[House Hearing, 106 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
CHILD PROTECTION ISSUES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES
of the
COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 23, 2000
__________
Serial 106-63
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Ways and Means
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
66-736 WASHINGTON : 2000
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 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
WES WATKINS, Oklahoma LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
J.D. HAYWORTH, Arizona
JERRY WELLER, Illinois
KENNY HULSHOF, Missouri
SCOTT McINNIS, Colorado
RON LEWIS, Kentucky
MARK FOLEY, Florida
A.L. Singleton, Chief of Staff
Janice Mays, Minority Chief Counsel
______
Subcommittee on Human Resources
NANCY L. JOHNSON, Connecticut, Chairman
PHILIP S. ENGLISH, Pennsylvania BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland
WES WATKINS, Oklahoma FORTNEY PETE STARK, California
RON LEWIS, Kentucky ROBERT T. MATSUI, California
MARK FOLEY, Florida WILLIAM J. COYNE, Pennsylvania
SCOTT McINNIS, Colorado WILLIAM J. JEFFERSON, Louisiana
JIM McCRERY, Louisiana
DAVE CAMP, Michigan
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
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unintentional errors or omissions. Such occurrences are inherent in the
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C O N T E N T S
__________
Page
Advisory of March 16, 2000, announcing the hearing............... 2
WITNESSES
American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law, Mark
Hardin......................................................... 31
American Public Human Services Association, and Iowa Department
of Human Services, Mary Nelson................................. 66
Child Care Association of Illinois, Ronald H. Moorman............ 38
Children and Family Futures, Nancy K. Young...................... 54
Conference of State Court Administrators, and Connecticut Supreme
Court, Hon. Robert C. Leuba.................................... 23
Connecticut Department of Children and Families, Hon. Kristine D.
Ragaglia, and Connecticut Department of Mental Health and
Addiction Services, Thomas A. Kirk, Jr......................... 47
DeWine, Hon. Mike, a United States Senator from the State of Ohio 10
National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, and
Hamilton County Juvenile Court, Hon. David E. Grossmann........ 17
National Court Appointed Special Advocate Association, Christine
DeLay.......................................................... 35
Pryce, Hon. Deborah, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Ohio........................................................ 6
Rockefeller, Hon. John D., IV, a United States Senator from the
State of West Virginia......................................... 11
Second Genesis, Inc., Gale Saler................................. 58
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Child Welfare League of America, statement....................... 81
National Child Abuse Defense and Resource Center, Roanoke, VA,
Barbara Bryan, statement....................................... 82
Voice for Adoption, statement.................................... 83
CHILD PROTECTION ISSUES
----------
THURSDAY, MARCH 23, 2000
House of Representatives,
Committee on Ways and Means,
Subcommittee on Human Resources,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:00 p.m., in
room B-318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Nancy L.
Johnson (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
March 16, 2000
No. HR-19
Johnson Announces Hearing on Child Protection Issues
Congresswoman Nancy L. Johnson (R-CT), Chairman, Subcommittee on
Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means, today announced
that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing on child protection issues
related to the training needs of court personnel and the extent of
substance abuse in child protection. The hearing will take place on
Thursday, March 23, 2000, in room B-318 Rayburn House Office Building,
beginning at 1:00 p.m.
Oral testimony at this hearing will be from invited witnesses only.
Witnesses will include Members of Congress, representatives of juvenile
and family court judges, court administrators, court appointed special
advocates, and substance abuse and child protection experts. However,
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 Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 P.L. 105-89)
substantially changed the nation's child protection program. The new
law requires States to initiate proceedings to terminate parental
rights for children who have been in foster care for 15 of the most
recent 22 months, and states that efforts to preserve or reunify a
family are not required if the court finds that a parent had subjected
the child to ``aggravated circumstances'' such as abandonment, torture,
chronic abuse, or sexual abuse. These reforms focus attention on the
need for judges and other court personnel to be trained in child and
family development to ensure adequate implementation of the new law.
In addition to the need for training of court personnel,
researchers have identified substance abuse as a leading factor in many
cases of children placed into foster care. There is some concern that
treatment for substance abuse is not readily available for many parents
with children in the custody of the State. Recovery from drug addiction
can take years and parental relapses can result in the re-abuse of
children and the re-entry of children into foster care.
In announcing the hearing, Chairman Johnson stated: ``Every child
deserves a safe and loving home. That's why it's important to have well
trained and qualified judges make crucial decisions about children
involved in abuse and neglect proceedings. That's also why I'm
interested in the impact of parental substance abuse on the placement
of children into foster care. It is time to identify promising
approaches to help parents overcome substance abuse problems without
requiring their children to spend indefinite periods of time in foster
care.''
FOCUS OF THE HEARING:
The hearing will focus on two issues. First, the Subcommittee will
review the quality and availability of training for judges, court
personnel, volunteers who participate in court-appointed special
advocate programs, and attorneys who represent the children and the
parents of children in abuse and neglect proceedings. Second, the
Subcommittee will discuss the extent of substance abuse among families
involved with the child protection system, the challenge this poses for
moving children into permanent living arrangements within the timelines
required by the Adoption and Safe Families Act, and the effectiveness
of drug treatment interventions.
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 or MS Word format, with their name, address,
and hearing date noted on a label, by the close of business, Thursday,
April 6, 2000, 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. If those filing written statements
wish to have their statements distributed to the press and interested
public at the hearing, they may deliver 200 additional copies for this
purpose to the Subcommittee on Human Resources office, room B-317
Rayburn House Office Building, by close of business the day before the
hearing.
