Florida implementing a child
protection program that makes the safety of these children of
paramount importance, and at the same time one that gets
children into permanent settings as quickly as possible? Is the
State of Florida aggressively implementing the Adoption and
Safe Families Act and the interethnic adoption provision? If
not, what can we do at the Federal level to ensure that Florida
improves in its performance?
Here, I want to mention one issue that the Committee plans
to examine very carefully this year. The Federal Government now
provides States with a great deal of money, but the system by
which we provide it is flawed. The system is flawed because we
provide generous open-ended fundings for children who have been
removed from their families but cap inflexible funds for
providing the much needed services to prevent the unnecessary
removal of children from their homes. To remedy this problem, I
would like to provide States with more control over their
funds. The States are doing an exemplary job with the
flexibility we have given them with the new welfare reform
legislation, and I believe they would do an equally good job in
using more flexible child protection funds. But many advocates
and policymakers want the Federal Government to maintain a
strong regulatory role over the State and local child
protection programs. Perhaps we can develop reforms that will
ensure more flexibility and strong Federal oversight. I hope
our witnesses will address these issues today.
Before hearing from witnesses, I want to make an important
point about how I plan to conduct this hearing this morning.
Broward County is now involved in a court suit concerning its
child protection program. It is my fervent desire, and actually
my commitment, to avoid making any comments on either side of
this case, and I strongly suggest that our witnesses do the
same. In fact, I request that our witnesses do the same. The
court suit should be allowed to run its course without any
interference from other branches of Federal or State
government. We have invited witnesses representing all sides of
this suit, but this is not the setting or the time to discuss
this case itself. I am sure that all of you understand this and
will abide by our wishes in this regard.
I will now recognize Mr. English for any opening statement
that he might have.
Mr. English. Mr. Chairman, in the interest of brevity, I
will keep my remarks short. I just want to thank you for
sponsoring this hearing, which is the latest in a series of
field hearings and hearings in Washington that you have done on
this subject. I am looking forward to seeing what is going on
in Florida and comparing it with what we are trying to do in
Pennsylvania. I think our problems are similar and I will be
particularly interested to see how Florida is proceeding with
these very, very difficult issues.
Mr. Chairman, I also want to congratulate you. I realize
this is the last hearing that you are going to be chairing of
this Subcommittee. If I may be permitted to say so, you have
been a superb advocate as a Chair of the Human Resources
Subcommittee, and a lot of us are looking forward to your work
as Chairman of the Social Security Subcommittee in the new
Congress. I believe that as a longtime Member, 4 years serving
under you on the Human Resources Subcommittee, not only have I
learned a lot, but also, we have done extraordinary things in
Congress, and I want to congratulate you for that.
Chairman Shaw. Thank you very much for your kind remarks. I
would like to say that I will be leaving the Subcommittee in
good hands with Nancy Johnson. I believe she will be taking it
as Chairwoman from the State of Connecticut.
Now we get to our hearing. Our first witness is no stranger
to this Subcommittee. He has testified before our Subcommittee
in Washington. He has become, I think, perhaps the national
poster child for adoption, being the founder of the Dave Thomas
Foundation for Adoption in Dublin, Ohio. I might say too with a
great deal of pride that he is one of my constituents here in
Fort Lauderdale. Dave, proceed as you wish. I understand that
you are not going to be reading your full testimony yourself
because of your voice, but if you would like to proceed.
STATEMENT OF DAVE THOMAS, FOUNDER, DAVE THOMAS FOUNDATION FOR
ADOPTION, DUBLIN, OHIO; ACCOMPANIED BY JAN HEFNER, DIRECTOR,
DAVE THOMAS FOUNDATION FOR ADOPTION
Mr. Thomas. Thank you. Let me just say thank you very much
for allowing us to be here. I would like to say, Chairman Shaw,
you have done a wonderful job for adoption, trying to get these
kids. All they want to do is have a permanent and loving home.
Jan Hefner is the director of my foundation and she wrote these
remarks and I am going to let her say these remarks. So go
ahead and testify.
Ms. Hefner. Mr. Shaw and Mr. English, good morning. As a
matter of fact, these remarks are a compilation of things that
Dave has shared with folks across the country, so we just
wanted to bring a few of those to you this morning.
In essence, Wendy's and the Dave Thomas Foundation have
tried to make the public more aware of the youngsters that are
in foster care through public service announcements and
Internet sites, adoption fairs, bus cards, and other kinds of
media, and our local partners, our stores, our franchisees,
they are a very, very important part of the team. We have all
been working together to recruit parents, to educate judges and
elected officials about these kids. We are very thankful to
you, Mr. Shaw and your colleagues in Congress, for passing the
Adoption Tax Credit as well as the Adoption and Safe Families
Act.
Since you were gracious enough to invite me, as Mr. Thomas'
remarks said, I would like to share a couple of comments. First
of all, he feels very strongly that States and counties have a
huge responsibility to be sure that not only the letter of the
law is implemented, but also the spirit of the law. After all,
if local officials make sure that the best interest of each
child is number one, then your communities will be much safer,
happier, and healthier.
Good and timely services for families have to be available
right away so as many families as possible can stay out of the
system altogether and stay together. Foster care is very
important. It is a lifeline for children in crisis, but it is
not meant to be permanent in any way.
We also believe that every child can be adopted, every
child deserves a family. We just have to find the right one in
a timely manner. Also, potential adoptive families need to be
treated kindly and gently like the really important people they
are. That goes for foster families also.
We must also pay attention to the court system. We need
excellent tracking systems within the court and these need to
be able to talk to the social service systems. If we do not
have that kind of connection, then we are going to lose a lot
of the accountability and the ability to do the implementation
of the spirit of the law.
We also need committed and well-trained judges who hold
everyone accountable to do the right things for children. They
are the gatekeepers, and we just hope that all of the judges in
the State of Florida understand that. In fact, they are the
ones who must hold folks accountable for this. We know that
Judge Kearney has been doing a terrific job down here, and wish
her well in her new position.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, we need to make sure that each one
of us in our own special way in this beautiful community of
Fort Lauderdale do what we can to make sure every child has a
safe and loving home to start their life out right. That much
we owe them.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Shaw. Mr. English.
Mr. English. I wonder if our two witnesses could
generalize--I know this is a very broad stroke I am inviting
you to give, but can you generalize for us, if we had a
stronger adoption policy in this country, if we were doing a
better job, as I think our policy--the direction our policy is
now headed in, doing a better job of placements earlier on, can
you quantify for us what impact it would have on communities
like Florida?
Ms. Hefner. The latest research that we are aware of from
WESAT indicated that about 10 years ago if the youngsters that
were in foster care had been placed much earlier with adoptive
families, then it would save literally billions of dollars
across the country. I am sure that is the case here in Broward
County. It has got the second largest number of youngsters in
care in Florida. So not only would you save the administrative
costs of children in foster care, there is also the
longitudinal issues. Hopefully, those kids will not then be
involved in either the juvenile justice system or the adult
system, or would they be homeless on the streets because they
would, in fact, have a family that they can connect to. So
there is not only the spiritual and moral issues, there are
also financial issues.
Mr. English. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Shaw. Thank you.
Dave, as I mentioned earlier, you are very active and not
only are you an adopted child yourself a few years back, but
you were very active in Washington on the passage and testified
regarding the Adoption and Safe Families Act, as I recall. You
were also at the White House with me for the signing. I think
such moments in history should some way be memorialized and I
have something I would like to present to you at this time.
What we have here is a signed copy of the act, together
with the ceremonial pen with which it was signed into law by
President Clinton.
[Presentation.]
Mr. Thomas. Thank you very much.
[Applause.]
Chairman Shaw. Yes, sir.
Mr. Thomas. Now all we have got to do is make it work.
Chairman Shaw. Right. You are a tough guy. He says now let
us make it work. OK.
Mr. Thomas. We have it, now we need to implement it. This
was the first step.
Thank you.
Chairman Shaw. On our second panel, we have Hon. Linda--oh,
Ms. Radigan will be coming later. Evidently, her plane is
running late. We also have our hometown State representative,
Debby Sanderson, from the Florida House of Representatives,
also Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, which is no
lightweight area, I can tell you that. We have got our new
sheriff--not new any more--Ken Jenne, a very old friend of
ours. Ken and I have worked together on everything from the
Charter Commission through all the positions that he has held.
If he will come forward. And Judge Kathleen Kearney whose name
has already been mentioned this morning. She will be leaving us
and leaving the Seventh Judicial Circuit of Florida for
Tallahassee where she will be taking over tremendous
responsibility under the Bush administration. We have the
written testimony--if we do not, we will be getting it and
putting the testimony in the record. If the witnesses would
proceed as they see fit, if you wish to summarize--we are going
to try to move the hearing along with a 5-minute rule. If it
runs a little bit over, I cannot see anybody at this table that
I would put the gavel on. So proceed as you wish.
Debby.
STATEMENT OF HON. DEBBY P. SANDERSON, FLORIDA STATE HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES
Ms. Sanderson. Thank you, Congressman Shaw. It is a
pleasure to be here this morning. I wish it were a happier
subject. It is one that we struggle with in the legislature and
certainly here at the district level.
I want to mention that appropriations have increased
significantly over the last 7 years. The legislature
appropriated this year the largest amount of resources in
years. It was an increase of $75 million and 212 positions. Now
that is statewide.
In the fall of 1997 there was a surge in the number of
children placed in out-of-home care. This surge was not
anticipated in the 1998 Budget Appropriations Act. We do not
have a good child welfare information system and we are working
on one. It is a very, very expensive situation. In Tallahassee
it is called SACWIS, Statewide Automated Child Welfare
Information Systems--that is the acronym--which is being
developed. It is going to be a couple of more years before it
is up. This may be one reason the State does not have, and is
not able to react as soon as we would really like to because we
do not have some of the information we really need. The
allocation methodology may need to be changed. This is
something, as you know as a Congressman, is politically very
sensitive when you try to take dollars from one district or
from one State to another.
Management decisions have been lacking at times. The
district structure does not allow the department to correct
problems very easily. The State is now adjusting to the Federal
Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, which I think was a
very good piece of legislation, but it has imposed certain
restrictions and constraints on us.
We passed State legislation this past session to implement
those Federal requirements. It calls for the safety and health
of children as a paramount concern in decisionmaking in all
stages of the proceedings. It requires all children in the
dependency court system to have a permanency planning review
hearing within 1 year from the date of the out-of-home
placement. It provides additional grounds for expediting
termination of parental rights in certain circumstances. This
is an area that really, really needs to be worked on. We have
many children languishing in the system today that the parents'
rights are not terminated. They are not complying with any of
the court orders and really have lost the ability to be good
parents and we need to get these children placed. The
legislature will have an opportunity to address these changes
budgetarily this upcoming session which starts March 2, 1999.
Privatization of the child welfare system may bring many
challenges and unknown resource demands. This is a massive
undertaking by the department as directed by the legislation of
1998. Sadly, children are going to die regardless of how many
resources the State may put into these programs. As I have
mentioned, we have had significant budget increases, and where
they affect District 10, of that, 70--let us see, of the 212
FTEs, full-time equivalents, District 10 has received 28
percent of those. These are new people coming on board child
protective, which is 48.5 of the 172 positions, new counselors,
and 38 percent, which are 8 of the 24 supervisor positions.
Investigations have increased by more than 15 percent since
1993. The number of family builders--the number served by the
Family Builders Program, which is an intervention program that
we have tried, have increased over 152 percent over the last 5
years. In District 10, the increase was 149 percent. So they
are utilizing it, but still it is obviously not the total
answer.
The length of stay has been shortened from 22.4 to 19.4
months in care. Adoption placements statewide have increased by
over 44 percent since 1990, which I think is a good sign, but
we need to step that up. In District 10, the rate of children
entering adoptive home, supervision for 1,000 maltreated
children went from 10.8 in 1994 to 18.3 in 1997-98. That's a
69-percent increase in just 4 years.
In 1998, a review of 53 foster homes in District 10 chosen
because of overcrowding, abuse reports or concerns by the
judges, the guardian ad litems or department staff indicated
that only 4 percent were unacceptable with regard to safety,
cleanliness, and maintenance. Fourteen were unacceptable
because of overcrowding. I think 14 percent is awfully high.
Children appear to be cared for in all the homes. The results
were even better in a similar review of 50 homes just
completed.
The budget that I chair and have the responsibility of
chairing is $12.6 billion. It is tremendous, it is the largest
part of the Florida budget. There are so many demands, Medicaid
has grown tremendously in this State. The Medicaid serves over
10 percent of the State's population. So in other words, a
tremendous number. Since 1996 expenditures have risen more than
574 percent and the number of individuals covered has increased
by 180 percent. In 1996, the average cost per client in the
Medicaid Program has increased from $2,215 to $4,530. That is
an average. In the absence of Federal reform, the State is
likely to face continued growth in Medicaid expenditures. We
are drowning in this and really need some help on the Federal
level, which you have been very helpful with in the past year
with the budget reconciliation.
Infrastructure and structured management determines the
success of any program. We need to reallocate existing foster
care dollars. For instance, the population at risk versus the
reported number is very difficult, particularly without SACWIS
up and running. The number of cases versus the number reported
are what we need to base this on. It is very possible that some
of the children in this district were misplaced in more
expensive foster care, therapeutic homes versus regular foster
care because of lack of slots. It is a very slot-driven
situation that we have.
Some management decisions have been made by other than the
legislature, such as those made by local district attorneys. I
am not casting aspersions on any specific district attorney,
but they have latitude of moving their budgets a little bit
here and there. So there are some things--Federal lawsuits that
we have just been pounded with are also a problem and that is a
concern that I have with this new lawsuit that has been placed
on us. Do we really want the Federal courts running our foster
care system?
We have no information on the length of stay by district
and by category of foster care, only the length of stay over
all. That needs to be much more specific. We need to find out
what is driving an increase in the caseload and causing it to
spike so appreciably.
The Federal adoption legislation that you were so key and
responsible on helping to pass requires emphasis on the best
interest of the child first and that 12-month planning versus
18 months. I know that Judge Kearney felt that 12 months would
be sufficient to do that and she was comfortable with that.
My last comment is that the birth parents are the ones that
are really responsible for these children and something has got
to be done to have parents realize what a treasure children
are. I was never blessed with any of my own, but it gave me the
opportunity to put my energies for children other than my own.
It is not the foster parents' responsibility, it is the birth
parents' responsibility, and that has somehow got to be driven
home. I do not know. We cannot do it legislatively. How we can
make parents more responsible, not to abuse their children, to
take care of them, love them and nurture them? I know we are
trying with many intervention programs and hope to be more
successful as we go on. This is an enormous program and it
takes everyone in this room and everyone outside of this room
to solve it.
Thank you for the opportunity.
Chairman Shaw. Sheriff Jenne.
STATEMENT OF HON. KEN JENNE, SHERIFF, BROWARD COUNTY, FLORIDA
Sheriff Jenne. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you and Mr.
English for having the foresight to schedule this hearing in
Broward County and address what clearly has become a crisis in
our community. I do want to talk a little bit different than
probably some of your other speakers. I want to speak about the
role of law enforcement, specifically the Broward Sheriff's
Office, can play in protecting our children.
I want you to know that I am thankful for those who gave us
a very strong wakeup call that we all needed. It was all of our
responsibilities to provide a safety net for society's most
vulnerable. There are clearly right now some gaping holes in
that net when it comes to our children. Unfortunately, there is
no quick and easy solution to this problem, no Band-Aid that
can stop the bleeding at this moment, but we all must prepare
together for major surgery of the system.
One way the Sheriff's Office can help repair the system is
by assuming the responsibility of protective investigations,
not the placements but the investigations. This is right now
the responsibility of the State Department of Children and
Family Services. These investigations are the ones that
determine whether the child should be removed from an unsafe
environment and whether any criminal activity is occurring. So
we are just talking about protective investigations right now.
Let me take a moment to address what currently happens when
an investigator calls for help. The Federal law is clear where
the investigator's duty lies. You mentioned this earlier, Mr.
Chairman, in your remarks, but I think it warrants reiteration.
The duty of the investigator is to do whatever is in the best
interest of the child. The child's welfare is, and will
continue to be, of paramount importance to an investigator.
What will be emphasized in any training that takes place,
should we assume those responsibilities? The first thing I
think law enforcement ought to do upon receiving a call from an
800 hotline is extensive background on the people who live in
the household. Have there been prior calls to the hotline from
this household? Who lives in the house? Are there criminal
backgrounds? By conducting this background research, we would
arm every investigator with crucial information he or she needs
to make an informed decision that is in the best interest of
the child. That is not being done now.
Other steps would be to include providing investigators
with the tools they need to perform these jobs effectively. It
is hard to imagine, but most of these--the work of these
investigators are outside of the office, yet they do not have
portable computers; they do not have cell telephones; they do
not have communication radios. They spend every moment of their
day in their cars transporting children, yet there are no
guarantees of safety and reliability because the cars are their
own personal vehicles. There is no accountability regarding
automobile insurance when they are transporting these kids in
the State's custody. The Sheriff's Office will provide
inexpensive types of vehicles to these investigators. We would
also enhance the training requirements for the investigators by
adding a 40-hour investigator course on topics such as child
interview techniques, case management preparation and an
overview of the criminal statutes and evidence of collection
scenes--crime scenes.
Mr. Chairman and Mr. English, I want to emphasize to you
that that type of training is absolutely essential. How to
interview a child is much different than how to interview an
adult. How to take evidence is so important, yet we do not have
it today. I believe that this is not only an appropriate role
for a law enforcement agency, but I think it is a necessary one
in today's society, not just here in Broward County. Police
officers and sheriff's deputies are clearly equipped, trained,
and experienced to perform these functions. Our infrastructure
lends itself to doing them thoroughly and efficiently. We have
the tools by nature that are at our disposal that the
Department of Children and Families, (DCF) does not have.
Perhaps more important is the level of responsibility and
accountability that we demand of our investigators. It is the
same level of accountability we demand throughout the Sheriff's
Office for everything from crime rates to clearance rates and
to community outreach. Our employees are responsible for the
public safety of 1.5 million people in this county. It is time
we demand more from those individuals who are explicitly
responsible for protecting the welfare of our children.
This office, and I think other law enforcement agencies,
sheriffs' offices throughout this State are willing to do it
and the structure can be put into place quickly. But to do this
job, we have to tell you it will cost more money for those
computers, for those cell telephones, for better training. We
estimate that it will take approximately $2 million more
annually to conduct those protective investigations. I suspect
you will find this to be a common theme throughout the State,
particularly in the urban centers where caseloads are
overwhelming and the need for proficient reliable investigative
work is high.
Our children, like all of us, need to live in a safe,
healthy environment and we should say to all of us, shame on us
for letting their welfare become a high risk situation that
takes a grand jury report to remind us this should be our
highest priority. It should remain our highest priority year in
and year out, not just when the news media bring a rash of
tragedies to our attention.
In closing, I want to say once again, Mr. Chairman, to you
and to Mr. English, thank you for bringing this Subcommittee
here. I am sure, and I know it is true that our needs are
great, but our resolve is also great to tackle this problem. I
want to say once again how proud we are that you are here and
leading this fight for us. Thank you.
[The prepared statement follows:]
Statement of Hon. Ken Jenne, Sheriff, Broward County, Florida
First, I'd like to thank Congressman Shaw and the other
distinguished members of this subcommittee for having the
foresight to schedule this hearing in Broward County and
address a clearly pressing crisis in our community.
I want to talk with you today about the role that law
enforcement--and specifically the Broward Sheriff's Office--can
play in protecting our children.
And I want you to know I am thankful to those who gave us
all the wake-up call we needed. It is all of our
responsibilities to provide a safety net for society's most
vulnerable. And there are clearly some gaping holes in that net
when it comes to our children.
Unfortunately, there is no quick and easy solution, no
band-aid that can stop the bleeding at this moment. But we all
must prepare, together, for major surgery of this system.
One way the Broward Sheriff's Office can help repair the
system is by assuming the responsibility of protective
investigations, a responsibility currently under the state's
Department of Children and Families. These are investigations
that determine whether or not a child should be removed from an
unsafe environment, and whether any criminal activity is
occurring.
Let me take a moment to address what currently happens when
an investigator responds to a call for help. The federal law is
very clear where the investigator's duty lies (and Congressman
Shaw mentioned this in his opening remarks, but I think it
warrants reiteration).
The duty of the investigator is to do whatever is in the
best interest of the child. The child's welfare is and will
continue to be of paramount importance to an investigator. That
will be emphasized in any training that takes place, should we
assume these responsibilities.
The first thing we would do upon receiving a call from the
800 hot-line is extensive background on the people who live in
that household:
have there been prior calls to the hotline
regarding this household?
who lives in the house?
do they have criminal backgrounds?
By conducting this background research, we would arm every
investigator with crucial information he or she needs to make
an informed decision about what's best for the child.
This is NOT being done now.
Other steps we would take include providing investigators
with the tools they need to perform these jobs effectively.
The vast majority of their work is done outside the office,
yet they don't have portable computers, cell phones or
communication radios. They spend all day in their cars and
often transport children, yet there are no guarantees on the
safety and reliability of their personal vehicles, and there is
no accountability regarding automobile insurance when we are
transporting children in the state's custody! The Sheriff's
Office would provide inexpensive unmarked vehicles to each
investigator.
We would also enhance the training requirements for
investigators by adding a forty hour investigator course on
topics such as child interview techniques, case management and
preparation, an overview of criminal statutes, and evidence
collection at crime scenes.
I believe this is not only an appropriate role for law
enforcement agency, but it may be necessary for law enforcement
to perform these duties. And not just here in Broward County.