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2. Copies of whole documents submitted as exhibit material will not
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3. A witness appearing at a public hearing, or submitting a
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The above restrictions and limitations apply only to material being
submitted for printing. Statements and exhibits or supplementary
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Note: All Committee advisories and news releases are available on
the World Wide Web at ``http://waysandmeans.house.gov.''
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
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materials in alternative formats) may be directed to the Committee as
noted above.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. The hearing will come to
order. My colleague and ranking member, Ben Cardin, is on his
way, but I am going to go ahead and start with my opening
statement so we will be able to proceed promptly.
Today we do continue our oversight of the Nation's child
protection system. In the past, we have examined a wide variety
of child protection issues, and we have originated important
legislation like the Foster Care Independence Act, the Adoption
and Safe Families Act, and the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act.
Our goals today are more modest. We want to examine two
issues that we believe are important in improving our Nation's
child protective programs. First, when Congress created the
current structure of Federal support for child protection by
enacting Public Law 96-272 in 1980, it wisely included open-
ended funding at 75 percent Federal match for the training of
caseworkers, administrators, and others employed by State and
local child protection agencies. For some reason, however,
court personnel were not included in the 75 percent funding.
Thus, many of the most vital members of the team of people
working on child protection cases cannot receive training with
Federal funds. Judges, guardians ad litem, court-appointed
special advocates, or CASAs, and other court personnel play a
central role in child protection. Clearly, training is a must
for these central participants in one of the most important
phases of our child protection process.
Last year, our subcommittee originated and the House passed
a simple change in the Title IV-E statute that made court
personnel eligible for the Federal match. The cost of this
provision was $55 million over 5 years. The provision now
resides over in the Senate. I hope today's hearing will provide
additional motivation for the Senate to take action on this
important legislation and I encourage all of our witnesses and
those in attendance to urge the Senate to act on this
provision.
I welcome my esteemed friend and colleague, Congresswoman
Deborah Pryce of Ohio, who will provide strong support for this
training and, in fact, whose experience and wisdom led to the
introduction of the bill that the provision in our earlier
legislation reflects.
I would also like to extend a very warm welcome to our
noted colleague from the Senate, Senator Mike DeWine, who was
elected to Congress the same year I was but has gone on to
bigger and better things, so to speak. [Laughter.]
Senator DeWine. Different.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. He has worked closely with
Congresswoman Pryce on this issue, and he will be our carrier,
along with his colleagues interested, in the Senate. So it is a
pleasure to have you both here and a very great pleasure to
welcome Senator Rockefeller as well, with whom I have worked on
many issues of importance to children.
I also want to recognize Ms. Christine DeLay of Texas, who
has relatives in high places and has come to testify today.
Christine and Tom have a long history of involvement in child
protection issues as foster parents, but Christine as a CASA
herself. And I am very pleased that she is here today to
testify on her experience and on behalf of their national
organization.
Our second panel will address another important child
protection issue. Based on testimony from Dr. Nancy Young that
we will hear later, it seems nearly certain that a minimum of
50 percent of child protection cases involve a parent with an
alcohol or drug abuse problem, and I would have to say, since I
was first elected in 1983, the child service agencies in my
district, even in the rural areas, right across the board,
rural and urban, would tell me that 80 percent of their family
cases involve some kind of substance abuse. So the 50 percent I
consider to be a very conservative estimate.
Historically, there has been little coordination between
State agencies that fund drug treatment programs and State
child protection agencies. Our second panel will address both
the frequency of drug addiction among child protection cases
and the problems encountered in finding drug treatment programs
for these parents. Witnesses will focus attention on recent
attempts to do the impossible: to coordinate government
agencies, in this case, the child protection agency and the
drug treatment agency, at the State level. And I am very
pleased to say that our own Kristine Ragaglia, the Commissioner
of Child and Family Services in Connecticut, will describe a
model that she has developed that is a great step in the right
direction of effective services for families with substance
abuse problems.
But I would also say that really as a member out there just
asking at Head Start programs and agencies and across the
board, are there enough programs, the answer is almost always
yes. Are people getting to them? The answer is almost always
no.
So we have planned this hearing for a long time. I consider
this an extremely important subject, and I am very pleased to
have knowledgeable colleagues to lead us off.
[The opening statement of Mr. Cardin follows:]
Statement of Hon. Benjamin Cardin, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Maryland
Madam Chairman, I commend you for holding this hearing on
two issues that have a direct impact on the safety and well-
being of millions of abused children--the importance of the
courts in making critical placement decisions and the
devastating connection between substance abuse and child abuse.
These two issues have always been important, but they have
become even more so with the passage the bipartisan Adoption
and Safe Families Act (ASFA) in 1997.
This measure rightly ensures that a child's need for
protection and permanency is the primary focus when any
placement decision is made. However, in pursuing this worthy
goal, the new law places additional burdens on the child
welfare courts, and it accelerates the time-frame for the
provision of services to parents with substance abuse problems.
Consider for a moment one of the central requirements of
the Adoption and Safe Families Act: States must begin to
initiate court proceedings for the termination of parental
rights for children who have been in foster care for 15 months
unless certain exceptions apply. This mandate will obviously
increase the number of cases going through family courts, which
are sometimes already overcrowded. Therefore, without adequate
resources for the courts, the goals of the Federal law to
provide safe and stable homes for children will be undermined.
Under the leadership of the Chairwoman Johnson, this
Subcommittee has begun to respond to the challenges now
confronting the courts. The Fathers Count Act, which passed the
House at the end of last year, includes a provision to provide
Federal funds for the training of court personnel involved in
child abuse and neglect cases.
These resources will help the courts understand and comply
with the requirements imposed by ASFA, as well as appreciate
more general issues regarding child development.
In addition to this provision, I hope our Subcommittee will
consider adopting other changes proposed by Senators Dewine and
Rockefeller to assist our Nation's family courts in making
timely and wise placement decisions for at-risk children.
The same 15-month requirement in ASFA now challenging our
courts also dramatically shortens the time a parent has to turn
their life around to regain the custody of their children. If
we believe such a time limit is necessary for the long-term
well-being of children, we must then also ensure that parents
have every opportunity to meet this expedited time line.
In short, this means providing them with adequate access to
substance abusetreatment.
Regrettably, child welfare workers and judges are not
always sufficiently trained in how to detect and cope with
substance abuse problems. And of even greater concern, when
accurate assessments are made, there is often a lack of
available treatment.
In fact, HHS reports that 63 percent of mothers with drug
problems do not receive any substance abuse treatment within a
year. Furthermore, only 10 percent of child welfare agencies
can find substance treatment programs for their clients within
30 days, according to the Child Welfare League of America.
I therefore hope this Subcommittee will consider expanding
substance abuse screening, prevention and treatment services
for families in the child welfare system. Considering that drug
and alcohol problems are a contributing factor to between half
and three-fourths of all child welfare cases, such an effort
may actually save money as it saves children and families.
Thank you.
Chairmen Johnson of Connecticut. With that, I will
recognize Congresswoman Pryce.
STATEMENT OF HON. DEBORAH PRYCE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF OHIO
Ms. Pryce. Well, thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. It
is always an honor and a privilege to work with you and your
staff on any given issue, and it is great to be here with you
today.
I come wearing several different hats. I am a former
prosecutor and judge, a Member of Congress whose district
includes the Dave Thomas Center for Adoption Law at Capital
University, my alma mater, and I am also an adoptive parent. My
experience wearing these different hats has formed my interest
and perspective on adoption and child protection issues.
There is nothing sadder to me than the thought of a child
who has been abused or neglected, and nothing happier than the
thought of a child finding the warmth and love of a permanent
adoptive family. Unfortunately, the period of time between
these two points during which a child's case is pending before
the courts can be a period of interminable delays, bureaucratic
snags, and less than thorough and accurate review of a child's
case, all of which can have lasting negative effects on the
child.
Healing for abused and neglected children can only begin
when they are in a safe and permanent environment, but all too
often these children languish in the foster care system in a
state of emotional limbo.
By and large, I know that the judges, court officials, and
social workers involved in our Nation's abuse and neglect
courts are extremely dedicated individuals who strive to do
their best for the children. However, there is widespread
recognition that the system is being stretched far beyond
capacity. We all need to work together to examine ways to do
this better.
Without a doubt, one of the crowning achievements of the
last Congress was the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997,
and I was very proud to cosponsor that. And I don't need to
tell this committee what was in it, so I won't. But while the
act's accelerated timelines are essential to the achievement of
its important purposes, they have resulted in increased
pressure on our Nation's already overburdened abuse and neglect
courts.
Having examined and discussed this issue with many of my
colleagues at the adoption center and former colleagues in the
judicial system, it is clear that the laudable goals have
resulted in additional strain on the courts and court
personnel. For example, according to the National Center for
Juvenile Justice, between 1991 and 1997, in my own home
district of Franklin County, Ohio, 38 percent of children who
are awaiting permanent adoption because parental rights have
been severed have been in the system over 4 years or more, and
43 percent have been waiting between 2 to 4 years. Even in
Hamilton County, Ohio, which is widely regarded as having one
of the best family and dependency court systems, 33 percent of
these children have been awaiting permanent placement 4 or more
years.
Nationally, according to the Department of Health and Human
Services, children who are adopted from foster care leave the
system between 3.5 and 5.5 years after they enter it.
The problem persists because of the court backlogs and
caseloads. According to the American Bar Association, a
caseload of 40 to 50 active cases for a full-time staff
attorney for a child welfare agency is reasonable--40 to 50
cases. However, attorneys, for example, in the Cook County,
Illinois, Public Defender's Office have an average of 650
juvenile dependency cases at any given time, while the State's
attorneys each have about 1,000 cases on average.
In Santa Clara County, California, it is reported that 13
attorneys in the child welfare agency handle 4,000 child
maltreatment cases at any given time. These huge caseloads
result in hearings that may not be substantive and may be
frequently delayed or continued, ultimately contributing to the
courts' inability to meet our statutory deadlines.
The inability to deal effectively with this overload of
cases is due in large part to inadequate resources and
inadequate training in family law. While there are several
issues that contribute to the delays inherent in our family
court system today, I believe there are two areas that are
particularly troublesome and on which further study of the
issue should focus.
First, there is a nationwide lack of computerized case-
tracking systems. Such systems are necessary for the efficient
identification and elimination of existing case backlogs,
moving abuse and neglect caseloads forward in a timely manner,
and helping to place children into safe and stable families.
For example, in California it is reported that the State lacks
statewide standards for information systems, and although there
are information systems in place, none are well designed to
track dependency cases.
Across the country, in North Carolina, many juvenile courts
completely lack automated systems. Fewer than half of the
juvenile court clerks in 40 North Carolina counties surveyed
reported using a computer for any purpose, and none reported
using any court management software. With an effective,
automated case-tracking system, courts could more reliably
follow the progress of individual cases and meet their
deadlines.
Second, there is often inefficient training of court
personnel in issues of family law. According to the Department
of Health and Human Services and the National Center for
Juvenile Justice, judges, court personnel, agency attorneys,
guardians ad litem, volunteers who participate in CASA
programs, and attorneys who represent children and the parents
of children often lack training specific to child welfare law,
as well as to other family-related topics, such as child
development and the dynamics of child maltreatment.