Police officers and sheriff's deputies are clearly equipped,
trained and experienced to perform these functions. Our
infrastructure lends itself to doing them thoroughly and
efficiently. We have tools at our disposal that DCF does not
have.
Perhaps most important is the level of responsibility and
accountability that we will demand of the investigators. It is
the same level of accountability we demand throughout the
Sheriff's Office for everything from crime rates, to clearance
rates, to community outreach.
The Broward Sheriff's Office employees are responsible for
the safety of a million and half people in this county, and we
hold them to very high standards of performance. It's time we
demand more from those individuals who are explicitly
responsible for protecting the welfare of our children. The
Sheriff's Office is willing to do it, and the structure can be
put in place quickly.
But to do this job right will cost more money than is
currently budgeted. We estimate it will take about $2 million
more annually for us to conduct protective investigations the
way they should be conducted. I suspect you'll find this to be
a common theme throughout the state, particularly in urban
centers where the caseloads are overwhelming and the need for
proficient, reliable investigative work is high.
Our children--like all of us--need to live in safe, healthy
environments. Shame on us for letting their welfare become such
a high risk situation that it takes a grand jury report to
remind us this should be our highest priority. And it should
remain our highest priority year in and year out--not just when
the news media brings a rash of tragedies to our attention.
In closing, I would like to once again thank this
subcommittee for coming to South Florida. It is true that our
needs are great, but so is our resolve to tackle this problem.
We need your continued help and participation. Thank you.
Chairman Shaw. Thank you, Sheriff.
Ms. Kearney.
STATEMENT OF HON. KATHLEEN A. KEARNEY, JUDGE, SEVENTEENTH
JUDICIAL CIRCUIT OF FLORIDA; AND CHAIR, FLORIDA DEPENDENCY
COURT IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM
Judge Kearney. Good morning, Chairman Shaw and good
morning, Mr. English. I want to thank you very much for the
opportunity to appear here today with you. First let me
indicate that I am here as a sitting circuit court judge at
this moment. My testimony will be in light of that current
position. I also chair the Florida Dependency Court Improvement
Program which your Subcommittee assessed and funded. So I am
here also in that capacity as chair of the Dependency Court
Improvement Initiative here in the State of Florida.
Florida's child protection system and Broward County's in
particular is in a state of crisis. No one can deny that.
Countless children at this time are left in abusive homes on a
daily basis due to inadequate risk assessment and investigation
being done by the department. Sadly, countless more children
are also abused and neglected in our foster care system here as
a result of overcrowding and problems within that system. The
purpose of this hearing though, as I understand it, is not to
debate the genesis of that crisis or the nature of that crisis,
but to provide you with potential solutions at the Federal
level to assist us in our work on behalf of protecting
children; therefore, I would like to limit my remarks this
morning to three specific recommendations that can be done at
the Federal level to assist us here at the State level.
The first remark that I have is that it is imperative that
you fully implement the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997.
This act totally revolutionized the national approach to child
welfare and protection by putting the health and safety of
children as the paramount concern, and also determining whether
reasonable efforts have been made by the government before
removing a child, reclassifying, redefining what reasonable
effort is, and also reasonable effort at the time of
reunification as that decision is made by the courts. Florida
was the first State in the Nation to pass into law the Adoption
and Safe Families Act when our legislature enacted in May of
this year the Dependency Court Improvement Initiative that
included all of the Adoption and Safe Families Act
requirements. I would like to publicly thank Representative
Sanderson, without whose leadership and initiative the
Dependency Court Improvement legislation would not have passed,
and it would have caused great harm and disservice to the
children of Florida had that not taken place. Unfortunately
though, the State of Florida has not implemented the
recommendations of Adoption and Safe Families and, at this
time, I have great concern about that.
The Adoption and Safe Families Act was passed in November
1997, so all States were on notice that at the first
legislative session, they needed to pass into law the Federal
requirement. So we have known since November that proper
training on the ramifications of the new law needed to be done.
We have known since May 1 when the legislation was passed here
in the State of Florida that it was in fact enacted with an
enactment date of October 1.
I am very concerned at this time on behalf of the judiciary
because the training that has been provided within the
department to fully implement the act is woefully inadequate.
It is my understanding that there has been a 1-hour videotape
that has been shown to representatives of the department--and
that is it as far as fully being able to be trained.
I have also received and have just reviewed the draft of
the professional development centers. They are the entity
responsible for training here in Florida of all caseworkers and
retraining of existing caseworkers. I received a draft of their
initial report for 1998, there is not one mention in that over
50-page report of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, nor is
there a mention of the Dependency Court Improvement Act, which
enacted it here in Florida. So I am very concerned that the
principal training arm at this time has not trained and is not
at this point prepared to train on the complete paradigm shift
from what had been a family preservation model at all cost, to
now the health and safety of children as the paramount concern.
And I believe that first and foremost that you must require
that the States provide to the Federal Government a report on
the training initiative and a report on what the States have
done to fully implement and adopt Adoption and Safe Families.
Without that, I fear that the States will not effectively train
their workers on this very vital and important mission and
function. That would be my first recommendation.
The second recommendation I have for you is to allow access
to the National Crime Information Center computer to the
Department of Children and Families in Florida. Child abuse
unfortunately is never limited to one State or one
jurisdiction. Given the mobility of today's population, it is
imperative that Congress enact legislation that gives State
child protection agencies access to the NCIC. Right now, if I
were to go out and conduct an investigation here in this
community, unless I had a friend in law enforcement who through
informal channels might be able to give me an NCIC report or I
sent away to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to get it,
which would take months, I will not be able to tell you if
there is any other criminal history outside the State of
Florida of any of the individuals in the home, including the
alleged perpetrator. To force an investigator to investigate
without that valuable tool is unconscionable. Florida has
enacted the required legislation that would give us access to
the NCIC, but it does require congressional approval at this
time. I would strongly encourage you to see to it that that is
done.
The third recommendation that I have this morning deals
with the educational services that are given to children, both
in shelter care and in foster care. Children who are placed in
out-of-home care, whether that be with a relative, whether that
be in shelter placement and ultimately in foster care if it is
not safe to send them home, are frequently moved from school to
school as they are moved from foster home to foster home. The
teachers that initially have that child in class are often not
consulted in any way about the child's special needs. Their
records frequently do not follow them from school to school.
There is no requirement that encourages the staff from the
school district to have input in the case planning function of
the Department of Children and Families. I would strongly
encourage you to look at changing or perhaps amending the
Individual Disabilities Education Act, known as IDEA, to
mandate that school districts and child protection agencies
receiving Federal funds identify children that have been placed
in shelter and foster care, share information pertaining to
those children with one another, so that each child's
individual needs can be more fully assessed and met. I would
also encourage you to require that school personnel be
consulted and provide input on the educational needs of the
child in the child's case plan.
In closing, let me stress my intense gratitude to
Representative Shaw for his leadership on a national level in
making possible Adoption and Safe Families. Without your
leadership, sir, it would not have happened and you will save
millions of children because of your efforts.
Thank you so much.
[The prepared statement follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.027
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.028
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.029
Chairman Shaw. Thank you, Judge, and on behalf of the
Committee, I would like to congratulate you on your impending
appointment as Secretary of the Florida Department of Children
and Families. We certainly look forward to great things from
you.
And now our final witness from this panel, who has just now
flown in, I understand running a little bit late. We very much
appreciate your efforts in getting here. Linda Radigan is the
Assistant Secretary for Family Safety and Preservation of the
Florida Department of Children and Families. Welcome. Thank you
for being here.
STATEMENT OF LINDA F. RADIGAN, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, FAMILY
SAFETY AND PRESERVATION, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND
FAMILIES
Ms. Radigan. Thank you, Chairman Shaw and Mr. English, for
coming here to hold this hearing. This is very helpful to the
Department of Children and Families, who rarely has the
opportunity to travel to Washington to provide input on the
very important and critical Federal funds that you provide to
the State of Florida.
Of the over $400 million that is spent in Florida each year
on the child protection system, just under half of that is from
our Federal funding sources. You are clearly a primary partner
in our protection of vulnerable children and families.
You have heard a lot of data already, and I will reiterate
just a few points. In the package that I gave you is some
statewide data as well as data on the three counties in south
Florida, District 9, District 10, and District 11.
Overall, the child population in Florida has grown by 6
percent over the past 5-year period. During that same
timeframe, the number of child abuse and neglect reports
investigated by the State of Florida grew by 15 percent. Over
the next 5 years, we are expecting both the child population
and the number of children reported, who will require a child
abuse investigation, to continue to increase by another 9
percent.
From 1994 through 1997, the number of children in Florida's
foster care system remained fairly constant even though the
child population and the reporting rate significantly
increased. This is largely due to an infusion of resources from
the Florida legislature, supported by our Federal-matching
sources, to increase the number of foster care and adoption
staff that provide the critical support and services that these
children and families need.
As you have already heard, during that timeframe, the
number of children who were successfully adopted increased
quite dramatically and that had a large impact obviously on the
number of children in foster care. The length of time for
Florida's children in foster care decreased by 22 percent
during those years, reaching a low of 17 months last year. The
State also invested in family builder programs over the past 4
years, which did have for many children an avoidance of care in
the foster care system.
The passage of the Federal Adoption and Safe Families Act
was landmark legislation in terms of a renewed emphasis on
child safety as a priority of child welfare and a renewed
emphasis on achieving permanency more quickly for those
children who live in foster care. As the result of the
Dependency Court Improvement Project in this State, as was
mentioned by Judge Kearney, Florida was in a position to move
forward and adopt the Federal changes in its State law this
past year. We appreciate the continued funding of the
Dependency Court Improvement Project. That has resulted in
linkages at the local level and statewide level that are very
critical in improving the way in which we work together on
behalf of children and families.
Last year, Florida saw an increase of 14 percent in its
children in out-of-home care, and we believe that it is the
result of a number of factors coming together at that point in
time. We believe that the resources provided by the legislature
in terms of additional foster care and adoption counselors have
reached their limit in terms of the number of cases they are
able to handle and process as well as the number of attorneys.
The department will be working very closely with the
legislature in the coming session to increase the number of
professional counselors, foster care counselors, adoption
counselors, dependency attorneys and judges in order to meet
the increased expectations for judicial oversight and quicker
permanency resolution for children in care. Those manpower
resources are critical to making this system work effectively
and quickly on behalf of children and families.
With respect to our funding stream, with the tremendous
growth in Florida's child population and the new demands of
both our State law and the Federal law for judicial oversight,
better case planning, better resolution, the ongoing
entitlement nature of the Federal IV-E Program is vital to the
further growth that Florida is anticipating. We also would
welcome any additional efforts to simplify the regulations and
allow more flexibility with the way in which we expend IV-E
dollars for child abuse victims, so that not just those victims
who go into foster care, but those child victims who could be
diverted from foster care, have the opportunity to be served
with IV-E dollars. When children can be safely diverted from
out-of-home care, we would like to see the ability to use IV-E
dollars to accomplish that.
The current IV-E waiver process is a very cumbersome one
and we would recommend that the waiver process within the Title
IV-E Program be more standard and routine as it is in the
Medicaid Program where there are certain types of options that
States can adopt. It takes less time and there is less ongoing
paperwork and reporting associated with Medicaid waivers. At
this point, only States who come up with a totally new and
different idea for a IV-E waiver are eligible to receive that
waiver. And there are many good waivers already in effect that
we would like to utilize.
The Social Services Block Grant is one important funding
source for Florida's child protection system, about $60 million
of our current system is Social Services Block Grant money. The
reduction over the past 3 years of more than $11 million in
that particular block grant program has been a serious blow to
our child protection system, and any further reductions would
be a problem. Even in the context of some of the increases in
the Title IV-E Program in terms of the part A funding for
family preservation programs, they have not been enough to
offset the Social Services Block Grant reductions.
A second major reform effort underway in Florida's child
protection system, as you have heard mentioned earlier, is the
intent of the Florida legislature to move toward the
privatization of all services in the child protection system,
ranging from caseworkers involved with providing services and
supports to families to all foster care and adoption services.
This is a critically important opportunity to revitalize the
way in which communities are involved in the child protection
system and to revitalize the way in which services are
conceptualized and provided. It reflects a major shift in this
State from the government being a provider of the service, to
the government becoming a better purchaser of services.
The whole Title IV-E Program, when it was originally built
was built for State-operated systems. The regulations and the
claiming mechanisms are not well-suited to a government agency
that is now purchasing these services from the private sector.
While we certainly expect that the Federal Government would
hold our State agency responsible for the integrity of the
child protection services that we are purchasing, we very much
need major changes that would support our purchase of services
funded by IV-E from the private sector. There are actually many
disincentives in the current IV-E regulations for State
agencies moving in this direction. For example, the training
funding under the IV-E Program provides a 75-percent match for
training of employees who are State employees, but will only
provide a 50-percent match for employees who are providing the
same services but who work in the private sector.
The current regulations are still quite extensive in terms
of documentation that needs to be provided. It is our belief
that given the nature of this work, the nature of our own State
law, significant documentation requirements will always be
needed when we are taking cases to court and potentially
terminating parental rights. So we believe that this needs to
remain a State level responsibility and burden with the Federal
Government focusing more on the achievement of performance
outcomes in the child protection system. And we welcome the
efforts in the new ASFA legislation to develop performance
outcomes and we are anxious to work with you on the
establishment and implementation of a funding stream that truly
requires States to achieve permanency. At this point, the--and
I hate to confess this--but the Federal funding stream does not
give us enough of a strong incentive to achieve permanency. It
is too open-ended, and we actually receive Federal funding for
children in foster care for too long. It should be expected
that what you buy and what we buy at the State level from our
districts is permanency resolution, not raising children in
foster care.
We are very appreciative of any opportunities to make
further changes in the current Title IV-E Program and would be
very happy to offer any ongoing assistance that we can in this
endeavor.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement follows:]
Statement of Linda F. Radigan, Assistant Secretary, Family Safety and
Preservation, Florida Department of Children and Families
It is with pleasure that I am here today to provide
testimony on Florida's Child Protection System, and the
critically important partnership that we have with the federal
government. I would like to begin by providing some data on
major trends in Florida's system, as well as trends in South
Florida in the counties of Palm Beach, Broward, Dade and
Monroe.
The overall child population in Florida has grown by 6
percent over the past five years. In Palm Beach, it has grown
by 8 percent; in Broward County by 11 percent, and in Monroe
and Dade Counties by 7 percent. Over the next five years, the
child population in these south Florida counties is projected
to increase by another 9 percent.
The per capita reporting rate per one thousand children in
Florida has remained fairly constant over the past five years,
close to the 1997-98 rate of 31.6 reports of child abuse or
neglect for every 1000 children in the general population.
Although the reporting rates per capita are much lower than the
statewide average in South Florida--last year they ranged from
17.5 in Dade/Monroe to 24.3 in Palm Beach County--there has
still been a dramatic increase in the number of child abuse and
neglect reports received and investigated each year. In Palm
Beach County, reports investigated have increased by 15 percent
from FY 93-94 through FY 97-98; in Broward County by 14
percent, and in Monroe and Dade Counties by 3 percent. Over the
next five years, child abuse reports in these south Florida
counties are projected to increase by another 9 percent.
From 1994 through 1997, the total number of children in
Florida's foster care system remained fairly constant, even as
the child population increased. This is because the state
invested significant resources in foster care and adoption
counselors. For those children who were in the foster care
system, we have seen significant results achieving permanency
goals. The number of children adopted increased by 17 percent.
Each of the south Florida counties achieved similar increases
in the number of foster children adopted over the last few
years. Concomitantly, the length of time that children spend in
foster care has been decreasing. The median length of stay
decreased from 22.4 months in 1991 to 17.5 months in 1997, a 22
percent decrease. The state also invested in intensive in-home
services, and many children who would have otherwise been
placed in out-of-home care were diverted.
The passage of the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act
of 1997 (ASFA) was landmark legislation in terms of a renewed
emphasis on child safety as a first priority of child welfare,
and achieving permanency, quickly, for children placed in out-
of-home care. Florida, after two years of intensive research
and analysis as the result of the federally funded grant known
as ``The Dependency Court Improvement Project,'' had prepared a
major rewrite of Florida's child protection statute. All of the
required ASFA changes were incorporated into Florida's
statutory rewrite. The renewed emphasis on child safety is
clearly reflected in the increased number of children entering
out-of-home care during the last fiscal year, an increase of 14
percent.
The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, as well as
Florida's own recent statutory changes, clearly anticipate
increased judicial oversight of all cases. The time frames for
permanency hearings have been shortened overall, and Florida
now expects children placed with relative caretakers to receive
the same judicial oversight and permanency resolution. With the
greater intensity of casework and services needed, as well as
shorter timeframes to achieve permanency, the Florida
legislature in the coming session will be asked for significant
resource increases to support the need for additional judges,
lawyers, caseworkers, foster homes, and foster payments.
Ongoing and additional federal support will be needed.
With the tremendous new demands and growth that Florida
will continue to experience, it is critical that the
entitlement nature of the Title IV-E funding be maintained.
That guarantee is vital to the stability of child protection as
we continue to build on our resources. However, as you review
the issues surrounding child welfare, we would welcome any
federal effort to simplify the regulations and allow more
flexibility to spend IV-E dollars for all child abuse victims,
not just those child victims who go into foster care, which in
Florida last year was just 5.6 percent. There must be
flexibility and incentives for diverting children from out-of-
home care when it is an appropriate and safe option. The
current IV-E waiver process is too cumbersome.
Unfortunately, the Social Services Block Grant, a primary
source of child protection funding, has been reduced twice in
the past three years, a reduction of more than $11 million in
child protection. More Social Services Block Grant reductions
to the Florida child protection system are on the horizon
should Congress continue the current trend. The Florida
legislature did not provide any state general revenue to offset
these losses. The impact of these reductions is not fully
known, however, any funding reduction in the child protection
system is significant, particularly when the child population
and incidence of family violence is increasing.
The second major reform underway in Florida is the intent
of the 1998 legislature to privatize all of the services in the
child protection system, ranging from caseworkers providing
voluntary services to foster care and adoption services. This
is a critically important initiative to rebuild local
communities' understanding, knowledge and ownership of their
children and families. The privatization of child welfare
reflects a major change in the state government's role, a shift
away from direct service provision to a role of contract
negotiation, monitoring of outcomes, and quality assurance
functions.
The Title IV-E program was designed for state-operated
systems. The regulations and claiming mechanisms are poorly
suited for a child protection system that is operated by
private agencies. While it is expected that the federal
government would hold the state agency responsible for the
integrity of child protection services, major changes must be
made in the regulations to allow for the provision of services
and claiming of federal funds by the private sector, as well as
government. Disincentives for privatization now exist in
federal regulations. For example, private provider staff
training in child protection earns a 50-percent federal match,
while state staff training earns 75-percent. This requires more
state support to fund the training system for non-state
providers. This will require a major overhaul of current
regulations. The current regulations are still too extensive.
Title IV-E funds must be more flexible, such as with Titles IV-
B and the Social Services Block Grant. There is a need to focus
more on the achievement of permanency outcomes, than the reams
of documentation that are now required by the federal
government. We will not possibly achieve permanency and meet
the requirements of our own state law without proper and
extensive documentation, but this needs to remain a state-level
responsibility and burden.
The Florida Department of Children and Families will be
most appreciative of any opportunities to assist you,
Congressman Shaw, and your committee members in any revisions
to the current Title IV-E program that you may consider in the
next Congress. Thank you for your efforts on behalf of
Florida's children and this opportunity to provide testimony
today.
[The attachments are being retained in the Committee
files.]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.022
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.023
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.024
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.025
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.026
Chairman Shaw. Thank you.
Mr. English.
Mr. English. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This has been a very useful panel, and let me start with
Representative Sanderson.
I noted in your testimony, you commented on the efficacy of
putting cases into court, recognizing that there has been a lot
of litigation filed against State and local child welfare
agencies. And I would like you to expand on your testimony, and
while you do that, Mr. Chairman, if it is appropriate, I would
like to have included in the record a study of the outcomes of
child-welfare-related lawsuits conducted for the Subcommittee
by CRS and just recently concluded, if I could have that done.
Chairman Shaw. Without objection.
[The information was not available at the time of
printing.]
Mr. English. Representative Sanderson.
Ms. Sanderson. Did you want me to address a specific
lawsuit just as an example?
Mr. English. That would be terrific, from your experience.
Ms. Sanderson. OK, we are involved in one right now that is
ongoing. Florida chose in 1996 to abolish that category and go
to a waiver in order to serve additional individuals who needed
to be served in this basic category. We knew that there is the
ability to offer a less-expensive option for the State to
provide for these people, more than adequate, and we chose
that. There was not a plan that was ready to be implemented,
and I think that's where probably the biggest portion of this
came. But the providers--because it is a very provider, the
whole system is very provider driven--we ended up with a
situation in Federal court where the providers took us to
court. We thought they were going to sharpen their pencils,
they did not.
They have been ongoing and being paid that same amount of
dollars year after year, probably $40 million more than when we
made that initial decision, so we are still tied up in the
court. That could have a $200 million impact on the State of
Florida, just in that one category. That is the type of
situation I am talking about.
Mr. English. Do you think, in general, bouncing these sorts
of cases into court actually improves the child welfare system
or does it simply add complications to an already balkanized
system?
Ms. Sanderson. Well, I think you probably said it best in
your last statement. Yes, it does tremendously complicate. It
also still focuses the dollars on the existing people being
served and it does not get to the waiting list. There was a
fairly bogus waiting list that was being thrown at us, as to
the numbers of people that needed to be served, and when that
was toned down, it was appreciably less. Those were the type of
people we were trying to meet, because if we are going to give
Cadillac service to 2,000 or 2,100 and a couple thousand are
out there that are not receiving any services--there are many
people whose families have been raising these young people on
their own and never even thought of coming to the State for
assistance of any type. We would like to be able to allow them
to do that and perhaps go to some kind of a voucher system to
make sure it actually goes to the individual to be served,
depending on the levels that they need it.
Mr. English. Thank you. Judge Kearney, you have your work
cut out for you in the next few years and it must be an
exciting assignment. As you know, the Federal IV-E Program
allows the States to claim training expenses as an open-ended
entitlement with a Federal match of 75 percent. What more needs
to be done in this area?
Judge Kearney. I am very involved in training at the
judicial level, and I think it does take a significant amount
of local leadership within the State in order to effectuate
change by training. We will not implement Adoption and Safe
Families unless every caseworker in the State of Florida is
effectively trained on its ramifications and its impact. I do
believe that the funds would be available. We do need to come
up with a 25-percent match in order to do that, and it is an
unlimited assignment as far as I can see. But right now, I do
not see that we have aggressively gone after those training
funds, nor have we set up an effective training program that
should have been set up over 6 months ago in order to train
every caseworker in the State of Florida.
Chairman Shaw. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. English. Certainly.
Chairman Shaw. Is this what you refer to in your testimony
as an hour of videotape?
Judge Kearney. Yes, sir. When you think of the complete and
total paradigm shift that you did by adopting this statute,
this legislation, and forcing the States to enact it within
their first legislative sessions--and Florida's was very quick.
We started--our Committees were meeting in December, in January
and February, and then we started session in March. We had 60
days' worth of sessions and I am telling you, if it were not
for Debby Sanderson, I do not know how we would have gotten
that act done, it literally passed the very last day of
session.
But even then, we have now had since May 1, complete and
total knowledge of the fact that Adoption and Safe Families was
now law in Florida, and there has not been an effective
training program at all.
Chairman Shaw. That training money also would be available
to you, Sheriff, as far as your investigators are concerned, if
you can come up with the other 25 somewhere.
Sheriff Jenne. It is interesting, Mr. Chairman, if I may--
and Mr. English, if I may--if there is a 1-hour video training
plan, we are looking at a 40-hour course before our people get
in, as a minimum. And I think I wanted to emphasize that to
you, that we think before--even though our people will have
more propensity to be trained earlier on in this, that it is
absolutely essential--and I want to go back to that point I
made earlier that these investigators have to know how to talk
to these children. It is not--that is a key element, that they
know how to marshal the evidence, keep the evidence in check,
and also be able to make these inquiries. This is a really
complicated area, and dealing with these children is much more
difficult--and should be, ought to be much more difficult--than
it is with adults.
And going back to Mr. English's point, you really and truly
need these moneys to do this and to get involved. And if it is
only an hour video, it is not sufficient.
Chairman Shaw. If I may continue to impose on your time----
Mr. English. Surely.
Chairman Shaw. What is the educational background that
deputies would have, what is their educational background
requirement presently?
Sheriff Jenne. Presently, it is a bachelor's degree. We
would have either an associate or a bachelor's degree. Frankly,
Mr. Chairman, I would like to emphasize to you that in this
type of investigation, sometimes a bachelor's degree can be
very deceiving. Sometimes people will want to say because one
has a bachelor's degree, one is qualified to do these
investigations. The truth is that we believe that
psychologicals, we believe that polygraphs, we also believe
experience is the real key to this, and the maturity of the
individual.
My experience, as you know--Mr. Chairman, I would not want
to speak for you, but many times, a bachelor's degree is not an
indication of maturity or knowledge of a subject, but rather an
achievement of a particular level of education.
Chairman Shaw. Pay scale?
Sheriff Jenne. Pay scale, ours would probably be about
$8,000 more a year. We think that that is absolutely essential.
Chairman Shaw. Is it presently around $25,000?
Sheriff Jenne. Yes, and we are looking at the low thirties,
yes, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Shaw. Debby, you wanted to jump in here, I
believe.
Ms. Sanderson. Thank you, Chairman Shaw, I wanted to add
one thing. In reading the grand jury report, I was very alarmed
to read that the training, where in the early eighties, the
emphasis was on the best interest of the child, it then shifted
in the early nineties back to reunification, and then best
interest of the child for a number of years now; and yet the
training is still reunification. And I think that is part of
the problem we have been experiencing here too, where these
children have not really been placed appropriately.
Chairman Shaw. Thank you.
Mr. English. Judge, that last remark from Representative
Sanderson leads me to something that was interesting and a
little disturbing to read in your testimony, and that is,
``There is little, if any, recognition that the principal
mission of any federally funded child protection agency is to
ensure the health and safety of children.'' What other mission
is being espoused here? Is it family preservation at all cost?
Ms. Sanderson. Yes, sir, it is. One of the things that has
been most disturbing to me in over 10 years on the bench
handling these types of cases--and also my former background is
a sex-crimes, child-abuse prosecutor with the State Attorney's
Office here before going on the bench--is to watch over time
how the department would literally have 5, 10, 15, sometimes I
have seen as high as 20 referrals to the Department of Children
and Families before any action is taken on behalf of the child.
We talk about the gatekeeping function, if you have read the
grand jury report from Broward County, you will see that what
appears to have been a gatekeeping function has been resource
driven, to keep a child in an abusive home rather than to
remove the child because it is expensive once we remove a
child. Foster care is expensive, shelter care is expensive.
Treatment and assessment are expensive. And so, if the child
can be maintained within the home, and preferably, it appears,
without services, that was the preferred way to do things. And
that was what was encouraged. And you will see in the grand
jury report, some supervisors even telling caseworkers they
were not to remove children, so that they could keep them
within the home. It is less expensive.
Unfortunately, what has happened over time is that by the
time the cases finally do come to court, the children are so
damaged, that they have been so abused and so neglected that
the psychological trauma is so solid, that it takes years'
worth of intense therapy, which is very expensive, to try to
correct the problem. And also, many of those children by that
time are not the adorable 5-year-olds that are readily
adoptable, but instead, the 13-year-old runaways that are not
able to be effectively helped. And as a result of that, we have
thrown away a generation of children because of that.
So I see that, again, it gets back to the training
initiative. If you fully train on what the law is, as well as
risk assessment. On those children that can be safely
maintained in the home, they should be there, with supportive
services in place to assist the family. For those children that
cannot, we should remove them at the earliest opportunity,
force the family to be accountable as Representative Sanderson
talked about, to have a partnership with the Department of
Children and Families, the guardian ad litem program, the
court, to fully assist that child and the family. But if it is
not going to work, to stick to the timeframes that you have set
forth, the timeframes that our Florida Dependency Court
Improvement Act set forth, and then proceed to termination of
parental rights to find an appropriate family for that child.
Mr. English. Mr. Chairman, I have one other brief question,
if I could be indulged.
Chairman Shaw. Go ahead.
Mr. English. For Secretary Radigan--actually I was
intrigued by your testimony on a number of levels, but in your
testimony, you specifically mentioned the reduction of Social
Services Block Grant funds, and as you probably know, this
block grant is under the jurisdiction of the Ways and Means
Committee, however, the cuts did not come out of our Committee,
but were simply enacted to accommodate the President's budget
submission to Congress. The fight to preserve these block
grants is going to be engaged in the coming Congress.
Unfortunately, what I have found is that the case has not been
made effectively that this block grant represents a unique
funding stream that is very important to local communities.
From your perspective, I was wondering if you could share with
the Subcommittee how this money is used in Florida and what the
cuts would mean in terms of services.
Ms. Sanderson. As with other block grants, with the gift of
flexibility comes the defusing of how the money is used, so
that as each State uses it differently, I think it is hard for
the Federal Government to see the clear impact of these
reductions. In Florida, most of the block grant is used in
Florida's child protection system; the second most significant
portion of the block grant is used for funding child care
programs for at-risk and working poor clients; a small amount
of the block grant goes to the Department of Juvenile Justice
for juvenile justice programs; and very small amounts of
funding in developmental services and in mental health.
Mr. English. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Shaw. We will be exploring the expansion of the
block grant funding in this next Congress. I know that Chairman
Johnson will be interested in that, as I am. And we will also
be looking for some of you to come up and testify before the
Subcommittee in Washington. There is just so much to do, and I
think we have already learned quite a bit from this panel and
we very much appreciate your being here.
The record will remain open for a short time, if there is
anything that you would like to any way embellish upon your
testimony or if there are any questions that any Members of the
Full Committee might have for you, we will certainly address
them to you.
Thank you very much for your time.
One question before you leave. Representative Sanderson,
let me just ask you a question real quick. If you were sitting
in our position in Washington, what would you change about the
law that would assist you in the appropriations process, other
than more money? What can we do further? We have come a long
way, particularly in adoption and foster care, we have made a
lot of corrections to Federal law, but that is not to say there
is not more we can do. Do you have any ideas?
Ms. Sanderson. I think other than additional dollars,
Congressman Shaw, if we had the opportunity to combine waivers
sometimes, it would give us greater flexibility. The Medicaid
issue is something that has always bothered me, the Federal
Government says that we cannot require anyone to make
copayments on this. We have tried to do this. With
pharmaceuticals we put a $1 copayment on Medicaid
pharmaceuticals, and Legal Aid was so nice to send out letters
to every Medicaid recipient in the State of Florida and tell
them that they did not have to pay it because the feds said
they did not. We again were trying to expand our resources
within existing dollars.
These are the types of things that would give us the
flexibility that we need. When it comes to the Medicaid
services that are provided for these little ones that are
brought into our system, there does not seem to be any
financial responsibility on the part of the parents that
brought them into this world. And that has got to change, they
are their children.
Chairman Shaw. Is there any State legislation which speaks
to the training required of these people, the number of
children that the caseworkers are supposed to be looking after?
Ms. Sanderson. Yes, and we have tried to reduce that with
additional dollars. That was the premise behind it, in addition
to the training. What I mentioned in the grand jury report,
when I find that they are still working toward reunification,
which of course would be ideal, but not in all cases, and they
are not doing that, and we have been putting millions of
dollars in, which I know Secretary Radigan can testify to, over
the last number of years. Right now, with all the mandates that
we have, that are partially Federal and over 50 percent of our
budget, and I am facing right now with these mandated
situations, a $200 million deficit in my budget in the coming
year. So that is not a pleasant thought.
Chairman Shaw. Thank you. Thank you all for being here,
thank you very much.
I would like to recognize, we have got Mayor Naugle with us
today. He is taking care of his shared child care
responsibilities we see. We are pleased to have you and we
wanted to thank you personally for allowing us the use of the
hall here this morning.
I am going to try to start enforcing the 5-minute rule. We
have got a large panel here and we have got a lot of work to
accomplish this morning.
We have got Johnny Brown, who is the District 10
administrator of the Florida Department of Children and
Families; Howard Talenfeld, who is--this is a law firm?
Mr. Talenfeld. Yes, sir.
Chairman Shaw. Here in Fort Lauderdale; Christine Meyer,
who is the program attorney, the Guardian Ad Litem, Seventeenth
Judicial Circuit of Florida; Carol Ann Loehndorf, who is the
president of AFSCME Local 3041 in West Palm Beach; Linda Day,
president of Fort Lauderdale Foster Parents Association; Kate
O'Day, who is the vice president for Program Development and
Evaluation, Children's Home Society of Florida; Eileen Donais--
I hope I am pronouncing that correctly--who is the executive
director of HANDY, Helping Abused and Neglected Dependent
Youth, here in Fort Lauderdale. Welcome, all of you.
I believe we have got the testimony from all of you, which
we will make part of the record, and we would invite you to
summarize in any way you see fit.
Mr. Brown.
STATEMENT OF JOHNNY L. BROWN, DISTRICT 10 ADMINISTRATOR,
FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILIES
Mr. Brown. Thank you, Chairman, Mr. English, elected
Representatives, ladies and gentlemen and guests, thank you for
the opportunity to address what has been called Broward
County's foster care crisis.
I have been asked to address some specific subjects here
today, such as education opportunities for foster children, our
district's staffing, the historic lack of resources for our
county's foster care program, and the benefits derived from
flexible funding. I will do that presently, but first, allow me
to give you a little history.
In August 1997, when I took over the helm of District 10, I
knew I had inherited a district that was in a state of
gridlock, which it had six administrators in the last 10 years.
The culture of the child welfare division led employees to
spend most of their energy finding excuses instead of looking
for solutions. Fiscal year 1997-98 ended in a $4 million
deficit in our out-of-home care budget. The staff was carrying
caseloads 3.5 to 4 times the national average. Staff turnover
of service counselors was 61 percent. There was no plan in
place to address the looming crisis, no thought had been given
to the future. That was left for me and my new management team.
It was not difficult to figure out why these things were
happening--while funding for foster care in Broward County has
increased 4 percent over the last 3 years, during that same
timeframe, the district caseloads have grown a whopping 26
percent.
Last year, the Florida legislature gave us 52 new positions
which will reduce the caseloads from 1 to 51 to 1 to 24 after
our new employees finish their training in February. That is
almost twice the recommended caseload for a foster care
counselor.
In June 1997----
Chairman Shaw. Which is twice the caseload, the 1 to 25?
Mr. Brown. The 1 to 24 is almost twice.
Chairman Shaw. It is still twice the recommended caseload.
Mr. Brown. Almost.
Chairman Shaw. So we are at four times the recommended
caseload?
Mr. Brown. At this present time, but the national average
is 1 to 15.
Chairman Shaw. Excuse me for interrupting, but thank you.
Mr. Brown. In June 1997, District 10 had 1,129 children in
its out-of-home care population and a budget of $7,369,000. In
June 1998, we had 1,397 children in our out-of-home care
population, 268 more children than the previous year and a
budget of $7,319,000, which equates to a budget that was
$50,000 less than the year before. In fact, in District 10
today, Broward County, we have 13 percent of the children in
statewide foster care and only 9 percent of the resources. And
when you are talking about a budget of over $100 million, the
4-percent difference becomes a substantial deficit. Our deficit
today stands at almost $11 million and growing. Why?
As Judge Kearney said, because in Broward County, more
children are coming into care at a faster rate and many of
these children are coming into care experiencing severe
emotional behavior and psychological problems. So additional
resources have to be utilized to treat these children.
District 10 does not control its front door. We not only
investigate child abuse and neglect allegations, we also
provide the children in foster care with adoptions and a myriad
of other services.
Ladies and gentlemen, as soon as I became the district
administrator, we warned everybody about our crisis. We were
warned by Mr. Talenfeld within a matter of 2 weeks after we
were appointed to the position that he planned to sue us if we
did not improve the services to foster children. The report
before you contains the evidence to that fact. Our Health &
Human Services Board sent up flares. We asked for help. But the
demands for our services grew, and continued to grow, and our
deficit grew and continued to grow, and here we are today.
This problem is not unique to Broward County or unique to
the State of Florida. Time and time again, colleagues from all
over the State--indeed all over the country--have shared
similar stories with us.
Let me now address your specific concerns:
In section G of the briefing package before you is a letter
outlining the joint efforts of the Broward County School Board
and District 10 on behalf of its foster children. I am in debt
to Howard Talenfeld for his intervention with the School Board
and for the commitment to helping us forge and strengthen these
ties of cooperation in our community to improve the quality of
life and services to our foster children.
Thank you, Howard.
We were also able this past September to open a residential
assessment center. The new program allows us to thoroughly
assess the specific needs of children who come into care as
well as the needs of his or her family, so that our department
can make proper recommendations for services to these families.
Chairman Shaw. Go ahead and summarize.
Mr. Brown. Let me expand just briefly on the staffing.
Currently we have 171 service counselors plus 63 investigators
and that includes the new positions that Linda alluded to
earlier. We have managed to make inroads on our turnover as
well. In calendar year 1997, the turnover rate was 61 percent.
Thus far this year, the turnover rate is half of that. But that
still needs to be improved.
I do just want to briefly summarize since I have run out of
time. In south Florida we pay our counselors $26,000 a year.
That is not enough. As the Sheriff alluded to, he is going to
try and pay his employees $8,000 to $10,000 more. We have been
able to get more people coming into our positions with advanced
degrees but it is going to be difficult to keep those people on
board if we do not improve the pay scale.
I am gratified in reference to what was presented in the
grand jury report. We think all of those recommendations are
true. We have put together a group of stakeholders in this
community to try and address the issues that were made in the
grand jury's report. But I think here in this State, Mr.
Chairman, we are all going to have to be honest with ourselves
and admit the fact that we do have a crisis here, not only here
in Broward County, but throughout this State, as to how we are
taking care of our foster children. Our elected officials are
going to have to admit that too and as Representative Sanderson
indicated, resources is an issue that has to be addressed. And
until we address the resources and until we improve the
training for our staff, this system, this broken system is
going to remain broken.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement follows:]
Statement of Johnny L. Brown, District 10 Administrator, Florida
Department of Children and Families
Elected Representatives, ladies and gentlemen, and guests,
thanks for the opportunity to address what has been called
Broward County's foster care crisis.
I have been asked to address some specific subjects here
today, such as educational opportunities for foster children,
our district's staffing, the historic lack of resources for our
county's foster care program, and the benefits derived from
funding flexibility. I will do that presently. But, first,
allow me to give you a little history.
In August 1997, when I took over the helm of District Ten,
I knew that I had inherited a district in a state of gridlock
that had six administrators (six!) in its last ten years.
The culture of the district led to employees spending most
of their energy finding excuses, not looking for solutions.
Fiscal Year 1997-98 ended in a $4-million deficit in the
district's out-of-home care budget. The staff was carrying
caseloads 3.5 to 4 times the national average. Staff turnover
of service counselors was 61 percent. There was no plan in
place to address this looming crisis. No thought had been given
to the future; that was left to me and my new team. Here we
are.
It wasn't difficult to figure out why these things were
happening--while funding for Foster Care in Broward County has
increased by only 4 percent over the last three years. During
that same period of time, the district's caseload has grown by
a whopping 26 percent.
Last year, the Florida Legislature gave us 52 new
positions, which will reduce caseloads from 1 to 51 to 1 to 24
after our new employees finish their mandated three months of
training in February. That is almost twice the recommended
caseload for a foster care counselor, but it's a start.
In June of 1997, District Ten had 1,129 children in its
Out-of-Home Care population and a budget of $7.369-million to
care for these children. In June of 1998, we had 1,397
children--268 more than the previous year!--and a budget of
$7.319-million, a slightly smaller budget.
In fact, today in District Ten, Broward County, we have 13
percent of the children in care statewide and only 9 percent of
the resources.
Our deficit today stands at almost $11-million dollars. And
growing.
Why? Because in Broward County, more children are coming
into care at a faster rate and many of these children come into
care experiencing severe emotional, behavioral and
psychological problems, so additional resources have to be
utilized to treat them.
District Ten doesn't control its front door. We not only
investigate child abuse and neglect allegations, we also
provide the children foster care, adoption, and a myriad of
other services.
Ladies and gentlemen, as soon as I became the district's
administrator, we warned everybody about our crisis. The report
before you contains evidence to that effect. Our Health & Human
Services Board also sent up flares. We asked for help. But the
demands for our services grew--and continue to grow--and our
deficit grew. And continues to grow. And here we are.
This problem is not unique to Broward County, or unique to
the State of Florida. Time and again, colleagues from all over
the state--indeed from all over the country--have shared
similar stories with us. The state of foster care in the United
States mirrors the state of foster care in Florida. And it's
not a pretty picture.
Let me now address your specific concerns:
In Section G of the briefing package before you is a letter
outlining the joint efforts of the Broward County School Board
and District Ten on behalf of our foster children. I am in debt
to Howard Talenfeld for his intervention with the School Board
and for his commitment to helping us forge and strengthen these
ties of cooperation.
This memo and the commitments made in it mark the start of
what I believe will be a meaningful turn around in the way our
agencies have worked, or failed to work, as some have said, on
behalf of the children we serve in common.
We were also able, this past September, to open the first
Family Assessment Center in the state, which allows us to
thoroughly assess the specific needs of each child who comes
into care, as well as the needs of his, or her, family.
I touched briefly on staffing before.
Let me expand on that. Currently, we have 171 service
counselors, plus 63 protective investigators, including the new
positions I spoke about earlier.
We've managed to make inroads into our turnover rate, as
well. In calendar year 1997, the turnover rate in service
counselors was 61 percent. Thus far, in 1998, and as of
September, the turnover rate has dropped by half--still way too
much, by anyone's accounting. But it's a start.
We've been fortunate in Broward County to have a strong
internship program. We have been able to attract employees with
advanced degrees.
But in South Florida, it is very difficult to retain new
and qualified staff whose salaries seldom exceed $26,000 per
year and working conditions that are hard to imagine.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am grateful for the Grand Jury's
report. I'm gratified that members of this community took the
time and analyzed the facts and brought the subjects of my
concerns--the children of Broward County--to the forefront. I
have vowed not to let this Grand Jury report sit on a shelf and
collect dust, and have already taken steps to organize the
review committee the Grand Jury's report recommended. The
letters of invitation to stakeholders have been sent and our
first meeting is scheduled for January 6th.
But, as the Grand Jury Report makes only too clear, this
crisis is not new.
I am heartened by the support I have received from the
leaders in this community, going all the way to Washington, DC.
From the Sheriff's Office, from the Broward County School
Board, from the dedicated members of our own Health & Human
Services Board, from my colleagues at the Coordinating Council.
And from you ladies and gentlemen, who have requested
information and shown a willingness to understand the root
causes of a crisis of this nature and help us to ensure this
doesn't have an opportunity to occur again.
But words and encouragement are never enough.