Further, there is often a lack of attorney training in the
crossover non-legal social service issues inherent in
maltreatment cases. This problem is increased by the frequent
turnover of judges and attorneys in these courts, resulting in
the constant influx of personnel untrained in these important
family law areas. Better training for judges, attorneys, and
other court personnel in these basic issues would translate
into more substantive and productive hearings, which in turn
would lead to more rapid disposition of these cases.
Thank you for the time you have given me today, Madam
Chairwoman, and, Mr. Cardin, thank you. I really appreciate
your efforts to help the courts help these children move into
safe and loving arms.
[The prepared statement follows:]
Statement of Hon. Deborah Pryce, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Ohio
Thank you madam Chairwoman, and thank you to the members of
the Subcommittee for giving me this opportunity to participate
in today's hearing to talk to you about ways Congress can help
children by improving the abuse and neglect court system.
Today, I come to you wearing several different hats: I am a
former prosecutor and judge, a member of Congress whose
district includes the Dave Thomas Center for Adoption Law at
Capital University Law School, on whose Board of Advisors I
serve, and an adoptive parent. My experience wearing these
different hats has formed my interest and perspective on
adoption and child protection issues.
There is nothing sadder to me than the thought of a child
who has been abused or neglected, and nothing happier to me
than the thought of such a child finding the warmth and love of
a permanent adoptive family. Unfortunately, the period of time
between these two points, during which a child's case is
pending before the courts, can be a period of interminable
delays, bureaucratic snags, and a less than thorough and
accurate review of the child's case--all of which can have
lasting negative effects on the child. Healing for abused and
neglected children can only begin when they are in a safe and
permanent environment--but all to often these children languish
in the foster care system in a state of emotional limbo.
By and large, I know that the judges, court officials, and
social workers involved in our nation's abuse and neglect
courts are extremely dedicated individuals who strive to do
their best for the children who they are seeking to help.
However, there is widespread recognition that the system is
being stretched beyond capacity. We all need to work together
to examine ways to do better.
Without a doubt, one of the crowning achievements of the
last Congress was the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997,
which was introduced by Representative Camp, a distinguished
member of this subcommittee. I was a proud cosponsor of this
Act.
Briefly, this Act seeks to ensure that children, through no
fault of their own, do not linger in child welfare
bureaucracies, being deprived of the loving and nurturing
adoption which they need. The Act requires expedited review of
child welfare cases, and promotes stability and permanence for
abused and neglected children by requiring timely decision-
making in proceedings to determine whether children can safely
return to their families or whether they should be moved into
safe and stable adoptive homes. While the Act's accelerated
timelines are essential to the achievement of its important
purposes, they have resulted in increased pressure on the
nation's already overburdened abuse and neglect courts.
Having examined and discussed this issue with my colleagues
on the Dave Thomas Center for Adoption Law Board of Advisors,
as well as with my friends and Ohio Judges David Grossman and
Kay Lias, it is clear to me that the laudable goals of the
Adoption and Safe Families Act have resulted in additional
strain on the courts and court personnel. For example,
according to the National Center for Juvenile Justice, between
1991 -1997, in my home district of Franklin County, Ohio, 38%
of children who are awaiting permanent adoption because
parental rights have been severed have been in the system over
4 or more years. And 43% have been waiting between 2 to 4
years. Even in Hamilton County, Ohio, which is widely regarded
as having one of the best family and dependency court systems,
33% of these children have been awaiting permanent placement 4
or more years. And nationally, according to the Department of
Health and Human Services, children who are adopted from foster
care leave the system between 3.5 and 5.5 years after they
enter. Although the Adoption and Safe Families Act has
addressed this to some extent, the problem persists.
The problem persists because of court backlogs and
caseloads. According to the American Bar Association, a
caseload of 40 to 50 active cases for a full-time staff
attorney for a child welfare agency is reasonable. However,
attorneys in the Cook County, Illinois, Public Defender's
Office have an average of 650 juvenile dependency cases at any
given time, while the state's attorney's each have about 1,000
such cases on average. In Santa Clara County, California, it is
reported that 13 attorneys in the child welfare agency handle
4,000 child maltreatment cases at any given time. These large
caseloads result in hearings that may not be substantive and
may be frequently delayed or continued, ultimately contributing
to the courts' inability to meet statutory deadlines.
The inability to deal effectively with this overload of
cases is due in large part to inadequate resources and
inadequate training in family law. While there are several
issues that contribute to the delays inherent in our family
court system today, I believe these are the two areas that are
particularly troublesome, and on which future study of the
issue should focus.
First, there is a nationwide lack of computerized case-
tracking systems. Such systems are necessary for the efficient
identification and elimination of existing case backlogs,
moving abuse and neglect caseloads forward in a timely matter,
and helping to place children into safe and stable families.
For example, in California it is reported that the state lacks
statewide standards for information systems. Although there are
information systems in place, none are well designed to track
dependency cases. Across the country, in North Carolina, many
juvenile courts completely lack automated systems. Fewer than
half of the juvenile court clerks in 40 North Carolina counties
surveyed reported using a computer for any purpose, and none
reported using any court management software. With an
effective, automated case-tracking system, courts could more
reliably follow the progress of individual cases through the
system and ensure that deadlines for permanency decisions are
met.
Second, there is often insufficient training of court
personnel in issues of family law. According to the Department
of Health and Human Services and the National Center for
Juvenile Justice, judges, court personnel, agency attorneys,
guardians ad litem, volunteers who participate in court-
appointed special advocate (CASA) programs, and attorneys who
represent children and the parents of children in abuse and
neglect proceedings often lack training specific to child
welfare law, as well as to other family-related topics, such as
child development and the dynamics of child maltreatment.