Our efforts at making Broward County a model for
privatization for the state have started--by April 1999, or
earlier, protective investigations of child abuse and neglect
will be conducted by the sheriff's office because they have the
know-how and the resources to do a much better job. It's simply
the right thing to do.
We are committed to the privatization of those services
that can best be delivered by the private sector.
At this moment, we have submitted a grant request for two
villages, to be run by private providers to house up to 160 of
our hard to place older children.
We are about to receive $200,000 from The Ounce of
Prevention to help us start a program called Neighbors to
Neighbors, which has met with great success in Chicago and is
about to be launched in Daytona. Representatives of the program
met with our staff this past Thursday and the exchange was
lively and fruitful.
It's still not enough.
I need a budget that is commensurate with the need at hand
as well as with the future needs of our county's children. I am
grateful for the new positions we received this year. But I
need at least half as many more employees.
I also need--indeed, Florida and my fellow district
administrators need--budgetary flexibility commensurate with
the individual problems at hand, with the specific challenges
of a specific district in mind. Let's face it--the needs of
Broward County, or Dade County, are dramatically different from
those of Pensacola, or the Panhandle Region, or even those of
our friends on the West Coast.
But even that won't be enough.
I need our community to rise to the challenge and give us
more foster homes--at least 400 more beds. So we can continue
the job we've started. During this past Fiscal Year, we closed
64 homes and opened 119 new ones for a gain of 55 homes.
But that wasn't enough. We must do even better than that
but we can't do it alone.
I sincerely appreciate you coming down here and I
appreciate your openness and your courtesy toward my staff and
me.
It hasn't been an easy year. But what we're going through
is nothing compared to what the children in foster care go
through every day, separated from their families, separated
from their friends and schoolmates. Sometimes, re-abused in the
places where we, in good faith, placed them thinking we were
protecting them from harm.
I need your support and I need this community's support.
The solutions needed to solve this crisis of conscience
have to come from Broward County and begin with the classic
first step in problem solving--recognizing the existence of a
problem and facing it head on.
Those of us who represent government have to admit we have
a crisis in this state and in this country with the foster care
system.
Only then can we can deliver, in a voice strong enough to
be heard all the way to Tallahassee,--maybe all the way to
Washington, DC, as well--a sound set of solutions to make the
necessary changes to fix this broken system.
I am happy that Governor-elect Bush has appointed Judge
Kearney, one of this country's leading child advocates, to lead
our department. It shows our new Governor has a keen
understanding of this issue.
As DCF Secretary, Judge Kearney is going to be a powerful
voice for Florida's children, and she'll need your support, as
well as the support of this community, as she goes about
developing legislative priorities for our department in the
coming months.
Ladies and gentlemen, to turn away from the opportunity
this crisis has dropped in our community's lap again is
unthinkable.
We risk losing a generation of kids who are looking to us
with hope and with expectation that this time (this time!) our
community, our state, our nation, and our district will live up
to their responsibility toward its most vulnerable citizens,
its young children.
Thank you.
Chairman Shaw. Thank you.
Mr. Talenfeld.
STATEMENT OF HOWARD M. TALENFELD, COLODNY, FASS & TALENFELD,
P.A., FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA; ON BEHALF OF YOUTH LAW CENTER,
BROWARD COUNTY, FLORIDA
Mr. Talenfeld. Chairman Shaw, Mr. English, I want to thank
you for the opportunity of placing children at risk over the
priorities of other business in Washington today.
I was deeply saddened as a board member of the Youth Law
Center and having served this State for 5 years defending class
action litigation, in having to file this litigation here in
Broward County. But the facts remain, in the 14 months since
Mr. Brown took over, notwithstanding his efforts, children are
still being physically and sexually abused. We have a severe
truancy problem where children are not in school and they are
turning to drugs and alcohol and other types of at-risk
behaviors. And District 10 here still has more than 100
children who are missing and definitely not in school today, as
I speak to you.
Broward County is not alone. Twenty-four States and the
District of Columbia have been subject to these suits which
have been filed in the jurisdictions where children are
suffering, unfortunately at the hands of the State who is
supposed to be there to protect them.
I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you and share with
you some of the Broward experiences so that we can make some
recommendations to you with respect to the Adoption and Safe
Families Act, titles IV-B and IV-E, and improvements that may
occur on a Federal level to avoid the tragedies we are
experiencing here in Broward County today. We are going to make
three suggestions:
First, Congress must address specifically the issue of
inappropriate child-on-child sexual activity in foster care. At
the present time, since the filing of the class action
litigation, we have become aware of approximately 50 instances
of this child-on-child sexual activity. There is no centralized
registry in the State of Florida that receives reports of
child-on-child sexual activity, even though we have an abuse
registry mandated by Federal law. In fact, right now here in
Broward County, the only record, the only tracking system, is
this four-page system which I can assure you does not contain
each incident. The purpose of such tracking is critical.
Recently, as you are aware, the American Medical
Association--Journal of the American Medical Association
pointed out the seriousness and the severity of these problems,
the substantial, lasting impact that they will have on
children's lives when they were exposed to this, particularly
children coming into care for other forms of neglect or abuse.
And unfortunately, they point out that most of the time, the
public authorities that are contacted are the police
departments and not the social service agencies, for various
reasons. And so we are suggesting to you, and underscoring to
you, the necessity that tracking systems on a statewide level
must exist to determine which children coming into care have
these problems, so that we can provide treatment to them as
well as protect other children.
Second, children in foster care must receive appropriate
education. More often than not, they are several years behind,
lagging with respect to grade levels, and most graduate to the
streets instead of obtaining their high school diplomas.
Unfortunately, although there are Federal mandates that
specifically talk about including educational records in a
child's case plan and making sure that children maintain some
stability in their education, there is no requirement that the
schools and other educational organizations be involved in the
case planning process. In fact, confidentiality has been used
as a bar to prevent this. We must look to these children's
educations as part of the foster solution. Although the foster
care systems of most States look to their custodial
arrangements at night, it only makes sense when children are in
school 25 hours a week that we look to the schools for their
education and to help them as well. That is where we are
putting our precious resources.
And the third point we want to make is that the States
should not be allowed to give up on the children who are
missing from care. As I alluded to earlier, there are
approximately 100 children missing today in Broward County who
cannot be found. They are not receiving their education. They
are certainly in a position where they are at risk on the
streets. Some of these girls are selling themselves, they are
using drugs, they are using alcohol, but they have certainly
lost the permanent opportunity for their education. When a
child, one of our children, is lost, the newspapers headline
it. Yet there were no pictures today of the 100 children in the
newspapers who are missing from Broward County.
We greatly appreciate your leadership and we are hoping
that you fill in the gaps that are missing with respect to the
Adoption and Safe Families Act. You certainly have been a
leader in that regard, but again, the job is very, very
difficult and we are extremely hopeful that you will look to
these three issues--the children who are being physically and
sexually abused, children who are not in school right now and
the children who are on the streets--when you look at
performance standards for the States with respect to this Act.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement follows:]
Statement of Howard M. Talenfeld, Colodny, Fass & Talenfeld, P.A., Fort
Lauderdale, Florida; on Behalf of Youth Law Center, Broward County,
Florida
Representative Shaw and Members of this Subcommittee, I am
privileged to be here today to testify on behalf of the Youth
Law Center, a not for profit advocacy group which is seeking to
protect the more than 1500 children in care of the Florida
Department of Children & Families, District 10 serving Broward
County, Florida.\1\
I. The Broward County Foster Care Crisis
Broward County's foster care system is in a state of
crisis.\2\ The Youth Law Center became seriously concerned
about this crisis when it received a complaint concerning child
on child sexual abuse in District 10 and learned of a study
District 10 commissioned which documented that 41% of children
receiving targeted case management \3\ in Broward County were
known to have been sexually abused.\4\ This study also
documented that large percentages of such children were known
to steal [63%], were truant [45%], and had special education
needs [76%].
After a thorough investigation, on August 11, 1997, the
Youth Law Center wrote District 10 [Broward County] expressing
its concern that children in District 10's care and custody
were regularly harmed by Florida's dangerous, over-crowded, and
inadequately supervised foster care system. This letter put the
department on clear notice that children in District 10's
custody were in extreme danger.
After allowing 14 months for the department to solve these
problems, on October 20, 1998, the Youth Law Center, on behalf
of eight foster children, filed a federal class action suit
alleging that Broward County's foster care system was
unconstitutionally dangerous and that many of District 10's
foster children have been physically and sexually abused, often
by other children. These children have been confined in the
states' custody in overcrowded, unsafe, and inadequately
supervised and monitored foster homes and shelter facilities.
These placements are made with inadequate screening and
evaluation of children to determine whether the children
present a danger to each other. Further, the District has
failed to monitor children once they are placed in these homes
due, in part, to overburdensome caseloads averaging almost 300%
nationally recommended standards. Foster children are allowed
to be truant, and the department has failed to locate and
protect almost 100 District 10 children who are missing from
placements and whose whereabouts are unknown. These truant and
missing children are at risk of drug and alcohol abuse,
prostitution, and delinquency.
These dangerous conditions have not yet been resolved and
are continuing today. On November 16, 1998, a Broward Grand
Jury issued its interim report making similar findings
regarding the conditions of foster care. More recently, on
November 24, 1998, a juvenile judge convened an emergency
review when he received information that as many as seven
children in an over-crowded foster home were victims and
perpetrators of child on child sexual assault. Several days
later we learned that District 10 was unaware that a 13 year
old boy and a 16 year old boy in a District 10 placement also
engaged in child on child sexual activity. On December 8, 1998,
we were notified that a 12 year old girl suffering from
Cerebral Palsy alleged was sexually assaulted two years ago
while living in a District 10 foster home. These tragedies and
the misfortunes of the named Plaintiffs, are not isolated
examples of children whose lives are scarred at the hands of
their state caretakers.\5\ Rather, they exemplify the harms
suffered by many other foster children. Since filing the class
action proceeding and without having access to Florida's
central abuse registry, we have been made aware of at least 50
other alleged incidents of child on child sexual abuse and many
other instances of alleged neglect and physical abuse.
II. The National Child Welfare Crisis
Broward County is not alone. Twenty-one states, or regions
therein, and the District of Columbia are in federal class
action litigation because they have allowed children to be
injured and to languish in foster care.\6\ Tragically, children
who are the victims of neglect and abuse are often re-abused by
the state which was supposed to protect them, educate them, and
find permanency for them. Through these litigations, Plaintiffs
are seeking to enforce United States Constitutional and federal
statutory rights on behalf of children for the minimum
protections guaranteed them. Despite spending close to $5
billion dollars nationally with almost $200 million going to
Florida alone,\7\ the child welfare crisis is a national
emergency that requires immediate Congressional solutions.
III. Congressional Solutions
As a result of our Broward experience, we have identified
three recommendations which are pertinent to your concerns
regarding appropriate federal oversight.\8\
A. Inappropriate child on child sexual activity in foster care
must be addressed
First, the State of Florida does not have a comprehensive
system to track all reports of child on child sexual abuse so
that such information can be used in making placement decisions
and in providing appropriate treatment to victims and
perpetrators. Although Florida adheres to the literal mandates
of CAPTA,\9\ Florida does not require the reporting of child on
child physical and sexual abuse which occurs where the
caretaker is not at fault.\10\ ``Therefore assaults among
foster children are not included in [The Florida Protective
Services System].'' \11\ Additionally, although 42 U.S.C.
Sec. 671(10) provides that state plans must ``report to an
appropriate agency known or suspected instances of physical or
mental injury or sexual abuse or exploitation, or negligent
treatment or maltreatment,'' this provision has not been
construed by Florida to require such reporting of inappropriate
child on child sexual behaviors to the centralized abuse
registry.
No child can be safe in foster care if he or she is placed
with another child who is a sexual perpetrator. In 1991, the
Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services reported that
``...approximately 9.5% (1,168) of the children in foster care
had engaged in sexual behavior that was of concern to the
foster care counselor,'' and ``...foster care counselors
identified 200 children who had sexually assaulted another
child within the previous 12 months.'' \12\ The October 1995
Qualifacts study, finding a 41% prevalence in the subject
population in Broward County, confirms the exigency of the
problem. In this month's Journal of the American Medical
Association, Dr. William C. Holmes and Dr. Gail B. Slap,
reviewed 166 studies from 1985 to 1997 concerning the sexual
abuse of boys and confirmed the urgency of addressing this
widespread problem.\13\ Although this study found prevalence
estimates which varied from 4% to 76% depending upon
methodologies utilized, the study concluded, ``[t]he sexual
abuse of boys is common, underreported, unrecognized, and
undertreated.'' ``Sequelae included psychological distress,
substance abuse, and sexually related problems ...Negative
sequelae are highly prevalent and may contribute to the
evolution from young victim to older perpetrator.'' \14\
Notwithstanding the high prevalence of child on child
sexual abuse identified in the 1991 Florida study, the Florida
Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services did not
implement the ``... key recommendation to improve early
identification of perpetrators prior to placement in foster
care in order to decrease the risk of sexual assault in foster
care.'' \15\ Nor did this agency respond to the emergency
sounded by the relatively recent Qualifacts study. Citing a
1984 review,\16\ the authors of this month's AMA review wrote,
``When public authorities were contacted about the abuse,
reports were made to the police rather than child protective
services.\17\
Such findings, both in Florida and nationally, underscore
the necessity to identify potential victims and perpetrators
for treatment and the protection of other children in foster
care. An amendment to CAPTA requiring the states to identify
both child on child physical and sexual abuse, will enhance the
safety of foster care and protect many young, innocent
children, such as the foster children in Broward County, from
re-abuse.
B. Children in foster care must receive appropriate educations
Second, foster children are also being harmed because their
educations are disrupted. Once children come into care, they
are automatically removed from their schools and lose their
friends, teachers and continuity in their education. More often
than not, foster children go through as many schools as
placements, usually lagging several years behind their
appropriate grade level. Further, the October 1995 Qualifacts
study has reported 45% of the population studied were truant
and that 76% of the subject population need special education
services. Few foster children graduate from high school.\18\ In
Broward County, as late as October 28, 1998, the Department had
not provided the Broward School Board the names of District
10's foster children and the identity of their respective
schools to address their educational and special educational
\19\ needs.\20\ Instead of graduating high school, most foster
children graduate to the streets.
There is no federal mandate requiring states or local
school boards to ensure that children in the custody of the
states have an educational case plan. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 675(1)(C)
only touches upon the education of foster children when it
provides that a foster child's case plan include health and
educational records and ``assurances that the child's placement
in foster care take into account proximity to the school in
which the child is enrolled at the time of placement.''
Logically, it makes no sense for Congress to focus only on a
foster child's custodial plans and virtually ignore the child's
educational and emotional needs. This omission in federal law
makes no sense when Florida child welfare workers are required
to visit a child only once per month,\21\ while state law
mandates that teachers see children 25 hours per week.\22\
Local school boards devote thousands of dollars per year for
the education and special education \23\ of children, money
which should be also directed to addressing the national foster
care crisis and the educational needs of foster children.
C. States should not be allowed to give up on children who are
missing
Third, there is no effort in District 10 to find or serve
missing foster children. The October 30, 1998, District
Administrator's report identified that there were 96 children
on runaway status, a marked increase over 1996 and 1997 when in
corresponding months approximately 70 children were reported to
be on runaway. Our foster children on runaway status are, for
the most part, abandoned by District 10, and left to fend for
themselves on the streets. As a result, they are not enrolled
in school and are exposed to the dangers associated with Fort
Lauderdale street life--alcohol and drug addiction,
prostitution, sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy and the
commission of crime. Sadly, many of these children could be
returned to a foster home or other residential placement if
District 10 simply made the effort to pick them up.
Admittedly, these foster children present the greatest
challenge to any foster care system, and there are no easy
solutions. However, the children who run from foster care will
tell you that they do so because they feel abandoned, rejected,
neglected and abused by District 10. They do not believe they
are any worse off on the streets than in the foster homes
licensed by the district. District 10 and other child welfare
systems must be mandated to develop meaningful procedures to
locate these children, to place these children in uncrowded
homes with foster parents who are trained to address their
issues, and to provide caseworker support for these children
and their foster parents.
Federal statutory law does not impose an express obligation
to find or to serve missing foster children. Although the
Runaway and Homeless Youth Act, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 5701, et seq.,
provides funding to both public and private entities to assist
in the development, building, and renovation of runaway and
homeless youth centers, this act does not target children in
the custody of the states.\24\ 42 U.S.C. Sec. 671 et seq. must
be amended to ensure that states are required to locate and
serve foster children who are missing. We cannot simply write
these children off and abandon them like a trash heap on the
streets.
IV. Conclusion
Although Broward County's foster care crisis is not unique,
the plight of our foster children serves to emphasize three
areas of state and local accountability which will make a
difference in the national challenge. The identification of
children who are abused by each other will reduce the incidence
of re-abuse in foster care and promote the treatment of these
children who are in need. The assurance that foster children
will have educational case plans tailored to their needs will
bring substantial resources into the battle. And, by requiring
states to locate and treat missing foster children, we may
avoid the permanent disruption of their education and their
subjection to unknown dangers which in many cases is far worse
than the neglect and abuse which required their removal in the
first place.
\1\ District 10 is the catchment area for the State of Florida
Department of Health & Rehabilitative Services, now the Florida
Department of Children & Families serving Broward County, Florida.
\2\ Johnny Brown, District Administrator for District 10, admitted
that the foster care system is in a ``state of crisis.'' He
acknowledged the problem, stating, ``When you have overcrowded homes,
you have problems with supervision...we still have a lot of work to
do.'' Sally Kestin, Foster system failing kids, Sun-Sentinel, October,
19, 1998, at 1B.
\3\ Targeted or Medicaid case management ``means the service to
assist an individual in accessing needed medical, social, educational
and other services.'' Fla. Admin. Code Ann. r. 59G-8.300 (1998).
\4\ Qualifacts Systems, Inc, ``District 10 Broward County, 177
Children and Families Receiving targeted Case Management Services,''
October 1, 1995.
\5\ These are examples from the complaint attached as Exhibit
``A.'' Plaintiffs' Complaint-Class Action, Ward v. Feaver, Case No. 98-
7137-Civ-Moreno.
\6\ National Center for Youth Law, Foster Care Reform Litigation
Docket, (1998).
\7\ Letter from Representative E. Clay Shaw to Howard M. Talenfeld,
November 23, 1998.
\8\ Although we believe that unfunded federal statutory mandates
imposed upon the states contribute to this crisis, we assume that the
purpose of the December 14, 1998 hearing in Fort Lauderdale is to
receive constructive suggestions concerning holding states and
localities accountable for the tragedies rather than to hear trite
requests for additional federal funding for family preservation and
foster care programs.
\9\ The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment and Adoption Reform
Act, 42 U.S.C.A. Sec. 5106 (1998).
\10\ In Florida, such reports are only received if ``the alleged
victim lacks supervision or has been neglected or abused by the
caretaker.'' Fla. Admin. Code r. 65C-13.015(1998). ``There are no
current laws that require the reporting and tracking of sexual assault
perpetrated by a child in the custody of the department.'' Department
of Health and Rehabilitative Services, Office of Children Youth and
Family Services, ``A Study of Sexual Assault Among Foster Children in
Florida'' (February 1991), p. 5. See DOA v. Department of Health and
Rehabilitative Services, 561 So. 2d 380 (Fla. 1st DCA 1990) (Sexual
intercourse between 13 year old boy and 5 year old niece did not
constitute child abuse pursuant to Section 415.503, Florida Statutes.)
\11\ Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, Office of
Children Youth and Family Services, ``A Study of Sexual Assault Among
Foster Children in Florida'' (February 1991), p. 5.
\12\ Id. at I.
\13\ William C. Holmes, M.D. and Gail B. Slap, M.D., M.S., Sexual
Abuse of Boys: Definition, Prevalence, Correlates, Sequelae, and
Management, JAMA, December 2, 1998 at 1855.
\14\ Id.
\15\ See note 12, supra.
\16\ Finkelhor D. ``Boys as Victims: Review of the Evidence,''
Child Sexual Abuse: New Theory and Research, New York, N.Y., The Free
Press, pp. 150-170, (1984).
\17\ Finkelhor postulated that male underrepresentation in commonly
studied databanks from child protection agencies reflected both low
overall reporting and preferential reporting to less commonly studied
police records. Id. at 1855.
\18\ Although the Department of Children and Families has not
published a study on the graduation rates of foster children, our
summary of the data which they produced regarding children who age out
of the system rather than run away, confirms that no more than 30%
receive a high school or other type of diploma.
\19\ Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C.
Sec. 1400 et seq.
\20\ Karla Bruner, Data on foster kids can't be located, The
Herald, October 28, 1998, at 5B.
\21\ Fla. Admin. Code Ann. r. 65C-13.010 (1998).
\22\ Fla. Stat. Sec. 228.041(13)(1998).
\23\ Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C.
Sec. 1400, et seq.
\24\ In addition, the Act provides funding to implement and sustain
outreach programs to assist runaways with drug/alcohol abuse,
education, living assistance, and a wide variety of other needs. This
act does not make special provision for the identification, location,
and return of the increasingly large number of foster care children who
have runaway from their placements. Runaway and Homeless Youth Act, 42
U.S.C. Sec. 5701, et seq.
[The attachment to this statement is being retained in the
Committee files.]
Chairman Shaw. Thank you.
Ms. Meyer.
STATEMENT OF CHRISTINE MEYER, PROGRAM ATTORNEY, GUARDIAN AD
LITEM, SEVENTEENTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT OF FLORIDA
Ms. Meyer. Chairman Shaw, Mr. English, it is an honor to
address the Subcommittee and I appreciate the opportunity.
I am the program attorney for the Guardian Ad Litem Program
here in Broward County. The Guardian Ad Litem Program is under
the auspices of the judicial branch of State government. Here
in Broward County, the program consists of approximately 700
volunteers and 21 paid staff members.
The court appoints the Guardian Ad Litem Program to
approximately 3,000 abused, neglected, and abandoned children
every year. The volunteer guardians are independent of all of
the parties involved in a case. They are truly the eyes and the
ears of the court. Most importantly, the guardians are the one
face that these children can rely on in the system. Guardians
meet with their children at least once a month, they monitor
the case to ensure that the appropriate services are being
delivered to these children, and they ensure that the parties
comply with all court orders. They submit reports to the court
and they attend the court hearing. Without these outstanding
child advocates, these children's voices would go unheard.
Recently, a Broward County grand jury produced a
comprehensive interim report describing extensive and systemic
problems facing the Department of Children and Families. Given
this state of emergency to our child welfare system, it is
imperative that local programs are properly funded to meet the
Federal mandate of children's safety and well-being remaining
the paramount concern.
Now while the role of the Guardian Ad Litem Program is to
represent the best interests of children, it is not to serve as
watchdog over the Department of Children and Families. However,
recently the Guardian Ad Litem Program has been faced with the
situation of having to serve in that function.
I would like to just briefly describe to you a few recent
cases where the Guardian Ad Litem Program has found it
necessary to ensure the safety and well-being of a child who
would have otherwise faced further risk of abuse.
The first case involves an abused child whose parental
rights had been terminated. It was the guardian ad litem who
informed the court that the department had placed this 11-year-
old boy in a preadoptive home with an alleged sexual
perpetrator. Although the department was aware of the
allegations for over a month, the child was not removed from
that home. Without the guardian's diligence, this child could
have been adopted by a man who allegedly sexually abused four
other young men.
In a criminal case to which the Guardian Ad Litem Program
had been appointed, a 5-year-old girl was allegedly sexually
abused by her stepfather. The department investigated this case
for possible social service intervention. The guardian ad litem
attempted to inform the department investigator that this
stepfather was an alleged sexual perpetrator on two other
children. The investigator responded to the guardian, ``I do
not want to hear about those other cases.'' Additionally, the
stepfather had his parental rights terminated to his own
children. The mother reported to the guardian that she
continued to take her children to jail to visit the father. The
guardian ad litem has been informed by this investigator that
he will close this case for further action. It will be the
Guardian Ad Litem Program who will bring this case into court
for possible social service intervention.
In another Guardian Ad Litem case, it is a dependency case
involving a 3\1/2\-year-old child who languished in the system
for 29 months. It was the Guardian Ad Litem Program who
retained a pro bono attorney for this child to initiate
termination of parental rights. Otherwise, this child would
never achieve permanency in this child's very short life.
Those are a few cases that are reflective of a much larger
problem. These cases reflect that perhaps the Adoption and Safe
Families Act is not being fully implemented at the State level.
There appears to remain the philosophy of some in the system
that family preservation is the paramount concern. Equally
disturbing is the fact that some of our own State legislators
are unfamiliar with the law and believe family preservation is
still the paramount goal. As recently as last week, we had
State legislative hearings and our own State legislators touted
the importance of family preservation. It is imperative that
our own State legislators fully support and implement the
Adoption and Safe Families Act at the State level.
We are hopeful that one day all these children's voices
will be heard and that the best interests and well-being of
these children will continue.
The recommendation is that perhaps a local oversight
committee be implemented to oversee the cases and the decisions
made by the department as well as the recommendation that the
State, at the State level, implement fully the Adoption and
Safe Families Act.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement follows:]
Statement of Christine Meyer, Program Attorney, Guardian Ad Litem,
Seventeenth Judicial Circuit of Florida
The Guardian Ad Litem Program is under the auspices of the
judicial branch of state government. The Guardian Ad Litem
Program in Broward County (Seventeenth Judicial Circuit) is
comprised of approximately 700 volunteer guardians and 21 paid
staff members. The court appoints the Program to approximately
3000 children in Broward County.
The Program is appointed to dependency cases where children
have been abused, neglected, or abandoned and to criminal cases
where children are the victims or witnesses to crimes. The
Program also receives appointments to family law cases where
there are allegations of abuse or neglect.
Volunteer guardians act as the eyes and ears of the court.
Guardians are considered parties to the case and act
independently of all others. At least once a month, guardians
have personal contact with the children they represent, gather
information from those involved in the children's lives,
monitor the case to ensure that children are receiving
appropriate services, ensure the parties comply with all court
orders, submit reports to the court and attend court hearings.
Without these outstanding child advocates, these children's
voices would not be heard.
Recently, a Broward County Grand Jury produced a
comprehensive Interim Report describing the extensive and
systemic problems facing the Department of Children and
Families (hereinafter referred to as the ``Department''). Given
the state of emergency our child welfare system is currently
operating under, it is imperative that local programs and
organizations are properly funded to meet the Federal mandate
of children's safety and well-being remaining the paramount
concern.
While the role of the Guardian Ad Litem Program is to
represent the best interest of children, it is not the
Program's role to serve as watchdog over the Department of
Children and Families. Nevertheless, the Guardian Ad Litem
Program, in order to protect the children, has found it
necessary to perform this function.
As a demonstration of the Guardian Ad Litem Program's
critical role in the child welfare system, below are a few
examples where the Guardian Ad Litem Program ensured the safety
and well-being of a child who would have otherwise been at risk
of further abuse:
1. In a dependency case where the parental rights were
terminated, it was the Guardian Ad Litem who informed the court
that the Department placed an eleven year old boy in a pre
adoptive home with an alleged sexual perpetrator. Although the
Department was aware of the allegations for over a month, the
child was not removed from the home. Without the Guardian's
diligence, this child could have been adopted by a man who
allegedly sexually abused four other young men.
2. In a criminal case, a five year old girl was allegedly
sexually abused by her stepfather. The Department investigated
this case for possible social service intervention. The
Guardian Ad Litem attempted to inform the Department
Investigator that the stepfather was a accused of sexually
molesting two other children. The Investigator responded, ``I
don't want to hear about the other cases.'' Additionally, the
stepfather had his parental rights terminated on his three
biological children. The mother reported to the Guardian Ad
Litem that she continued to visit the stepfather in jail and
would bring the children with her when she visited. The
Department investigator decided to close this case. It is the
Guardian Ad Litem Program that will bring this case into the
dependency court system to ensure the safety and well-being of
the children.
3. In a dependency case, after a 3 and one-half year old
child languished in the system for twenty-nine (29) months, it
was the Guardian Ad Litem Program who retained a pro bono
attorney to move forward on a termination of parental rights
case in order to achieve permanency for this young child.
4. In a family law case, there were allegations of drug
abuse, domestic violence, and physical abuse of the four year
old child. The Department received at least three prior abuse
reports. As the result of one of the reports, the Department
brought the child to the Child Protection Team (medical experts
trained in evaluating child abuse). The Child Protection Team
recommended the father attend Parent Effectiveness Training and
Anger Management Classes. The father did not fully comply with
the recommendations. Although the child stated that his father
was physically abusing him, and a psychological report
indicated ``neither parent could be recommended as a custodian
for the child,'' the Department decided the family did not need
dependency court intervention. The Guardian Ad Litem did bring
the case to the attention of dependency court, however, where
the judge temporarily removed the child from the father's
custody until he complied with the expert's recommendations.
5. In a criminal case, an eight year old girl was left at a
mall by her mother who had a a history of mental illness. The
child was not wearing pants or shoes and was filthy. Moreover,
the Department had previously investigated two separate abuse
reports. One report alleged that the mother left the child at a
busy intersection when the child was three years old. The other
report alleged that the mother cut her daughter with a knife
and threw her 6 year old nephew on the ground. The Department
left the child in the mother's and grandmother's custody and
closed their investigation. Although the Department closed the
investigation, the Department did bring this case to the
court's attention after the Guardian Ad Litem Program made
several calls to the Department expressing the Program's
concerns. Upon the Department's recommendations, the Court
initially ordered that the child remain with the grandmother.
Ultimately, the Court removed the child from the grandmother
after the Guardian informed the Court that the grandmother
lived in a two bedroom apartment with seven other people. One
child slept on couch while another six year old boy slept in a
bed with two adults. Additionally, during a taped criminal
deposition, the child stated that the grandmother told the
child to lie and say she went to the mall by herself. .
As the above-described cases reflect, the Adoption and Safe
Families Act is not being fully implemented and followed. There
appears to remain the philosophy of family preservation. These
cases represent a small sample of a much larger population.
While local and state government should be held accountable for
program outcomes, the lack of resources to properly implement
these programs must be considered.
The Guardian Ad Litem Program's mission is to represent the
best interest of abused, neglected and abandoned children. The
Program has a lack of funding as well, and is unfortunately
unable to continue in the role of watchdog over the Department.
The concern is, however, who will protect these children?
Chairman Shaw. Thank you.
Ms. Loehndorf.
STATEMENT OF CAROL ANN LOEHNDORF, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN
FEDERATION OF STATE, COUNTY, AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES (AFSCME),
LOCAL 3041
Ms. Loehndorf. Good morning. My name is Carol Ann Loehndorf
and I want to thank you for the opportunity of appearing before
you this morning. I am a family services counselor in a foster
care unit in Palm Beach County and I am also the President of
AFSCME Local 3041 which represents the social workers in both
Palm Beach and Broward Counties.
Along with my full statement, I would like to submit to the
record a recent national survey of AFSCME child welfare
workers.
I enjoy working with kids and families, but I probably
would not work for the Department of Children and Families if I
were starting out now. Our caseloads are too big, our
children's problems are much more severe and the State just
does not give us enough money for the problems. Morale is at an
all time low and staff turnover is very high.
In some ways, our child welfare system has improved since I
started. We have a broader array of programs and better
procedures. We are shifting away from a primary focus on
reunification to pursuing more than one option simultaneously,
which is a more realistic strategy. But inadequate funding
means our programs do not work as well as they should.
One huge problem is the excessive caseloads, as high as 50
or more. But these official numbers actually understate
workloads by counting some staff who do not manage any cases
and trainees with only a few. They ignore inefficiencies such
as shortage of transportation aides, which means that a social
worker has to spend up to half a day transporting children for
family business. And they ignore the fact that many of us work
far more than our official 40-hour week because we simply
cannot walk away from a child in crisis.
High turnover rates make an overwhelming situation worse.
Only two of the counselors in my eight-person unit have been in
the unit for more than 3 years. High turnover has at least
three negative consequences--higher caseloads for experienced
workers, loss of continuity for the children and a lack of
experience to make effective judgment calls. It is almost
impossible to describe the subtle cues and red flags I
recognize every day from my years of experience.
At the same time, our children have much more complex
needs. One of my most time-consuming tasks is getting the
medical and psychological exams necessary to place a child in
an appropriate setting. Then after I go through this process,
there are waiting lists for these critical services. Children
without these placements end up in our offices. Right now, I
have a 12-year-old foster child in my office on a daily basis.
He is there because he was expelled from school and his foster
mother works. I have been trying to get him back into school
and into a therapeutic setting but this is taking a lot of
time. This is a bad situation for him and it distracts me from
my other children.
We also have a crisis in attracting enough foster parents
because more of our children have severe problems and more
women are working outside of the home. Burnout of foster
families is a very real problem.
Even with all these obstacles, I would still feel good
about my work with the department, but we feel like we are
under siege. We have large caseloads and we need to have some
kind of priorities on how to govern how we spend our time. Yet
management passes this responsibility on to the frontline
workers by default and then fails to support us if something
goes wrong. I am equally likely to be accused of neglect by
management if I miss a report deadline or if I miss a child's
appointment.
Protective investigators receive criticism for not removing
children quickly enough and then again for removing them too
quickly. Our administration has been slow to invest in even
basic resources to improve our efficiency or the safety of our
jobs. For example, I can spend up to 15 minutes because I have
to go to another office--I have to walk across the courtyard--
just to photocopy something. Management has just recently
installed locks on our doors, but only after several disruptive
incidents and pressures from frontline workers. I myself have
been threatened in my office by a father with a knife when he
took his child from the office.
Our State government has responded by passing a new law
privatizing all foster care services in Florida. In other
words, they want to give the problem to someone else. But
privatization is no solution and may compound our problem. By
putting a private management company between the State and
direct frontline operations, it will be even harder to
implement State policy consistent with adequate accountability.
Instead of privatizing, Florida needs increased funds to reach
reasonable and safe caseload levels. We need more social
workers and more money to pay foster parents and more intensive
services.
But money is not enough. The department and the press need
to stop scapegoating frontline workers when a child is injured
or dies. The awful reality of child welfare is that no one can
be right all of the time. About 5 years ago, a judge rejected
my recommendation against reunification of a child with his
parents. And that child was killed by his father. Even a judge
can be wrong at times.
No one can do a good job in an environment of fear. We need
supportive supervisors to be available to help in tough cases,
revamped and expanded training including more out-in-the-field
training and mentoring for new caseworkers and better managed,
more efficient offices.
It is ironic that private agencies slated to take over
foster care on January 1 are asking for immunity from lawsuits
and assurances of payment increases as the number of children
increase. In effect, the agency has admitted that it too will
fail some individual children and that underfunding guarantees
failure. If we had such reliable funding increases, I truly
believe that we would have had a better, more stable work force
and better outcomes for children.
Thank you for your attention.
[The prepared statement follows:]
Statement of Carol Ann Loehndorf, President, American Federation of
State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Local 3041
Good morning. My name is Carol Ann Loehndorf. I want to
thank the Chairman and the Subcommittee for giving me this
opportunity to share with you my experiences as a front-line
worker in Florida' child welfare system.
I started working for the State of Florida on June 3, 1963
and have spent about 20 of the past 35 years in child welfare
and foster care. Currently I am a Family Services Counselor in
the Foster Care Unit in Palm Beach County. I am also the
President of Local 3041 of the American Federation of State,
County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which includes social
workers in Palm Beach and Broward Counties. I would like at
this time to offer into the record a recently-completed
national survey of AFSCMEs child welfare workers, ``Double
Jeopardy: Caseworkers At Risk Helping At-Risk Kids.'' It
describes many of the same working conditions Ill be talking
about today.
I enjoy working with my kids and their parents, but I
probably would not choose to work for the Department of
Children and Families if I were starting my career now. Our
caseloads are too big; the children's problems are much more
severe; and the state hasn't given us enough money to address
these problems. Our salaries, which start at $26,000, don't
reflect our professional status or, perhaps more importantly,
the life and death judgments we must make each day. We also do
not get the kind of training we need or the support we used to
have from our supervisors and administrators. Morale has sunk
to an all-time low, and staff turnover is very high in my unit
and throughout the state.
The problems and challenges in child welfare are deeply
rooted in our society as a whole, not just within the child
welfare system. Unfortunately, some children will die while in
the system no matter what changes are made or who is
administering it because it is not humanly possible to make the
right decision all the time. Approximately five years ago, in
fact, I had the experience of having a judge reject my
recommendation against reunification of a child with his
parents, only to see him die at the hand of his father. Anyone,
even a judge, can make an error in judgment in this work.
Having said this, however, AFSCMEs front-line workers want to
work with our elected officials, Department administration,
judges, and child advocates to improve the system so we can do
the best job humanly possible to protect our children.
Caseloads and Turnover
In some ways our child welfare system in Florida is better
than the one I entered. Today, we have a broader array of
programs and mechanisms in place which allow us to track and
review cases more frequently with the goal of moving children
through transition and either back into their home or into
adoption more quickly. We also are moving toward concurrency
planning where we will pursue more than one option for a child
at a time. This shift away from a primary focus on
reunification more accurately reflects the complexity of the
situations we face. However, inadequate funding and staffing
levels mean that our programs do not work as well as they
could.
One huge roadblock standing in our way to delivering
consistent, high-quality services is the enormous caseloads
assigned to each social worker. Several grand juries have found
that caseloads in Broward County are too high. The 1998 grand
jury found that caseloads here average 50, which is just about
the number of kids I have in Palm Beach and which is more than
three times higher than what's recommended by the Child Welfare
League of America.
This number, however, does not convey our situation in a
meaningful way. It actually understates caseload sizes because
it doesn't take into account the fact some personnel in this
count perform administrative duties and do not manage any
cases. It also ignores the fact that trainees with only a few
cases are counted in the average. It ignores important
inefficiencies in our operations. For example, we often
transport a child for a parental visit--a task that can take an
entire half a day--because we do not have enough transportation
aides. Finally, it ignores the fact that many of us work far
more than our official 40 hour work week because we simply
cannot walk away from a child in crisis.
High turnover rates only make an overwhelming situation
worse. Last year, the turnover rate in Broward County was 78
percent. In my own unit, we have eight social worker positions,
but we are almost never fully staffed. Right now, we are down
two because we have one vacancy and one new worker, who is
still in training and is not yet responsible for any cases.
Only two of us have been in my unit for more than three years;
one has been with us two years; two have recently transferred
from other child welfare units; and another has just completed
her training but has virtually no field experience yet.
High turnover and inexperience have at least three negative
consequences. When workers leave, those of us who remain have
to pick up their cases until new employees are hired and
trained, a process that can take several months or even longer.
Our children lose continuity with their social worker, who may
be the only stable influence at that moment in their lives.
Finally, the social workers never build up the day-to-day
experience they need to make the difficult judgment calls we
face constantly. Its almost impossible to describe the subtle
cues and red flags I recognize every day based on my years of
work in the system. There's just no substitute for this
experience, but precious few of our workers stick around to
develop it.
Kids' Problems Worsening/Services Not Available
What's worse, all this is happening while our children have
much more complex needs, including violent behavior and
hyperactivity. Many children on my caseload need therapeutic
placement sites to help them adjust emotionally to being put
into foster care. One of the most time-consuming tasks I face
is securing the medical, psychological and psychiatric exams
and diagnoses necessary to place a child in the appropriate
therapeutic foster family, residential therapeutic group home,
or psychiatric facility. Then, after I go through this process,
many of these critical services have waiting lists and aren't
available as quickly as we need them
Children without these placements end up in our offices.
For several weeks now Ive had a 12 year old foster child in my
office during the day because he was expelled from school and
his foster mother works. Ive been trying to get him back into
school or into a therapeutic environment, but this is taking a
lot of time. We've had kids in our offices until midnight
because that's how long it took to find them a place to spend
the night. They often return in the morning because there's
nowhere else for them to go. This is a bad situation for these
kids. It also means we cant effectively help the other 45 or 50
children on our caseload.
We also are facing an extreme crisis in attracting enough
foster parents because more of our children have severe
problems and more women are working outside the home. We always
have had more difficulty placing older children, but now we are
facing a new shortage of foster homes for preschool children,
and an increased demand for child care in foster families with
two working parents. Not only in Broward County but also in
Palm Beach and other counties, foster parents take in as many
as seven children at a time. These pressures cause burnout
among our foster parents. Sometimes we cant locate a foster
family at all.
Unsupportive Administration
Even with all these obstacles, I would feel good about the
work I do if I were getting helpful support from the
Department. Years ago, Department administrators saw their role
as enabling social workers to do their jobs well and standing
by them when they made a tough call.
Now, we feel like were under siege all the time. We cannot
realistically do an effective job for all of the children for
whom we are responsible. Inevitably some kind of priorities
have to govern how we spend our time. Yet our management avoids
this reality, placing this task on the front-line workers by
default and failing to support them if something goes wrong. I
am equally likely to be accused of neglect if I miss a report
deadline or miss an appointment with a child. Management
responds to problems by giving social workers additional
paperwork. Investigations social workers feel like they're
between a rock and a hard place, receiving criticism both for
not removing kids quickly enough and for too quickly removing
them.
Our administration has been slow to invest in even basic
resources to improve our efficiency or to improve the safety of
our jobs. For example, I have to spend up to 15 minutes going
outside and across the courtyard to another office just to copy
a piece of paper. We finally got a fax machine just this month.
Recently, management installed locks on our doors, but only
after several disruptive incidents and pressure from front-line
workers. I myself was threatened by a father at knifepoint as
he took his child from my office. Management has yet to
recognize the importance of cellular phones when we go into
unsafe neighborhoods.
Proposed Solutions
How can we start to address these problems? The response of
our state government last summer was to pass a new law
privatizing all foster care services in Florida--in other words
to give someone else the operational responsibility.
Privatization will not solve, and in fact may compound, the
fundamental problems which I have discussed. By putting a
private management company between the state and direct front-
line operations, it will be even harder to implement state
policy consistently with adequate accountability.
Other states have done a better job than Florida without
resorting to privatization. For example, Delaware recently
passed a law which mandates that caseloads cannot exceed the
Child Welfare Leagues standards by more than two, and which
also requires sufficient funding for hiring enough staff to
stay within these standards. Connecticut also has established
maximum caseload sizes.
Instead of privatizing, Florida needs to give the child
welfare system more funds to reach reasonable and safe caseload
levels. This is not just a Broward County problem. I can say
from my experience in Palm Beach that we need a lot more social
workers, more money to pay foster parents, and more funding for
the intensive services many of these kids need. (The State of
Florida is eighth from the bottom in per capita state spending
for child welfare according to 1996 figures from the Child
Welfare League.) If we can lower caseloads and upgrade our
equipment, we can finally get the chance to deliver quality
services to the children and families we serve.
But money is not enough. The Department and the press need
to stop scapegoating front-line workers when a child is injured
or dies. No one can focus adequately on doing a good job in an
environment of fear. We need administrative support to do our
jobs well, including supervisors available to help in tough
cases. Social worker training needs to be revamped and
expanded, especially for new child welfare workers. Right now,
new social workers don't get enough out-in-the-field training
and mentoring, which is absolutely necessary for them to
competently take over cases.