Further, there is often a lack of attorney training in the
crossover non-legal social service issues inherent in child
maltreatment cases. This problem is increased by the frequent
turnover of judges and attorneys in these courts, resulting in
the consistent influx of personnel untrained in these important
family law areas. Better training for judges, attorneys, and
other court personnel in these basic issues would translate
into more substantive and productive hearings, which in turn
would lead to more rapid disposition of cases.
I look forward to working with you, Madame Chairwoman, and
the other members of the Subcommittee, to address these and
other areas so that we can help our courts help our children
move into safe and loving arms.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Thank you very much for
your work with us last year on this provision and your
continued interest in it and your own experience in this area.
Senator DeWine?
STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE DEWINE, A UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF OHIO
Senator DeWine. Madam Chairwoman, thank you very much for
holding this hearing. Congressman Cardin, thank you. You both
have been real leaders in this whole area. Your committee has
taken on an awesome responsibility. You have had a very
vigorous hearing schedule, and I just want to congratulate you
for that.
You were involved, as were all three members of this panel,
in 1997 in the passage of really a landmark bill, the Adoption
and Safe Families Act. That is a bill I think we all can be
very proud of. It is a bill that attempted to change the
culture in this country. I am beginning to see its effects in
Ohio, and I think we are beginning to see its effects across
the country.
We tried in that bill, as I said, to change the culture. We
tried to make it very clear that the safety of the child must
always be paramount in any of these decisions that are made at
the local level. And we also tried in that bill to speed up the
process so that, as Congresswoman Pryce said, young children in
foster care would not languish in foster care, that they would
move on, that they would move through the system, if they
couldn't go back to their natural parents, that they would be
eligible for adoption so that they could be adopted at a
reasonable age so that they could get on with their life and
that they would have a shot at life as other children have, and
they would have the opportunity to have what every child should
have, and that is, parents who love that child and who will
care for that child and raise that child.
We did that, and we knew, though, at the time that we had
other work to do. And we knew that it was not going to be easy
for the local jurisdictions to get this job done. Madam
Chairman, you have a bill which you have sent to the Senate
which is a very good bill, and we are going to do what we can
to move it over there.
I have another bill that I have introduced, along with
Senator Rockefeller, which aims to do many of the same things,
and that is, to complete the work that we began several years
ago. We knew at the time that courts were overburdened. We knew
that the timelines that we set for them were going to be very
difficult for them to achieve. We also knew from the testimony
we received and from our own checking in our home States that
many times these courts did not have really the technical help
to keep their dockets moving and to get these cases in front of
them.
And, frankly, some of the tragedies that we have read about
in the paper recently, as this committee is so very familiar
with, occurred because judges, good-faith judges, people who
were trying to do their job, didn't have information in front
of them, didn't have the proper information in front of them.
What the different bills that Senator Rockefeller and I
have introduced, the bill that you have referenced, what they
will do is to give some assistance to the local courts, either
in the form of training for judges, which is very, very
important, or in the need of technical assistance.
I look at this hearing today as a very important hearing,
and I look at the different pieces of legislation that have
been introduced as very important. And I look at them as being
really a follow-up to the work that we began together in 1997.
We knew it was not going to be easy. We knew we had a long ways
to go. We have made progress, but we have a lot further to go.
And so I just thank you for having this hearing today on a
topic that I consider just to be paramount to the future of our
families and the future of our children.
I do have a written statement. I will submit it for the
record. Thank you very much.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Thank you very much,
Senator DeWine.
Senator Rockefeller?
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, A UNITED STATES
SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA
Senator Rockefeller. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I love
listening to Mike DeWine talk because he knows whereof he talks
so well. I think you were, what, 29 when you started out?
[Laughter].
Senator DeWine. Twenty-five. Back a long time ago.
Senator Rockefeller. Well, be that as it may, that is
experience plus more wisdom. The point is he was in the
trenches, and it is just something that I enormously admire.
And he and I just worked together on a lot of things, and John
Chafee, when he was living, would do these same things. We are
both worried about the 500,000 foster care kids. Three thousand
of those are in my State. That is not very large, but as far as
I am concerned, it is very large. And Senator DeWine has talked
about the 1997 act and the need to put children's health and
permanency, homes, et cetera, as the first priority of public
policy, and Mike DeWine is my expert on the role of the courts.
I say this, so I won't even get into that.
I want to mention one other thing, though, and that is what
you referred to, Madam Chairwoman, and that is the role of
alcohol and drug abuse which I think is ferocious. What did we
hear yesterday that we in America consume 90 percent of what
Colombia produces. You know, it is just staggering. Then you
try to put that down to people who are battered and lost in
society, and it is a terrible thing.
So the problem is huge. We know that 67 percent of parents
in the child welfare system have problems with alcohol and
drugs, but only one-third get help. And my math tells me that
means that two-thirds don't get help. That is a prescription
for disaster. So that is why I am working with Senator DeWine,
Senator Snowe, Senator Dodd, and many others in legislation
which is instantly becoming easier to pass, I think, in both
the House and the Senate as a sense of the next generation
increases. It has been quite interesting to watch that over the
last several years, and I credit John Chafee and Mike DeWine
with a lot of that.
So I think we need a new approach. I think we need a new
system that can address the very special concerns of this very
fragile population, that is, parents with alcohol problems, and
as a result of that they neglect their children. Their children
get into trouble. The prevention program that serves a single
male with drug problems is not going to work for a mother and a
child, probably, so we have to differentiate and be
sophisticated in what we do.
I think we have to link child protection workers to these
families in ways which we have not done up until this point
specifically related to alcohol and drug treatment. And forging
these kinds of relationships is very easy to talk about. It
takes an awfully long time to do. You know, people are slow to
change, and we all know that.