I found a real irony in a recent article in the Palm Beach
Post which reported that
a private agency slated to take over foster care on January
1 has gotten cold feet because it wants immunity from lawsuits
and assurances that the state will increase its payments at the
same rate as the number of children coming into the system. In
effect, the agency has admitted that, like the public sector,
it will fail some individual children, and that it is concerned
about not having enough money to serve adequately the children
in its care. I will be very envious, I confess, if the funding
guarantees requests are granted. If during my years with the
Department we had received such reliable funding increases as
our cases increased, I truly believe we would have a stable
work force today and better outcomes for children.
Thank you for your attention. I will be happy to answer any
questions you may have.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.002
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.003
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.004
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.006
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.007
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.008
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.009
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.010
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.011
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.012
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.013
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.014
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.015
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.016
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.017
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.018
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.019
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.020
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0952.021
Chairman Shaw. Let me make one thing clear at this point,
which I think is very important. And that is, to all the
officials in Broward County and Tallahassee, all across the
State of Florida, Federal dollars are available for training
and maintenance payments on an open-end basis. If you have more
children in foster care, the Federal share is ready and waiting
as long as the State and local government puts up the matching
money, and that matching money goes anywhere from 25 to 50
percent. It is an extraordinarily generous open-end program
that the Federal Government has. And really there is no excuse
not to take advantage of that. We are talking about kids.
Ms. Day.
STATEMENT OF LINDA DAY, PRESIDENT, BROWARD COUNTY FOSTER
PARENTS ASSOCIATION
Ms. Day. Chairman Shaw, Mr. English----
Chairman Shaw. Bring that microphone back just a little bit
closer to you.
Ms. Day [continuing]. I would like you to close your eyes
and imagine yourself at home with your friends and suddenly
someone takes you by the hand and tells you that you are going
with them, you have 5 minutes to fill a black garbage bag. What
will you take? How will you say goodbye? Feeling the pain of
not knowing is the reality of over 300 foster children that
have passed through my home. My family have been foster parents
in Broward County for more than 20 years. We are seeing more
children physically, sexually and mentally severely damaged
entering foster care.
The first and most important issue is that we establish
stability for our children by providing social workers that
know their past history, follow them, and be there for them
when they need them. Our children deserve to have social
workers that have appropriate caseloads so they can devote the
time needed to move these children quickly through the system.
At this time, our caseworkers are carrying two to three times
their normal caseloads and it becomes impossible for them to do
their job. Because of the frustration to do the job correctly,
many leave. I have been told by many they would have stayed but
feared for the safety of the children on their caseload because
they could not physically keep up with the current events
happening in each case. We are in desperate need of more
caseworkers to keep our children stable and safe.
Children who have been sexually abused need intense therapy
at the moment they come into care. They need to be placed into
homes or facilities that have had training to meet their needs
and not placed into regular foster homes with other children.
Why make these children victims again or create new ones? We
are putting our children and our foster parents at risk.
It takes two working parents in most families to make a
living and that includes our foster parents. If a child comes
into care on Friday night, it is most likely that he may be
moved on Monday morning because there is no day care available.
Every move is damaging to our children. Why couldn't we
incorporate day care in our foster care system so our children
could stay in their first placement? Stability is the key to
healthy children.
Now tell me, how long would you stay up night after night
trying to comfort a screaming baby going through cocaine
withdrawal? Sometimes feeling beside yourself because you
cannot stop the tremors of the pain gnawing in their little
tummies. Or trying to reassure a 3-year-old that everything is
going to be OK when they scream out in their sleep for their
mommy. Our foster parents do this for ages 0 to 5 years for
just $11.13 a day.
How long would you keep a child that rips the screens out
of your windows, peels the wallpaper off your wall, urinates in
the corner of the room and tells you to shut up, you are not
their mom, and there is always that threat of that child
running away. As foster parents, you answer countless calls
from school on your child's performance and behavior. Our
foster parents do this for ages 6 to 12 years of age for just
$11.45 a day.
Dealing with normal teenagers is a task in itself. As
foster parents, we are dealing with abused, neglected children
who have already been burdened with all of the above baggage
for years. Like with babies, you stay up night after night to
make sure they are in their beds. You hear the pain of them not
being with their families, or when they finally trust you, they
tell you things that make your skin crawl. Our foster families
listen to abusive language and have their belongings such as
their cars, jewelry, and money taken. Our foster parents do
this day after day for 13-year-olds and older for just $13.71 a
day.
When reading this statement to a friend, she was appalled
because just the week before, she had boarded her dogs for just
$12.50 a day.
We need more foster homes, and I believe by having enough
caseworkers, our foster parents could carry the load with their
support. As it stands now, foster parents get burned out
because they cannot reach a worker, there is no worker and when
they need answers, it takes too long to get them.
Many of our foster parents do not have health insurance. I
have talked to many working professionals that said they would
become foster parents but if they would retire, they would lose
their health insurance. Why could we not offer health insurance
to our foster parents?
I guess what I am really trying to say is that we need to
invest in our children now. Surely, it is going to cost, but
what about in the future when these kids are in jail, on drugs,
on the street, or making our loved ones victims? Why can we not
invest for their future, our future, our children's future, and
our grandchildren's future? Do we really want these troubled
adults on the street with our families? Can you honestly say
that you have done enough for foster care?
[The prepared statement follows.]
Statement of Linda Day, President, Broward County Foster Parents
Association
Close your eyes and imagine yourself at home or with your
friends and suddenly someone takes you by the hand and tells
you that you are going with them, you have five minutes to fill
a black garbage bag, what will you take, how will you say good-
bye. Feeling the pain of not knowing is the reality of over
three hundred foster children that have past through my home.
My family have been Foster Parents in Broward County for more
than twenty years and we are seeing more children physically,
sexually and mentally severely damaged entering Foster Care.
The first and most important issue is that we establish
stability for our children, by providing Social Workers that
can give them the past history, follow them, and be there when
they need them. Our children deserve to have Social Workers
that have appropriate caseloads so they can devote the time
needed to move the children quickly through the system. At this
time our Caseworkers are carrying two to three times their
normal case load and it becomes impossible for them to do their
job. Because of the frustration to do the job correctly, many
leave. I have been told that many would have stayed but feared
for the safety of their children on their caseloads, because
they could not physically keep up with the current events
happening in each case. We are in desperate need of more
Caseworkers to keep children stable and safe.
Children who have been sexually abused need intense therapy
at the moment they come into care. They need to be placed into
homes or facilities that have had training that meets their
needs, and not placed in regular foster homes with other
children. Why make these children victims again or create new
ones? We are putting our children and our Foster parents at
risk.
It takes two working parents in most family's to make a
living and that includes our Foster parents. If a child comes
into care on a Friday night it is most likely that he may be
moved on Monday morning because there is no Day Care available.
Every move is damaging to our children. Why couldn't we
incorporate Day Care in to the Foster Care System so our
children could stay in their first placement? Stability is the
key in healthy children.
Now tell me, how long would you stay up night after night
trying to comfort a screaming baby going through cocaine
withdrawal? Some times feeling beside yourself because you can
not stop the tremors or the pain gnawing in their little
tummies. Or trying to reassure a three-year-old that everything
is going to be okay when they scream out in their sleep for
their Mommy. Our Foster parents do this for ages 0-5 year olds,
for just $11.13 a day. How long would you keep a child that
rips the screens out of your windows, peels the wallpaper off
the wall, urinates in the corner of their room tells you to
shut up ``your not their mom'' and there is always the threat
of that child running away. As Foster Parents you answer
countless calls from school on your child's performance and
behavior. Our Foster Parents do this for age's 6-12 year olds
for just $11.45 a day. Dealing with normal teenagers is a task
in itself. As Foster Parents we are dealing with severely
abused neglected children who have already been burdened with
all of the baggage from above for years. Like with babies you
stay up night after night to make sure they are in their beds.
You hear the pain of not being with their families or when they
finely trust you they tell you things that make your skin
crawl. Our Foster families listen to abusive language and have
their belonging such as their cars, jewelry and money taken.
Our Foster Parents do this day after day for 13 year olds and
up for just $13.71 a day.
When reading this statement to a friend she was appalled
because the week before she had just boarded her dogs for just
$12.50 a day.
We need more Foster homes, I believe by having enough
Caseworkers our Foster Parents could carry the load with their
support. As it stands now our Foster Parents get burned out
because they can not reach a worker or there is no worker and
when they need answers it takes to long to get them.
Many of our Foster Parents do not have health insurance. I
have talked to many working professionals that said they would
become Foster Parents, but if they would retire they would lose
their health insurance. Why couldn't we offer health insurance
for our Foster Parent's?
I guess what I'm really trying to say is, that we need to
invest in our children now. Sure it's going to cost but what
about in the future when these kids are in jail, on drugs, on
the street, or making our loved ones victims? Why can't we
invest for their future, our future, our children's future and
our grandchildren's future? Do we really want troubled adults
on the streets with our families? Can you honestly say you have
done enough for Foster Care?
Chairman Shaw. Thank you.
Ms. O'Day.
STATEMENT OF KATHRYN R. O'DAY, VICE PRESIDENT, PROGRAM
DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION, CHILDREN'S HOME SOCIETY OF FLORIDA
Ms. O'Day. Thank you. Linda and I decided that the Days
have it today.
Chairman Shaw, Mr. English, thank you for the opportunity
to address the Subcommittee.
The child protection system in Florida is under pressure to
deliver critical results with very limited resources. In my
written materials, I gave you some of those indications, I will
not read them to you again. In response to this challenge, the
Florida legislature last year did pass a bill to privatize
foster care and related services, to transfer these
responsibilities from the Department of Children and Families
to competent community-based lead agencies. This is an
important step toward establishing public-private partnerships
and it needs your support to help it get on its feet and to
keep it going.
I want to tell you about two things today. I want to give
you an example of a private-public partnership that we
initiated here in Broward County with Children's Home Society
that has had tremendous benefits to our foster care system. And
I want to make some recommendations to you about Federal
funding to help support those initiatives.
About this time last year, I was contacted by a member of
the Allegiance Health Care Corporation because they were
opening corporate offices in Weston and they wanted to be a
good community corporate citizen and to fund a community need.
We immediately identified the need for foster care as being of
critical importance to Broward County and the Allegiance Health
Care Corp. gave us some funding, the United Way added to that
funding and with about $100,000, we were able to hire some new
workers and to partner with a community-based organization
named Child SHARE. Child SHARE goes out into the churches and
recruits foster parents who have a sense of mission and want to
give back to the community, and then builds a support system
around them that includes resources, respite care, babysitting
and all kinds of other recognition.
We hoped to open 40 foster homes in 2 years. Since March
1998, we have been able to open 30 new homes, we anticipate
having 49 new homes by the time we finish our next class this
month in training foster parents. The state Department of
Children and Families estimates that we need over 400 new homes
here in Broward, so this is a tremendous addition to our foster
care system. I am firmly convinced that these are the kinds of
solutions that we are going to need to make a difference for
children with the resources that we have.
Just like our foster parents hold us to high accountable
standards, Federal funding needs to hold us to high accountable
standards and we need to be able to work within those
guidelines and to ensure that children in foster care get what
they need. However, the current regulations for funding are in
need of greater flexibility to allow States to apply Federal
funding toward outcomes which are identified as critical by
that State. Currently, States can capture reimbursement of
eligible expenses through a process which requires meeting
various categorical eligibility characteristics. Linda Radigan
alluded to this earlier for you. We can get around those
requirements with waivers but they typically are cumbersome and
take a long time to accomplish. One of the problems with
negotiating for privatization in child welfare is that those
regulations are not geared to private agencies and that is part
of the problem with the agency in St. Petersburg who is trying
to negotiate a contract with the department to initiate
privatization on January 1, 1999.
Even where solutions can be identified statewide and that
have long-range solutions attached to them, we cannot replicate
projects in other parts of the country, so if we see an idea
that is working somewhere else, we cannot see if it is going to
work in Florida because each project has to be unique.
I do not have time allotted to me today to give you a lot
of details about Federal financing, but I would like to offer
you some guiding principles to consider as you are working on
changes to Federal funding and mandates. Please consider
supporting private-public partnerships with particular emphasis
on matching private community funds that pay for system reform.
It is important to ensure that there is enough funding for core
services and let private dollars pay for enhancements to the
system and help initiate new kinds of solutions.
Additionally, consider a waiver process that is more
localized and allows for replication of existing projects in
part or in whole. A process is needed where reviews and
approval can be completed in as short a timeframe as possible,
depending on the scope of the exemption requested.
Allow States to identify targets; for example, if we wanted
to reduce the number of children per 1,000 requiring out-of-
home care, and then build funding around systems that support
the achievement of that outcome.
It is important that we begin to realize that child welfare
is really a public health issue and needs to be treated from
that model where you look at the prevention as well as the
intervention if we are going to find a long-term solution to
this.
I thank you for taking your time today to consider these
important issues. I am pleased to see the recent focus locally
and at the State and national level on the serious problems
which affect so many of our youth. I am confident that as we
continue to work together, we can build new approaches and
systems to make life better for children who cannot live at
home.
[The prepared statement follows:]
Statement of Kathryn R. O'Day, Vice President, Program Development and
Evaluation, Children's Home Society of Florida
Thank you for the opportunity to address the Committee. We
welcome you to Ft. Lauderdale, and appreciate your attention to
the important issue of child protection. To introduce myself, I
am Kate O'Day, Vice President of Children's Home Society for
Program Development and Evaluation. I am a Licensed Clinical
Social Worker in the State of Florida, and began my career in
child welfare in 1980, working with a unit in one of our local
police departments which dealt every day with child abuse and
neglect. Over the past eighteen years, I have worked and
managed programs and services in family preservation, runaway
shelters, adult and adolescent substance abuse, adoptions, and
foster care, among others. My career has spanned both
government service and work in the not-for-profit sector. My
work with Children's Home Society has included directing the
programs and services here in Broward County for the past four
years. Currently, my position is responsible for addressing
program and service needs in our communities throughout the
State of Florida and to ensure that our services are having the
intended impact on the clients with whom we serve.
The child protection system in Florida is under tremendous
pressure to deliver critical results with limited resources.
Child abuse reporting alone in Florida has increased by 15.5%
since fiscal year 1993/94. There were approximately 3 reports
of abuse/neglect for every 1000 children in Florida last year,
which resulted in 121,777 reports to Florida's Abuse Hotline.
After investigation, 79,641 of these children were identified
as abused or neglected, and 12,000 of these were served in
emergency shelter. During this same period, 12,632 children
were served in board paid foster care, which again has seen an
increase in its numbers; 7.8% more children this year than two
years ago. The numbers of children in residential group care
has increased by 36% over the same time period, with 2,427
children being served last year. Although the goal for many of
these children is family reunification, many never return home
and are eventually adopted out of the system. Statewide, 11,158
children received adoption subsidies in fiscal year 97/98, an
increase of 16% over the past two years.
This hearing is being held here in Broward County because
of the crisis we are facing with providing for children in out
of home care. During the last fiscal year, the number of
children in foster care in Broward County alone increased by
278 children--from 1,145 children on July 1, 1997 to 1,423
children on June 30, 1998. Our state Department of Children and
Families has found serious problems in addressing these
increased needs, and the results have been that children are
residing in overcrowded and unsafe conditions in many cases,
and not receiving the level of care they need and deserve.
In the wake of concerns over growing needs for service,
increased demands on the state budget, and continuing high
profile cases in which children have died in spite of repeated
involvement with the child protection system, Florida's
legislature last year passed a bill to privatize foster care
and related services, transferring these responsibilities from
the Department of Children and Families to competent,
community-based agencies. Congress has also responded to the
national conditions of child protection with important
legislative reforms, which limit the time of children in care,
among other things. If we are to succeed with this important
initiative for privatization in Florida, and deliver services
which meet the mark for Federal requirements, we will have to
work together in new ways to reform our thinking at every level
in the child protection system, from case work and service
provision, to data tracking and outcome measures, and most
importantly to this Committee, to resource allocation and
funding. Furthermore, I am convinced that we must find the will
and the way to effectively address the growing problem of child
abuse only through a true partnership between the public and
private sectors. These productive working relationships between
governmental entities and the communities and people they serve
require your support to help them get off the ground and to
succeed.
Building a system which accomplishes the goals of child
protection and family preservation is our collective
responsibility. I have come here today to address you on two
important issues which need to be considered in building a
better child protection system. First, I want to tell you about
an important private-public initiative, which has produced
significant results here in Broward County for foster children.
Secondly, I would like to invite you to consider increased
flexibility in some aspects of Federal funding of adoption and
foster care which would help those of us who are in the
trenches working to solve these problems.
Children's Home Society of Florida has been a provider of
licensed foster care in Broward County since 1967. By January
of 1998, we were operating 21 licensed foster homes. Funding
for these services was provided by a mix of private donations,
the United Way, and ``pass through'' foster care board payments
from the Department of Children and Families to the foster
families.
In late 1997, a member of the Allegiance Health Care
Corporation staff contacted one of the members of our local
Board of Directors here. As they were opening new offices in
Weston, the Baxter-Allegiance Foundation wished to identify a
community need which it could then lend assistance to through
funding. A conference call was arranged between the Allegiance
staff, the Foundation Executive Director, and mysel. We
identified the need for more foster homes in Broward County as
being of critical importance, and agreed to submit a proposal
for funding. In March 1998, we were awarded a two year grant of
$98,291; $64,832 for the first year and a matching challenge of
$33,459 for the second year. We proposed to hire two new foster
family care workers and expand our capacity by about 40 homes
over the two-year period. At about the same time, the local
founder of Child SHARE, (which stands for Shelter Homes A
Rescue Effort), approached us. We formed a partnership with
Child SHARE of South Florida to recruit and assist foster
family homes for this expansion. Simultaneously, we applied to
the United Way to increase our funding and support the
expansion by Baxter-Allegiance and the partnership with Child
SHARE. The community, through the United Way, responded by
increasing our funding for family foster care by 42%, or
$41,573.
The results have surpassed even our most optimistic
projections. Since March 1998, we have added over 30 new foster
family homes (for a current total of 55) and anticipate serving
70 at the completion of our next foster family training class
this month. Many (but not all) of these families have come to
us through the partnership with Child SHARE. This will more
than meet the goals we identified to the Foundation for a two-
year period, less than one year into the project. A total of
$106,405 in private funds have made this possible. With our
District Administrator estimating a need for over 400 new homes
in Broward County to appropriately care for our children, 49
new homes is a very welcome addition to our system of care.
This is a true illustration of public-private partnerships,
and allow me to tell you a little about how that partnership
works. Child SHARE is an affiliate of the California based
organization, which recruits and supports foster family homes
through active involvement in local churches. Families which
are recruited in this way are offered an extensive array of
supports within their church community, including support
groups, respite care, baby-sitting, furniture and equipment,
and recognition and appreciation for what they are doing for
all of our children. Child SHARE provides that community-level
organization to raise awareness about the need for foster
homes, recruit potential families, and give them an environment
which embraces them in their efforts once they become licensed
and have children in care with them. Children's Home Society's
role in the partnership is that of a professional Foster Family
Agency, which evaluates the potential foster homes, does all
the background screens and ensures the family meets all the
standards for licensing, and then provides professional
casework as families are matched to children and receive the
services they need--such support with the school system, health
care, and counseling or recreational needs. Children's Home
Society also provides a free monthly clinic to all of its
foster families where well care services are donated by a local
pediatrician, as well as ongoing training and support groups
for problem solving with family logistics and parenting foster
children.
People connections have made this partnership work. It so
happened that one of Children's Home Society's foster families
for many years was also a member of the congregation sponsoring
the Child SHARE efforts. We arranged for a program to be
presented in the evening to church members with a panel
including foster parents, professional foster care staff, an
adult child of foster care, the pastor, the Child SHARE staff
member, and myself. The response from the congregation was
overwhelming, and has not stopped. This experience has firmly
convinced me that the community will support solutions it sees
as effective, and when the results can be seen and touched, as
with a child who is blossoming in foster care. The dedication
of these families who come forth out of a sense of mission and
the need to care for those in need is an inspiration to all of
us who work with them.
Just like our foster parents, federal funding mandates need
to hold all of us to a high quality of care as we work with
children who cannot live at home. Standards need to be set and
enforced to ensure that children get what they need in a timely
fashion. However, the current regulations for funding foster
care and adoption are in need of greater flexibility to allow
states to apply Federal funding towards outcomes which are
identified as critical by that state. Currently, states may
capture Federal funding for reimbursement of eligible expenses
through a process which requires meeting various categorical
eligibility characteristics. States can qualify for exceptions
to these requirements through the waiver process, but this
poses problems itself in terms of time and flexibility. Waivers
typically take more than a year for approval, which may not be
responsive enough in a situation such as we have in Florida,
where contract negotiations are currently underway for the
first implementation of privatization to be implemented on the
West Coast in District 5 by January 1, 1999. As Federal funding
regulations impact on the ability of a qualified community-
based lead agency to draw down Federal money, there is no route
to a short term or temporary exemption process. Even where
solutions can be identified statewide and in the long-range,
the waiver process only allows for demonstration projects in
each state, each of which must be unique. This means that a
good idea in one area of the country cannot be replicated and
compared with results elsewhere.
It is far outside the scope of five minutes of testimony
before you today to outline a plan for making Federal funding
more flexibile and exceptions or waivers more timely and easily
granted. But I would like to offer you some guiding principles
to consider as you are working on changes to Federal funding
and mandates. Consider supporting private-public partnerships,
with particular emphasis on matching private community funds
that pay for system reforms and to support basic program
operations. I have found that donors are attracted to seeing
their monies matched by other private donors as well as
government sources. Additionally, consider a waiver process
that is more localized, and allows for replication of existing
projects in part or in whole. A process is needed where reviews
and approvals can be completed in as little as thirty to sixty
days, depending on the scope of exemption requested. Allow
states to identify targets, (such as reducing the number of
children per 1,000 requiring out of home care) and then build
funding around systems which support the achievement of that
outcome, rather than ensuring that procedural safeguards are in
place for the current system.
I thank you for taking your time today to consider these
important issues. I am pleased to see the recent focus, locally
and at a state and national level, on this serious problem
which affects so many of our youth. I am confident that as we
continue to work together, we can build new approaches and
systems to make life better for children who cannot live at
home.
Chairman Shaw. Thank you. And our final panelist, Eileen
Donais, we saved you until last because we wanted to end on a
positive note.
STATEMENT OF EILEEN DONAIS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, HANDY (HELPING
ABUSED AND NEGLECTED DEPENDENT YOUTH), INC., FORT LAUDERDALE,
FLORIDA
Ms. Donais. I will try my very best to do that. Thank you.
Thank you, Chairman Shaw and Mr. English, for inviting us
here today. My name is Eileen Donais, I am executive director
of HANDY, an acronym for Helping Abused, Neglected Dependent
Youth. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit Broward corporation and our
mission statement is as follows: We are dedicated to breaking
the cycle of child abuse by helping the abused, neglected,
dependent youth of Broward County who are placed in protective
custody by the court. We provide emergency funds and network to
fill the cracks in meeting their needs for items such as food,
clothing, eyeglasses, specialized medical and dental services,
scholarship and educational opportunities.
The organization has a very large and active board, over
500 members and an advisory council consisting of three judges
and several other prominent community leaders.
Private fundraising, donations, and private grants generate
our total budget. Hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours are
contributed by this dedicated group of individuals who care so
genuinely about the children we serve. HANDY was established in
1985 as the nonprofit arm of the State Guardian Ad Litem
Program to accommodate needs identified and unfulfilled by the
State and to provide a support system for them and State
caseworkers.
I would like to cite some examples that further define this
statement.
A 15-year-old young man is residing in a therapeutic
treatment program in Jacksonville. His mother was stricken with
a brain aneurysm and given only a very slight chance of
recovery. Immediate funding was not available from the
department. HANDY provided an airline ticket for him so that he
would have those last fleeting moments here with her before she
passed on.
The HANDY free clothing bank has become a total necessity
to this community of children and families. Referrals come to
us from 25 agencies. We are the only agency in Broward County
to fill this tremendous need. The majority of children brought
in off the street have nothing, as we know, but the clothing on
their backs and our department store is here to truly help
them. We furnish everything at no charge, from infant sizes to
adult clothing, shoes, baby furniture and supplies, all donated
by this huge wonderful community at large. Families are able to
return at least four times per year. HANDY's funds are
generously used to stock new undergarments and socks. During
our past fiscal year, we served 4,900 clients at a used
clothing store value of approximately $58,000. With a minimal
staff, members, friends, corporate employees, and high school
students also provide 5 days of staffing for this facility.
It is particularly significant to note that during the past
6 months, we have seen an increase of at least 50 percent in
requests for beds and food. In the interest of the child's
safety and well-being, HANDY is allocating dollars for both of
those needs. Local merchants are supplying beds at deeply
discounted prices, and HANDY, being a member of the Daily Bread
Food Bank, is able to help families stock up on necessary
foodstuffs and Publix gift certificates to supplement with
something as simple as milk and bread for the weekend.
A longstanding partnership has developed with Lens Crafters
and their Gift of Sight Program, where children can have an
eyeglass prescription filled at no cost. Our board has two
medical liaisons that assist in finding pro bono help for
special medical and dental procedures. Some of that is extended
care, such as a corneal transplant and a severely infected
tattoo on a beautiful young lady. It is not uncommon for one of
our dependency judges to phone us from their courtroom
requesting emergency assistance to avoid eviction, restore
electricity, or whatever crisis that may be affecting the
child's quality of life. Of course, we are there to take action
immediately.
HANDY is very committed to helping our children languishing
in school to become better students and prepare them to receive
a higher education to live in this global world. Our mentor
programs for adolescents and teens is thriving and growing. In
collaboration with the Broward County School Board and Broward
Community College, this important project will continue to help
and motivate these at-risk teens.
The long-term goal of HANDY is to counterbalance the
current decrease in DCF Prgram funding for the increased number
of abused and neglected children entering the court system. It
is our fervent resolve to expand HANDY programs and services to
serve each child that needs assistance. It is through this
joining hands of public-private partnership that we can truly
make a difference, one child at a time.
To every Federal-elected official, government official,
State official, we would encourage you to speak on our behalf
and on behalf of all of the children of the important
development of these public-private partnerships.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement follows:]
Statement of Eileen Donais, Executive Director, HANDY, Inc., Fort
Lauderdale, Florida
Handy, Inc. was established as a non-profit 501 c3
organization in 1985 by a small group of concerned citizens who
saw the need to raise funds to fill a void that would help to
complete the vision of the State Guardian ad litem program. It
remained small until 1991 when Broward County community leaders
created a membership organization and enlarged its scope. Today
HANDY provides emergency funds and services that ``fill the
cracks'' giving these children, who are wards of the state, a
fighting chance to become whole again.
HANDY has received numerous awards, such as the J.C. Penney
Golden Rule Award to founder Ed Pudaloff. Mr. Pudaloff also
received the ``Spirit of Excellence Award'' last year from the
Miami Herald. After founding the auxiliary, Kathie Jackson was
named Broward County Child Advocate of the Year in 1995 because
of HANDY's accomplishments.
HANDY is unique to Broward County as it is the only
organization solely designed to work with the entire population
of children who have fallen victim to abuse and neglect, as
well as network with other organizations and individuals in our
community, which serve them. In recent years, HANDY has been
able to not only fulfill the emergency needs of these children,
but also improve their low self-esteem and enhance their lives
through various events and incentive-based educational
programs.
The mission statement of HANDY is ``We are dedicated to
breaking the cycle of child abuse by helping the abused,
neglected, dependent youth of Broward County who are placed in
protective custody by the court. We provide emergency funds and
network to ``fill the cracks'' in meeting their needs for items
such as food, clothing, eyeglasses, specialized medical and
dental services, scholarship and education opportunities.''
Following is a comprehensive outline of how HANDY accomplishes
this mission.
The HANDY membership is over 500 and is open to any person
in the community for minimal dues of $25 per year, or the
option of a lifetime membership, which continues to grow. The
HANDY Board is a cross section of working men and women and
community volunteers who have diverse educational, profession
and economic backgrounds. The Advisory Council includes three
judges and several prominent community leaders, an accountant
and legal advisor.
All funding for HANDY programs and services comes from
dues, fundraising activities and events, Corporate support, and
private foundation grants. We do not receive any state or
federal funding. It is an efficiently run organization with a
minimal paid staff so that as much money as possible continues
to be directly distributed to the children. Total revenue from
private fundraising for the fiscal year ending July 31, 1998
was $543,943. In addition, hundreds upon thousands of volunteer
hours have been donated by HANDY members to raise funds and
assist with social outlets for the abused and neglected
population we serve.
The outline that follows encompasses the broad and in-depth
services and programs that Handy offers and funds on behalf of
the adjudicated dependent children, and those advocating on
their behalf.
PROGRAM SERVICES:
The HANDY ``ABC'' Birthday Club matches member
sponsors with Guardian ad litem children to recognize their
special day. Most of the youngsters have never received a gift
yet alone recognition. It is a totally self-sustaining program
facilitated by member's volunteer hours.
Housing dollars are expended on an emergency basis
for rent as necessary to ensure that a child has a safe place
in which to live. Oftentimes the caretaker has fallen on an
unavoidable hardship or illness. This funding is offered as a
one-time temporary measure to keep a family intact while
evaluating the overall future situation by state caseworkers.
Emergency funds are also provided for utility,
water and telephone bills after evaluating the immediate need
and lack of funds from any other source. The criteria for such
expenditures are largely based on the information in the
previous paragraph. HANDY does have a ``networking'' provision
in place with Florida Power & Light for serious situations that
arise.
Until the passage of recent legislation, HANDY has
provided the funds for the State Adoption Filing Fee so that
any family willing to adopt a child in their custody would not
encounter expenses that may preclude an adoption decision.
These fees have been refunded to us once finalization has taken
place, but had we not ``stepped up to the plate'' for this one,
it is reasonable to expect that perhaps that adoption would not
have taken place.
The ``Holiday Wish List'' specifically designed to
grant the special wish of a Guardian ad litem child is one of
the largest and significant undertakings of the entire year.
HANDY member sponsor children, corporate donors take hundreds
of wishes, and community individuals step in to help this
cause. Each child receives that ``special something'' that
their guardian has discussed with them, including bicycles for
those deemed most necessary.
Beds and cribs are in crisis need at this time. As
the shortage of foster homes continues to prevail, more and
more children are being placed with relatives or caregivers who
themselves are very needy. HANDY is working with several local
companies who are supplying and delivering this basic necessity
at nearly wholesale prices. Furniture donations are also passed
along to families in crisis. Special equipment is also
purchased as needs are identified by the Guardian ad litem or
others involved in assessing the child's needs.
Medical, dental and eyeglass needs are fulfilled
whenever possible and for the most part, pro-bono professionals
are sought out to assist with this need. While Medicare dollars
should be the proviso that is available to the children, many
procedures are not covered by this insurance. The HANDY Board
has two medical liaisons who ``network'' in the community to
find this important assistance.
Nutritious food is oftentimes not available when
children are placed with a relative or other caregiver. HANDY
is a member of the Daily Bread Food Bank and our volunteers
help Guardians and caseworkers to receive bulk food. Oftentimes
this is then supplemented with local food store certificates
for items such as milk and fresh produce.
The HANDY free Clothing Bank has become a total
necessity to this community of children and families. Referrals
come to us from 25 resources. There is no other agency in
Broward County to fill this tremendous need. Abruptly removed
from an abusive or neglectful situation, children are often
taken into custody with only the clothes on their back. When
placed in shelter or foster care, the state provides only $15
for emergency clothing and personal items. If a child is moved
to a new placement, more often than not, their total belongings
fit into a small trash bag. Our ``department store'' furnishes
everything at no charge from infant sizes to adult clothing;
shoes, baby furniture and supplies, all donated by the
community at large. HANDY funds are generously used to stock
new undergarments and socks. One full time person, and part
time help staff this facility. A huge member volunteer staff
assists weekly, as do corporate employees and high school
students receiving community service hours. During our past
fiscal year, we served 4,900 clients at a used clothing store
value of $58,000.00. HANDY leases a 3,200 sq. foot facility in
downtown Ft. Lauderdale only minutes from the County
Courthouse.
When HANDY is unable to meet a need, for example, tennis
shoes, we provide gift certificates from local discount stores.
This service is also provided for items such as school supplies
and household goods.
EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES & SERVICES:
HANDY Saturday S.T.A.R.S. (Steering Teens Toward Academic
Rewards & Success) is a tutoring program, which targets the
most critical age level, middle school and high school
students. Each student is matched with a college student from
our local universities. The tutors are contracted by HANDY to
provide at least one hour of personal tutoring in the child's
school on a weekly basis. The success of this program has been
aided by collaboration with the Brossard County School Board
and Brossard Community College. A partnership with the college
employs our Program Administrator. Saturday field trips are
arranged on a monthly basis. The children regularly participate
in the ``Challenge Ropes Course'' to motivate them and raise
their level of self-esteem. Other field trips include community
service projects and field trips exposing the children to
future job opportunities. The enrollment has doubled this past
year, and a continual waiting list exists as their child
advocates nominate them for this empowering program.
Scholarships for college and vocational training
are awarded monthly to any child who has ever been under court
supervision. Interviews of prospective recipients take place
monthly and HANDY also assists each student in reviewing their
total financial aid package, e.g., Peel Grants, foster care
tuition waivers. A cross section of dedicated community leaders
serve on this committee and their expertise and contacts are
invaluable to the student.
``Computers for Kids,'' is a new project this
year, whereby we are seeking donations in an effort to put
computers in the homes of needy children who would benefit from
the tutorial help and follow up to school computer training.
This is now considered an essential part of their overall
education. It is also our goal to supply a computer to each of
our local college students to ease the burdens they face
everyday while trying to work and go to school.
The HANDY Summer Camp Program offers opportunities for
local day camp and sleepover camps located throughout the
State. Each and every child nominated by the Guardian ad litem,
Caseworkers, or therapists is considered for an appropriate
placement. This program is deemed as extremely important to a
child's social development and interpersonal relationships.
Camp counselors also become outstanding role models. HANDY
receives many scholarships for camping programs and also
allocates huge sums of money to insure its success. More than
300 children had this wonderful experience in the summer of
1998.
School field trips, graduation gifts, tickets for
prom parties (items that most children take for granted) are
also funded by HANDY when a request is made, and provided the
person advocating for the child feels that it is a deserving
gift.
SOCIAL ACTIVITIES
The HANDY membership has always believed that it is
important for the Guardian ad litem and children they represent
to participate in as many social activities as possible. These
opportunities benefit the communication between those involved
and certainly enhance the child's social skills. When a State
Supreme Court order evolved that no longer permitted a Guardian
ad litem to transport children in their automobile, HANDY was
undaunted in keeping these activities on track. HANDY now
contracts private charter buses, staged at various county
locations to transport the children and guardians to the
activity. Some of these activities include--
``Back to School Shopping Spree'' HANDY members
sponsored a child to receive a $100 local mall certificate and
the volunteers arranged for fantastic store discounts. A huge
pizza party was held for over 300 in attendance. After all,
these kids do like to ``look like the next guy.''
The 7th annual Lighthouse Point Yacht & Racquet
Club Christmas Party will treat 65 youngsters ages 5-10 to an
unforgettable day. Sponsored by fundraising of the ladies of
Lighthouse Point Auxiliary and club management, the children
will ride aboard yachts in their own Boat Parade, partake of a
delicious lunch, entertainment, and best of all they will
receive a brand new bicycle, compliments of JM Family
Enterprises.
Another highlight for the children is the
attendance of many dependency court judges, who join in the
festivities and fun along with the children.
The annual Easter Picnic hosted by Florida Power &
Light at their Port Everglades picnic grounds. A huge staff of
HANDY volunteers hosts a fabulous day including a petting zoo;
DJ, carnival rides, lunch, and their very own custom made
Easter basket. Hundreds sign up well in advance and it is
interesting to note that this is often the perfect opportunity
for siblings to see one another, since they may live in
different homes.
Other ongoing Children's Activities include--
Florida Marlin's Season Tickets, Museum of Discovery & Science
Imax Theater, Green Glade Ranch Hoe-down & Barbecue, Dolphins
Football Training Camp, Grand Prix Racecourse
The long term goal of HANDY is to counter-balance the
current decrease in DCF program funding for the increased
number of abused and neglected children entering the court
system. It is our fervent resolve to expand HANDY programs and
services to serve each child that needs emergency assistance,
educational help, and social outlets that will help enrich
their lives.
It is through this joining hands of public-private
partnership that we can truly make a difference . . . . . one
child at a time.
Chairman Shaw. Eileen, thank you very much.
Mr. English.
Mr. English. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This panel has painted a detailed and in some ways very
grim picture and I wonder if I could prevail on them to amplify
on their testimony.
Starting with Mr. Talenfeld, I was intrigued by your
testimony, and can you tell me, are you suggesting that the
Federal child abuse definition excludes child-on-child sexual
abuse? And do you know specific instances where the law itself
was an obstacle to identifying this kind of abuse?
Mr. Talenfeld. Florida has not implemented the Adoption and
Safe Families Act in a manner which would include child-on-
child sexual abuse as part of the type of referrals that are
mandated to its central abuse registry. I can tell you that to
obtain this information has been anecdotal, it has been based
upon assignments from judges and court orders to represent
these children that have been injured in care. And I wanted to
alert your attention to the fact that we do not believe the
States are gathering this information. None has been reported,
to our knowledge, accumulating these data, to have any idea as
to what percentage of the number of children in care have been
victims of this type of abuse.
Mr. English. Have you had or do you know of any specific
instances where a centralized child abuse registry would not
take action on this type of complaint?
Mr. Talenfeld. The answer to that question is corrective.
If you would dial the numbers 1-800-96ABUSE and would not
allege that a caretaker is at fault with respect to the child-
on-child sexual abuse at hand, they would not receive your
complaint.
Mr. English. Is your concern that reports of this type of
abuse are not made or that they are not investigated?
Mr. Talenfeld. There is no direct policy, at least at the
State level in Florida, which mandates the centralized
reporting of these abuses. So we believe in many cases, these
are crimes that take place at night, that maybe a caretaker may
have knowledge of, they do not know where to go. But the
Journal of the American Medical Association points out in this
month's article that most of these complaints are very
sensitive, many of them go directly to law enforcement
agencies, and there is no centralized place to receive them. We
believe that CAPTA should mandate that these reports from
whatever agency, from whatever source, go to the centralized
agency because they are so hard to receive when they do come.
And we need to have that capacity to not only identify the
victims, but the perpetrators, to obtain treatment for both.
Mr. English. Ms. Meyer, one might infer from the testimony
that an important provision of the Adoption and Safe Families
Act is to ensure that the safety of the child is the paramount
concern and investigating allegations of maltreatment is being
ignored. Do you see a continuing overemphasis on making every
effort to keep families together even at the expense of a
child's safety?
Ms. Meyer. In the experience of the Guardian Ad Litem
Program and some of the cases that I described, the family
preservation apparently seems to be the goal. I think Judge
Kearney mentioned the 1-hour training video. Perhaps it is a
training issue that needs to be addressed. It is probably more
likely than not that a lot of the investigators who are out
there in the field may not be aware of this recent legislation,
may not be aware that the goal has been switched now to the
safety and well-being of children. So it is disheartening to
see it; however, I believe that the training of these
individuals needs to be implemented immediately so that they
are aware that there has been this shift and that they see that
these children need to be the focus. But the experience has
been that at this point, there are lots of cases that it is
just not.
Mr. English. Ms. O'Day, in your experience, how has the
passage of the Adoption and Safe Families Act and the
interethnic adoption provision changed the practice of child
welfare in your agency? Specifically, do you see a change in
social work practice and is concurrent planning increasingly
used to plan for family reunification and at the same time for
adoption?
Ms. O'Day. Well, let me answer you. We have always tried to
match children with families, whatever those characteristics
might be, that would provide best for the children's needs. We
have never been looking at demographic characteristics, for
example, to make those matches. So I would not say it has
tremendously impacted our adoption practice, but I would say it
probably has more in the public sector.
To talk about reunification, you have to talk about
concurrent case planning, which is what is needed to fulfill
the Federal time guidelines. This means that when a child comes
into care, you immediately begin intensive services with the
biological family to ensure that they understand what tasks are
before them to get their children returned to them, while at
the same time you prepare a well-trained foster home that is
prepared to make a permanent commitment to that child if it
becomes necessary. So you've got both tracks going at once.
Previously you would wait to see if the biological family
would fail out of their case plan and only then would you begin
thinking about permanency. With concurrent case planning, you
begin thinking about permanency from day one. But you have to
afford biological families every opportunity to succeed because
children really would rather live with their biological
families than with a substitute family.
Mr. English. Mr. Chairman----
Ms. O'Day. I am sorry--we have a program called Homeward
Bound that does this. We start visits between the biological
family and the child from the day that they are removed and
encourage a lot of contact, which tends to make the biological
families do better. When the biological family cannot meet
their case plan, then we are prepared to go forward with
permanency.
Mr. English. Mr. Chairman, you have been very generous in
allowing me time. I would like to yield to you, I know you
probably have quite a few questions.
Chairman Shaw. Ms. Loehndorf, how much training have you
received?
Ms. Loehndorf. It is very hard for me to tell you exactly.
I have been with the agency since June 3, 1963. So I have had a
lot on the job and a lot more than a lot of the younger ones.
Chairman Shaw. How typical are you?
Ms. Loehndorf. Very untypical.
Chairman Shaw. There is a huge turnover, I assume.
Ms. Loehndorf. Yeah, in my unit right now, there are two or
three slots that have just been revolving doors. The counselors
that were trained, a couple of them quit before they even
finished their training once they found out what they were
really going to have to do. We have got two that are literally
in training right now, there are only two of us that have been
in that unit for a long time--over 3 years. One of the other
ones has been there 3 years, but I think three of them have
actually got other experience with the agency.
Chairman Shaw. How many children are under your supervision
now?
Ms. Loehndorf. I personally have close to 50 kids--a little
over actually 50 kids. It is hard because----
Chairman Shaw. Is that typical?
Ms. Loehndorf. In my unit, what you have is the more
experienced workers have much higher caseloads because what
happens--and we just had this happen last week, which is why I
have to go recount again. The other counselor who had been
there a number of years, she left. So we just got another
caseload divided out among those of us who are taking cases.
The ones in training obviously cannot. So the higher caseloads
stay with those of us who have been there, which puts us at a
real disadvantage because when you are working with that many
kids, something is going to get away from you. You are just not
going to make everything you are supposed to do.
Chairman Shaw. You listened to Mr. Brown's testimony. Would
you say that the problems in Palm Beach parallel the problems
in Broward County?
Ms. Loehndorf. Yes, I would.