So we are introducing next week a bill which costs a lot of
money, and that will be the first reaction to it, $1.9 billion
over 5 years, $200 million the first year, ending up with $550
million, I think, in the fifth year, and it is specifically to
combat drug and alcohol abuse in families in child welfare.
Yes, it is a large sum, but it is a huge problem. And the cost
of doing nothing is, I think, apparent to all of us. Kids are
just going to be in foster care for much longer.
So we try to promote innovative approaches for both parents
and for children. We will cover screening. We will cover
assessment to help prevention. We will fund outreach. We will
fund retention programs. Actually, I don't know if
``recidivism'' is the right word, Mike, on this, but it is a
pretty good track record on this. You know, one-third come out
of it well, one-third come out of it a little less easily but
come out of it, and one-third don't and probably end up in
horrible trouble. But the point is that two-thirds are helped.
We need to support outpatient services, residential treatment,
after-care, all of these things.
So let me just conclude, Madam Chairman and Congressman
Cardin, by saying that I really have two goals: one is for
families to have successful treatment, and, secondly, that kids
can return to a safe home. I think those are pretty
fundamental.
I think we have to offer treatment first. If it doesn't
work, then we can move towards finding a new safe, permanent
home for that child. Under the Adoption and Safe Families Act,
courts could not move forward on adoption until appropriate
services have been provided to a family. That is the law. Our
bill, therefore, solves that problem. We have a very strict
accountability part in there, and I think that is very
important to say. Congress is required to get reports on how
the program is progressing, and that happens on an annual
basis, and I hope that we can work together.
[The prepared statement follows:]
Statement of Hon. John D. Rockefeller IV, a United States Senator from
the State of West Virginia
Congresswoman Johnson, Congressman Cardin, thank you for
welcoming me, and my good friend, Mike DeWine today. Your
leadership in holding an oversight hearing on child welfare and
the role of the courts, as well as the importance of substance
abuse is crucial.
We are here because we care deeply about the vulnerable
children in our child welfare system, especially the 500,000
children in foster care--3000 of those are West Virginia
children.
In 1997, together we passed the Adoption and Safe Families
Act. It was a historic law that said a child's health and
safety must be paramount. It clearly stated that every child
deserves a safe, permanent home and the law imposed strict
deadlines to ensure that happens, and children don't get
``lost'' in the foster care system.
These are crucial goals, but if we really want states to
achieve them, we must build on the foundation of the Adoption
Act.
In order to move a child into a safe, permanent home, often
through adoption, the courts are vital. A judge approves when a
child is removed. A judge decides when a child returns home, or
when adoption is best for a child. Critical decisions that
change a child's life.
Senator DeWine is ``my expert'' on the role of the courts.
He's an experienced prosecutor and tireless advocate so I am
proud to work with him on the issue of improving our courts. I
agree with his remarks, but don't think I need to echo them
again. Let me merely say thank you for previously voting for a
provision to train judges and court personnel. Let's work
together find the funding required to enact this vital
legislation this year
Therefore, I want to talk about the next issue on the
Subcommittee's agenda--the role of alcohol and drug abuse among
families in the child protection system.
Let's begin the discussion about the enormous program of
alcohol and drug abuse for families within the child welfare
system. Statistics vary, but all suggest that alcohol and drug
abuse is a major factor aggravating child abuse and neglect.
One survey estimates that 67% of the families in the child
welfare system have problems with alcohol and drugs, but only
one-third get help. That means that two-thirds do not get help.
Until we address this tragic problem, there will be a gaping
hole in our child protection system.
This is why I am working with Senators Snowe, DeWine, Dodd
and others to develop a bipartisan bill to invest in alcohol
and drug abuse prevention and treatment for this unique
population. I want to build on our previous work.
I believe a new program and a new approach are essential. A
new system is needed to address the special concerns of this
unique population--parents with alcohol and drug problem who
neglect their children. A program designed to serve a single
male with drug problems doesn't respond to the needs of a
mother and her child.
To be effective, we must link child protection workers with
those involved in alcohol and drug treatment programs. Forging
new partnerships takes time--and it takes money. That is why we
will introduce legislation next week to invest $1.9 billion
over 5 years to combat the problems of drugs and alcohol abuse
in families in child welfare.
I understand this is large sum, but alcohol and drug abuse
is a huge problem. But before reacting to the cost of the bill,
consider what the costs are, if we doing nothing.
If we do not invest in alcohol and drug abuse prevention
and treatment for such families, children will be neglected or
abused. More children will be placed in foster care, and
perhaps linger there too long. In 1997, this subcommittee
received testimony from Professor Richard Barth. Professor
Barth, at the time, worked in California. He noted that many
newborns in substance abuse cases already had siblings placed
in foster care. Barth estimated that if only one-third of the
mothers with substance abuse problems got successful, early
treatment upon the birth of their first child, instead of
waiting until later, many years of foster care placements could
be prevented and millions of dollars could be saved.
Our bill is designed to promote innovative approaches that
serve both parents and children. It will offer funding for
screening and assessment to enhance prevention. It will support
outreach to families and retention so that parents stay in
treatment. It can support joint training, and educate alcohol
and drug counselors about the special needs of children and the
importance of a safe, permanent home. It can support out-
patient services or residential treatment. It allows
investments in after-care to keep families and children safe.
If we do invest in such specialized alcohol and drug
treatment programs for families, we can achieve two things. For
many families, I hope, treatment will be successful and
children will return to a safe and stable home. But for others,
we will have tried, and learned the important lesson that some
children need an alternate place--some children need adoption.
Under the Adoption and Safe Families Act, courts should not
move forward on adoption, until appropriate services have been
provided to families. That is the law, and we must follow it,
and move some children towards adoption.
We want a responsible approach that will include
accountability. It requires annual reports to assess how much
progress is made each and every year. Reports should measure
success in treating parents, but, equally important will be
measures of children's safety and family stability.
Over the years, we have worked on child welfare issues in a
positive, bipartisan manner and I hope that will continue as we
grapple with such tough controversial issues as alcohol and
drug abuse.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Thank you very much. There
is a subtle irony in the discussion that has gone forward to
this point. I asked my staff while you were talking what money
we had put into computer systems for the courts, either us or
the judiciary system. And when you look at all the money we
have put into the child protection agencies to help computerize
them to track their cases and didn't include the courts, I
mean, what does that tell you about our ability to do agency
interrelationship or committee cooperation and to look
systemwide?
So agency divisions and lines are part of the problem, and
it is interesting that it is part of the problem at the Federal
level, too, because if we had done for the court case-tracking
system what we did for the agency case-tracking system in what
we did--what was the year we did that? Anyway, back there when
we started that project, which has taken many years to
complete, and we still have some States that really aren't yet
up and running, think how much further we would be along and
how much more we would have been able to accomplish the goals
of the Adoption and Safe Families Act if we had been able to
think across agency lines as well.
So it is a very thoughtful piece of legislation that you
Senators have brought forward, and I am sorry we didn't
distribute summaries of it. But as you listen to the testimony,
anyone here is certainly welcome to make comment because this
issue of interagency cooperation is to me a very interesting
one. We have had some very serious studies done of how welfare
reform has in many States and has not in other States been able
to stimulate interagency cooperation. And I myself have
reservations about whether grants should do that or whether we
should require that as a condition of getting any money for
child protective services.
So how we need to provoke this and where we need to put our
money is really the two issues that your legislation does
challenge us to answer, and we really look forward to working
with you on that. We simply must do a better job. There are
some contradictions as you go around. The families have
substance abuse problems, and they don't want to admit it, and
neither does the agency want to because they are very afraid
that their children will be taken from them. So there are
certain ways that we have to accommodate the law in order to
allow the very coordination and integration that we can see
would be useful.
Senator Rockefeller. Madam Chairwoman?
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Yes.
Senator Rockefeller. Could I make one additional comment?
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Absolutely.
Senator Rockefeller. I spent 4 really interesting years in
the early 1990s chairing something called the National
Commission on Children and Families, and we produced actually a
unanimous report, which is unusual in this town. But I will
never forget--and I talked about alcohol and drug abuse, and
the other two witnesses talked about the court system and the
need to train judges. But I will never forget going into the
Los Angeles juvenile court and going up in a very large caged
elevator with children on one side, criminals on the other, and
then they got off. The children went to the left to their
family courts and the criminals went to the right to whatever
their fate was.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. How frightening.
Senator Rockefeller. I sat there with the commission
members, and the chief judge came over and sat beside me and
whispered in my ear, sort of doing a translation, like a UN
translator or something, trying to explain to this non-lawyer
what in heaven's name was going on. There were kids incourt
whose mother hadn't shown up, the lawyer hadn't shown up, they
didn't speak English and they didn't have the documentation.
The chief judge said--this is back, you know, almost 10 years
ago or 8 years ago. He said, ``We can spend about 5 or 6
minutes per case, and that is if we have all the information.''
And things have gotten worse since then.
That is sort of the searing experience that I always think
back to.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. One worthy of sharing.
Mr. Cardin, welcome.
Mr. Cardin. Thank you, Madam Chair, and let me apologize
for being a few minutes late. Actually, I was on the Senate
side. I got a little lost over there. [Laughter.]
I should have gotten my directions straight.
Let me first compliment my three colleagues. This is really
a good way to start our hearings. It shows a commitment that
this is an ongoing struggle, that no one bill is going to solve
the problems, that we have to continue to pay attention to our
most vulnerable children. And I do applaud the three of you for
your leadership in this area in coming forward with
constructive suggestions and proposals in order to deal with
this.
You have pointed out, all three of you, the concerns within
our court system, training personnel and backlogs, and I agree
with that. I just want to spend a moment on substance abuse,
because I think substance abuse is a critical problem within
our welfare system. Many of the mothers have substance abuse
problems, and it is causing serious safety issues for our
children and, as Senator Rockefeller pointed out, keeping
children in foster care longer.
One of our witnesses later will point out that most of the
substance abuse programs in this Nation are directed to males
within our criminal justice system and that we don't really
have a focus on substance abuse within the welfare system. And
I know, Senator Rockefeller, I guess the point that you are
making, and Senator DeWine, we need to really concentrate on
this population in order that we get programs and
infrastructure in place in order to deal with it. Is that
pretty much as you see it?
Senator Rockefeller. Yes, it is outreach. You know, we have
caseworkers for all kinds of people in our society, and somehow
when you get to substance abuse, it becomes somebody else's
problem. And that is the interagency question or, you know,
whose jurisdiction, who is meant to be doing it.
What I think we are trying to do here--I will just use this
alliteration because we are all three from Ohio and West
Virginia. What we are trying to do is stitch together a quilt
which you can hang up on the wall which will work, because the
many parts hold together, outreach and counseling and help and
the money for the treatment is all fundamental.
Mr. Cardin. If you have an episode that brings you into the
criminal justice system, you have a chance to get some help--
may--but if you are a mother with a problem, it is much more
difficult. I think that is what we are trying to really do
here.