Chairman Shaw. Mr. Brown, what training is available right
now if we were--you heard Ms. Meyer say that we should
immediately implement this, you hear the Sheriff refer to the
really skimpy training program that we have. And I assume that
you can confirm that we are talking about an hour video? I
would like for you to either confirm or deny that. And if you
were trying to implement some greater training at this
particular point, which the Federal Government, by the way, I
think we fund that at 75 percent, what would you do?
Mr. Brown. I agree with Judge Kearney and the other
panelists here today. We have only provided minimum services or
training to our counselors, and that compounds the problems
that we have in this agency. I agree with the Sheriff, we need
about 40 hours of in-service training every year ongoing for
the existing counselors and probably twice as much for new
people coming on staff, because most of these people come on
staff with other types of degrees. And that's one of the
problems in this system too. What we have tried to do in
Broward County over the last year that I have been the district
attorney with social work degrees and sometimes advanced
degrees. But again, the thing that compounds the problems, Mr.
Chair, is that you cannot afford to pay these people to keep
them once you get them. So you get them here, you take them
through 3 months of training and that is what we provide to
these people, and then they come in and then they find the
working conditions that have been placed upon them and the
minimum pay that they are receiving and the lack of resources,
and they leave.
Chairman Shaw. What is the turnover rate?
Mr. Brown. It was 61 percent the first year and right now
it has been over the last 9 months about 38 percent.
Chairman Shaw. What effect does that have on the kids that
they serve, the fact that there is no stability, the fact that
there is a turnover, the fact that every time somebody knocks
on the door, it is somebody else?
Mr. Brown. It not only affects the kids, sir, it affects
our presentation in court, it affects the attention we are able
to give to the foster parents, it affects everything we try and
do. You do not have a stabilized work force, you are constantly
passing the cases to other people and you are constantly trying
to meet all the goals that are mandated by policies and
procedures and it is just impossible to do the job.
Chairman Shaw. So what we have are kids that are going from
foster family to foster family, counselor to counselor.
Mr. Brown. It is a catch-22.
Chairman Shaw. What is the average stay in foster care in
Broward County? Have you implemented the 15-month mandate that
the Federal statute has, which I think Debby Sanderson said was
actually reduced to 12 months in the State of Florida.
Mr. Brown. You know, sir, the rewrite of 39 happened during
this past legislative session and October 1 we started the
implementation of it. But to be honest with you, our department
has not trained our staff properly. We are presently looking at
those children that have been in care over 12 months, but we
have only been in this change of chapter 39 a couple of months
and we have not impacted those children that have been in over
15 months at this time. I would think in a couple more months,
those cases will start being presented to the courts and
hopefully we will be moving some of those kids to permanency.
Chairman Shaw. How many caseworkers do you have now?
Mr. Brown. I have 171 caseworkers with the new
appropriation that I received this past legislative session in
the foster care arena. When I say foster care arena, we have
blended protective supervision and foster care. And then I have
63 positions in the protective investigative unit that the
Sheriff has alluded to taking over.
Chairman Shaw. Do you have any suggestions as to how
Federal law might be adjusted to help you out here?
Mr. Brown. Well, I think we have major problems with our
categoric funding and I think that that needs to be addressed,
because for example, this past week, the money has been
allotted to us for our out-of-home care budget and this year we
got $7,319,000. I said earlier that we had an $11 million
deficit, so we are out of money in that category and we have
very little flexibility of moving dollars around. So then we
have to go back to the central office and the Secretary then
has to go to the legislators to try and make the necessary
changes in the budget so that we can pay our bills. I think
that we need to be cognizant of the fact that we need more
flexibility in moving money around so that we can operate and
so we can develop the needed resources to protect children in
this county.
Chairman Shaw. Does Florida law have flexibility to address
the increased population that you are serving?
Mr. Brown. No, sir. As a District Administrator, we can
only adjust the budget by 10 percent. And if you are paying $2
million a month for services for children and you have a budget
of let us say $7 million, it does not give you much latitude.
Chairman Shaw. Does all your money come from the State?
Mr. Brown. Yes, sir.
Chairman Shaw. You get nothing locally?
Mr. Brown. We get public-private donations, we have a----
Chairman Shaw. I am talking about government money.
Mr. Brown. No, sir.
Chairman Shaw. All right, I want to thank all of you. Did
you have anything further you wanted to ask?
Well, let me ask Ms. O'Day a question regarding what we
have heard on both sides of the question of privatization. What
changes do you see in Federal law with regard to privatization?
I think somebody earlier, and I think it was an earlier panel,
mentioned that the training money on privatization is 50
percent whereas for government funding is 75 percent. And I
think that is something we should look to. Where are you seeing
privatization across this country, what programs should we be
looking at as things that are working? Where would you suggest
we might want to look to see how this is all working out?
Ms. O'Day. I do not think that we have arrived at a
solution where privatization is concerned. I think that these
are experiments that we are trying to deal with a tremendous
problem that requires increasing resources and we are trying to
do this within the resources that we can put to the problem.
We do need more flexibility from the Federal funding and we
need the Federal funding to incent, that is to provide
incentives for the system to move children out of care and have
good outcomes for them while they are in care. We need to be
tracking how children are doing, are they doing well in school,
are they reaching their developmental milestones, are they able
to leave foster care and become productive citizens? So we need
to be focusing more on outcomes and the Federal funding needs
to incent those outcomes. There is definitely a role for the
government in child welfare, we cannot turn the whole system
over to the private sector and expect the private sector to
solve all those problems themselves. But the government needs
to do monitoring, it needs to do data collecting, it needs to
do incenting and the private sector needs to be free to
innovate, to bring private resources on board to enhance the
system and to work for more flexible and creative solutions.
Chairman Shaw. But you do not have an exact one to point
to?
Ms. O'Day. I cannot give you a model where privatization
has been implemented and we can say that is it, it is perfect,
we want to try and do it just like that. No, the Child Welfare
League is working with looking at some of those early
initiatives. Some of the privatization projects are still too
new, the data are not in yet, we do not really know how they
have done. We do know that in Kansas, a lot of the private
agencies lost millions of dollars the first year out because
there were not effective cost estimates. We do not really
know--they have not really tracked how many children are
involved and exactly what it cost and how to reduce those
costs.
Chairman Shaw. I would just open up one further area that
no witness has really spoken to and I will just throw this out
to anyone who wants to catch the ball, or maybe it is not even
within anybody's experience, but is there anything we are doing
about these kids once they reach 18? Some of them, probably a
good percentage maybe have a year or two of high school left or
something of this nature. Are we addressing that problem? Can
somebody jump in and tell me what we are doing?
Ms. Loehndorf. If the child is 18 years of age and they are
still involved in school or in going with higher education,
they can stay in and we continue their cases and we continue
paying their board payments, or if they go into the independent
living program, we continue with that as long as they are in--
--
Chairman Shaw. So there are resources out there for those
that want to continue their education.
Ms. Loehndorf. Yes.
Ms. O'Day. If they can stay in the system that long. The
problem is that a lot of times there is turnover and with the
lack of appropriate care, they drop out of the system
themselves by running away. As Mr. Talenfeld has alluded to,
and I have worked with these kids at Covenant House, they solve
their own problem by saying you guys do not know how to take
care of me, I know how to take care of myself. And so they do
not get those benefits because they do absent themselves from
the system.
Chairman Shaw. Let me just throw one further thing out. We
heard this in a hearing in Washington and I told this story
already once this morning and I warned the people that I told
it to that they may be hearing it again, because it is
something that really had a profound effect on me.
The adopting agency of the State, this woman was testifying
before our Committee and told us the story, it went like this:
A little girl 3 years old being introduced to her new adopting
parents, stood there and looked at them for a moment and then
put her hands on her hips and looked them straight in the eye
and said, ``Where have you been?''
Now if that does not put a tingle through you, if that does
not tell you that our job is to get these kids into permanent
homes when we know that they are not going to be able to get
back to their family, and you see that they would be in danger
in getting back to their family--that is what our job is, and
do it as quickly as possible. It is a national disgrace, it is
not a Florida disgrace, not a Broward County disgrace, it is a
national disgrace that these kids have been allowed to stay in
foster care so long when there are potential parents out there
who are ready, willing and so anxious to embrace them, to have
a family themselves. This is something we cannot tolerate.
At the Federal level, we have taken down all the barriers
that we know of to adoption. It is now up to the States. In
fact, we have mandated it to the States as part of the funding,
to shorten this time. We have got to get these caseworkers in
and we have got to get all of these people in and retrained as
to exactly what it is that we are going to do and what we are
about. And that is what is so important.
You all are doing the Lord's work and God bless you. Thanks
for being with us today.
[Whereupon, at 12:23 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[Submissions for the record follow:]
Statement of Gordon Johnson, President and Chief Executive Officer,
Jane Addams Hull House Association, Chicago, Illinois
Addendum to the December 14, 1998 Child Protection Hearing in Fort
Lauderdale, Florida
News headlines are filled with the evidence that our
national child protective systems are in crisis.
Increasing numbers of children with more acute
needs are entering the system.
In far too many instances children suffer great
harm or death at the hands of the system designed to protect
them.
Biological families have multi-layered problems,
including rising instances of drug use and addiction, that are
difficult to address within short periods of time.
Public foster care systems are overwhelmed and
underfunded. Case workers carry case loads far in excess of
prudent professional standards. Foster parents cycle through
the system, burned out and fed up by a lack of responsiveness
and bureaucracy.
Children cycle through numerous foster placements,
often failing to receive needed treatment and services.
Many children, particularly older children, those
with special needs and large sibling groups, languish in foster
care for years with no permanent placement plans.
The shortage of foster homes leads workers to
split children apart from their brothers and sisters when they
enter the system, thus increasing the trauma these children are
already enduring.
Older youths who have been in the foster care
system for years are pushed out of that system when they reach
the cut off age. They are left to find their own way to an
independent lifestyle with little or no preparation or support.
In short, the public system that we, as a society, have put
in place to protect our children is failing them and their
families. These are not simple problems and there are no
simple, easy solutions. However, organizations like Chicago-
based Jane Addams Hull House Association in the private sector
have some of the solutions to some of the problems; solutions
that are effective and cost-efficient.
Jane Addams Hull House Association has developed two
programs in Illinois that are specifically designed to meet the
needs of two populations of children that are often not
addressed by typical public child welfare systems: older youths
and large sibling groups.
Older youths, who have typically been in the foster care
system for years, are often simply abandoned when they reach an
age where they are legally no longer in the care of the public
child welfare system. With no training, support or guidance
they have an inordinately difficult time making the transition
to independent, self-sufficient adults. Sadly, many simply do
not make it, ending up in jail or on the streets.
Sibling groups are often separated when they are taken in
to protective custody because the child protective systems in
this country have not made specific provisions to keep them
together. Separation from their brothers and sisters heightens
children's sense of loss and makes it more difficult for them
to adjust to new situations and people. It also makes working
with biological families more difficult and less effective.
Where reunification with their biological family is not
possible, these siblings, once separated, face the possibility
of remaining permanently separated either through adoptions by
different families or simply by languishing in separate foster
care placements for years.
Jane Addams Hull House Association designed two programs to
specifically meet the needs of these youth and children. New
Directions is an independent living program that provides a
supportive environment while teaching youth the skills they
need to become self-sufficient. Neighbor to Neighbor is a
foster care program specifically designed to keep sibling
groups together in their own communities and to either reunite
them with their biological parents or find permanent homes in
which the siblings remain together.
Jane Addams Hull House Association New Directions Independent Living
Program
The New Directions Program is designed to help troubled
teens learn to live independently and build responsible, self-
sufficient lives. The program serves approximately 200 youth
ages 17 to 21 who are currently in the custody of the Illinois
Department of Children and Family Services but are soon going
to ``age out'' of the system and be left to make their own way
in the world.
The Problem:
Many of the youths served by New Directions have
been in foster care or residential treatment facilities for
substantial periods of time.
These youths have typically bounced around a
series of placements, have little contact with their biological
families and few support systems to help them as they must make
the transition to being totally self-sufficient.
Left to make these transitions totally on their
own, many youths have trouble getting or keeping a job or
continuing their education, and others get into trouble with
the law.
The Solution:
New Directions provides a supportive environment and
individualized training for these teens as they make this major
life transition. Through an extensive network of educational
and job placement programs, medical and psychological services
and a professional staff available around the clock, New
Directions provides the hands-on support these youths need.
According to an individualized care plan, each
teen is placed in a furnished apartment near transportation to
work or school. Program participants must be in school or have
a job.
A case manager provides adult supervision and
instruction in such basic skills as grooming, shopping,
managing money, job interviewing and socializing.
The teens receive weekly stipends for food and
utility bills until they have adjusted to their new
environments and are financially secure.
The program also accommodates adolescents with
special medical needs or those who are pregnant or parenting.
The Results:
Most of the young men and women have made substantial
progress--returning to or graduating from high school,
completing their GED, attending college or pursuing careers.
Since 1991, more than 1,269 teen wards of the state have
benefited from New Directions, and its companion programs,
Pregnant and Parenting and the Hull House Association Advocacy
and Transitional Living Program.
84% of the New Directions graduates are still in school or
working, have received their degree, are living on their own,
and have not fallen back to dependence on state programs.
New Directions was recognized in a recent Price-Waterhouse
study as being among the top ten national programs meeting the
needs of this at-risk population.
Jane Addams Hull House Association Neighbor to Neighbor Program
Hull House Association has designed a program that
successfully keeps sibling groups together in stable foster
care homes within their own communities. The program currently
serves 100 children on the south side of Chicago.
The problem:
Despite a federal mandate to keep siblings
together, most of the 500,000 kids in foster care nationwide
are separated from their siblings, with no idea when or if they
will ever be reunited or even see each other again.
The pressures of more and more kids coming into
the child welfare system, mean that the emphasis is on simply
finding open slots for kids, not on finding placements that can
keep all of the kids in a sibling group together. Foster homes
are filled up piecemeal, based on open slots and preferences of
the care givers.
Being separated from their brothers and sisters is
incredibly traumatic for children. It increases the problems
they have in foster care. Many siblings are never reunited,
leaving life-long scars for these children.
The solution:
Hull House Association set out to design a program that
could effectively keep sibling groups together. DCFS provided
the funding for Neighbor to Neighbor. The program has several
basic features that make it effective at keeping kids together:
We hire foster parents as employees of Hull House
Association and give them the time and support they need to
deal with the special needs of sibling groups. We make them a
part of the therapeutic team making decisions about the
children in their care. As employees of Hull House, they
understand that the mandate is to provide care for entire
sibling groups.
We view foster care as a supportive system--not a
substitute system--for children and their families. We work
intensively with biological families, offering an array of
services and resources to provide the best possible
opportunities for families to be reunited. Where reunification
is not possible, we work towards healthy, stable permanent
placements that keep sibling groups intact.
We keep families in reserve to take entire sibling
groups. We do not fill up slots piecemeal.
We streamline care and make it more effective; for
instance therapists and case managers working with these
children and families can work with them together in one place,
rather than scheduling multiple visits in locations all over
the city and state.
The results:
Researchers from the University of Chicago recently
completed an independent evaluation of the program and the
results show that this program is very successful at:
Keeping brothers and sisters together in their
neighborhoods
Stabilizing their placements so they do not cycle
through an endless series of foster homes. The retention rate
for Neighbor to Neighbor foster care givers averages 90
percent. On average, only 9 percent of children are moved from
one foster home to another once they enter Neighbor to
Neighbor; even when this is necessary, the siblings remain
together.
Working successfully with foster and biological
families toward reunification; the reunification rate for this
program is more than double the average.
Streamlining care; making it more efficient and
effective
We believe this program could serve as national model for
keeping sibling groups together. We need to commit ourselves to
devising and funding foster care programs that truly work to
reduce the loss and trauma these children experience.
[Attachments are being retained in the Committee files.]
Hon. Julie Koenig
Circuit Court Judge
Seventeenth Judicial Circuit
Broward County Courthouse
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
December 15, 1998
Congressman E. Clay Shaw
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
Dear Congressman Shaw:
The current foster care system and the dependency court have been
the subjects of numerous
newspaper articles. In order to synopsize my conversation with
Steve Effman and Johnny Brown regarding improvement of the dependency/
foster care system, I would like to suggest the following:
I. Children spend approximately 42 months in foster care both
statewide and in Broward County. If we could reduce the time to 12
months (according to the statutory guidelines), we could reduce our
foster care population by 70%. We can do that by doing as follows:
a. All foster care status hearings should be heard by General
Masters (who should be experienced dependency attorneys).
b. Each dependency case which involves a child of 4 years or
younger should have a status hearing every 2 months in order to
determine if the childs parents are remediating the conditions which
caused the dependency, and if the childs special needs are being met.
If no significant remediation is made by the parent(s) after 6 months,
a termination of parental rights petition should be filed and served
within 10 days.
c. Each dependency case with a child over 4 years should have a
status review every 3 months. If no significant remediation is made by
the parent(s) within 9 months, a TPR petition must be filed and served
within 10 days.
d. A sufficient number of General Masters who are experienced
dependency attorneys must be hired to have a status hearing of 15-30
minutes every 2-3 months on every foster care case.
e. Case managers who work for the dependency divisions must be
hired to oversee the cases and determine if judicial orders are carried
out. Case managers will also bring C&F case
worker failure to the immediate attention of GM / Judge and perform
on site status investigations (one Case Manager per Judicial Officer).
f. Termination of Parental Rights trials must be scheduled as soon
as the TPR petitions are drafted and must be put on every civil judges
docket until the emergency situation currently existing is remedied.
All TPR trials are to be expedited on judicial dockets.
g. All dependency/foster care cases must be identified by the clerk
and case managed by the GM/Judge in order that the Judges know at all
times which cases are currently pending.
II. Children in foster care receive no financial support from their
parents. The State pays their medical, board etc. without requiring the
parents to pay child support.
a. Child support General Masters should be available at every
detention and status hearing to set child support for both parents, to
determine paternity if the child is born out of wedlock, and to enforce
child support. A DOR attorney must represent the State at this hearing.
b. Children of divorce or paternity cases receive support from the
absent parent or by law the absent parent is incarcerated for failure
to pay child support if said parent has the financial ability to pay.
Incarceration is often the ultimate persuasion for non-supporting
parents to pay. I suggest that in dependency cases, the parents will
either pay(and remediate the conditions which caused the dependency) or
fail to pay and be jailed. Parents who have no motivation to remediate
and pay will surrender their parental rights rather than be jailed,
thus freeing children from the system.
c. More money from dependency child support increases services to
children. If both parents each earned $650 per month the board rate of
$300 per month could be assessed according to child support guidelines.
This would bring approximately $36 million dollars into C&F. The
legislature has established a Foster Care Child Support Trust fund; for
the first nine months of the 1995-96 fiscal year $100,000 was
collected.
d. Currently the Department of Revenue does not establish or
enforce child support for
dependent children in foster care.
III. Children in foster care receive little community support.
a. Establish a high profile, active, hardworking board who knows
how to publicize the needs of foster care children and make foster care
children more visible in a positive way in the same way cancer or the
disease of the month is supported. This board would need to be educated
about foster children in order that they in turn educate the public
about the needs and availability of children for fostering and
adoption. We need a high profile board to market these children to the
public. (For example: every soccer, T-ball, basketball, baseball
community team could sponsor a foster child, but we need community
leaders to assist this process.)
b. This Board should also act as in a quasi supervisory role
regarding C&F and how they meet the needs of foster children. The board
will have contacts with professionals in the community who may provide
pro bono services.
IV. Foster parents are skewed demographically to low income
families. The mean statewide foster family income is approximately $25,
000. Children who are adopted by their foster parents or out of foster
care receive State paid financial stipends until the child reaches his
18th birthday.
The State of Florida currently supports all foster children (except
my daughter) who have been adopted.
a. Recruit a more financially heterogeneous population of foster
parents.
b. Immediately go to every public school at the next teachers
workday to recruit foster parents.
1. Teachers generally love children, but most teachers don't
understand how foster care/adoption works.
2. Teachers have expertise in child training; many teachers have
room in their homes and their hearts for a child.
3. Teachers often have many resources not available in the general
population.
4. Very few foster children ever complete high school in Broward
County.
c. Recruit psychiatric social workers, nurses, doctors, and health
care professionals for special needs children.
V. Adoption of children from foster care needs to be marketed to
the general public in a positive and professional manner.
a. Broward County parents are going to Russia, China, Yugoslavia
and Central and South America to adopt at great expense because they
cant find a U.S. child to adopt. Adopting a child from overseas
frequently costs $25,000.
b. Thousands of children in foster care need to be adopted.
c. Children in foster care for the 44 months average have bonded
with their foster parents or are virtually unadoptable because of
behavior problems.
d. If we can meet the needs of a dependent child and free him for
adoption in 6-12 months, we will have to find immediate adoptive
placements. We need these new adoptive parents to be able to support
the adoptive child financially as opposed to the State paying the
childs support until he is 18. We need to involve private adoption
attorneys with foster children in order to garner more adoptive
parents.
This outline is a product of many years as a teacher, dependency
attorney, child support enforcement attorney, and a family law Judge as
well as all the doctoral coursework for an Ed. D in administration. If
we utilize strong remedies, we need strong remediators. I suggest that
C&F review the list of their best workers and attorneys over the past
15 years who may have quit in desperation and invite them to assist in
the change of the system.
Sincerely,
JK/ps
cc: Chief Judge Dale Ross
Court Administrator Carol Lee Ortman
District X Administrator Johnny Brown
Senator Walter Skip Campbell
Representative Eleanor Sobel
Representative John Rayson
Representative Steve Effman
Representative Kenneth Gottlieb
Representative Debbie Sanderson
-