Again, I applaud you on your bill, and also, as you know,
we have some legislation pending in the Senate now that deals
with the court personnel. I would just hope that we could
figure out a way to move these issues forward, and I understand
it may cost a few dollars, but these are certainly investments
in children who need our help, and I very much applaud you for
your efforts.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Now I'd like to recognize
Dave Camp from Michigan. You know, when a committee works, the
chairman doesn't necessarily lead the effort on every single
bill. And on the Adoption and Safe Families Act, Dave Camp
really led the effort. It certainly was a bipartisan bill, but
he did all the picking through the details and building the
consensus and leading it. And it is a very special pleasure to
have him still on this committee, and I recognize Dave if he
would like to comment.
Mr. Camp. Well, thank you. I used to sit next to the Chair,
and then after that bill passed, I got sent to the end of the
line. [Laughter.]
Mr. Camp. But I want to thank--
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. It just goes to show you,
he is much higher ranking on other subcommittees. You can't
have it all.
Mr. Camp. Well, I want to thank all of you for your
testimony and your comments and also your help and efforts on
the Adoption and Safe Families Act, and obviously I am looking
forward to the hearing today and looking at what else we can
do. And I realize, Senator Rockefeller, these are issues that
you have cared about very deeply for a long time, as all of you
have, and I am glad we didn't delay that bill because there
have been some positive things that have occurred in moving
kids out of foster care into loving homes.
My own State won almost $1 million in incentive awards
under the legislation, so there are some positive changes being
done. But this problem of what to do with the system kids find
themselves in and trying to ensure that the provisions of the
legislation that we worked on are enacted I think is a very
real one, and particularly when there is also an interfacing of
agencies, both law enforcement and child protection services,
and they don't always coordinate. And I just think there is
going to be a lot of work ahead to do on this, and I look
forward to working with all of you, and thank you all for your
leadership on this. It wouldn't have happened without all of
your efforts, and I appreciate it very much.
Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. This committee has held
very extensive oversight hearings on the Adoption and Safe
Families Act, and it was very clear that the problem is in the
courts. And so this is an opportunity to begin to look at how
we can overcome that problem. The provision that was in the
bill that passed the House came directly from those hearings
and Deborah's legislation in the House. So it is a small start,
but this computer issue and then the larger issue of
coordination are really work yet to be done. So we thank you
for testifying, and we look forward to working with you both
and with Deborah.
Senator DeWine. Thank you very much.
Senator Rockefeller. Thank you.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Now let's start with the
first panel: the Honorable David Grossmann, the National
Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, from Reno, Nevada;
the Honorable Robert Leuba, Chief Court Administrator, Supreme
Court of Connecticut, on behalf of the Conference of State
Court Administrators; Mark Hardin, Director of Child Welfare
for the American Bar Association Center on Children and the
Law; Christine DeLay, volunteer, National Court Appointed
Special Advocate Association; and Ron Moorman, Executive
Director, Child Care Association.
It is a pleasure to welcome you. Thank you very much for
being with us, and please feel free to comment on the preceding
testimony if you care to.
Congresswoman Pryce, are you staying? Would you come up and
join us up here?
Ms. Pryce. Well, I cannot stay with the panel long, but
thank you very much.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Stay as long as you can.
We are happy to have you.
We will start with Judge Grossmann.
STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID E. GROSSMANN, HAMILTON COUNTY JUVENILE
COURT, CINCINNATI, OHIO, AND PAST PRESIDENT, NATIONAL COUNCIL
OF JUVENILE AND FAMILY COURT JUDGES, RENO, NEVADA
Judge Grossmann. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and
Congressman Cardin. I appreciate the opportunity to be here
this afternoon to testify on this very important matter. I have
spent the good portion of my adult life working in the area of
the courts. I have been the presiding judge in Cincinnati,
Ohio, for the last 25 years, and before that 16 years as a
magistrate, and we have worked through many of the problems
that you are now looking at in the area of a struggle to move
children into safe, nurturing, permanent homes who otherwise
would continue to be stranded in the system.
We all know the problem, the many hundreds of thousands of
children that are, in fact, struggling, stranded, as I said, in
the system. We know that they come out of dysfunctional
families. We also know that the system itself is to some degree
dysfunctional. And when you have a dysfunctional system, the
problem is that it keeps functioning dysfunctionally. And that
presents a very serious challenge.
You know, when your pipes break or your plumbing doesn't
work, the first thing you do is turn off the water. When your
car is burning oil, the first thing you do is to turn off the
engine and go get the head off and grind the valves and replace
the rings. With courts, you can't just turn off the system. It
keeps going, and the problem is, the challenge is, to fix it
while it is going. It is sort of like heart surgery. You have
to keep the body living while you try to fix the problem.
Now, it is not only important to know--of course, it is
basic to know that you have a problem, but the real challenge
is to know why do you have the problem. And I think in the area
of the courts, a number of us who have studied this and have
been very much instrumental in preparing documentation on how
to manage this are quite well aware of why we have the problem.
First of all, in the courts--and I address them primarily
because if the courts don't work, the rest of the system
doesn't work either. And that seems to be a reality that has
now dawned on many folks, including Congress, that the courts
need some real help here to get done what they need to do, both
in training and in technical assistance.
But if we look at the courts, we see across the country a
number of things that are obvious. The cases are not moving
swiftly. They are not given sufficient attention in front-
loading, that is, enough information is not presented quickly
on to bring the case moving forward in an expeditious way. The
courts lack information systems, and I think, Madam Chairwoman,
you mentioned that. And, by the way, you have spent a lot of
money on SAQUIS and AFGARS. Those are fine computer systems.
They do the courts practically no good at all because the
courts themselves must have information and computer systems to
manage their own processes. It is nice to have aggregate
information, but it is very important to know within each
individual court how the system is functioning. They can't do
that, particularly in the larger courts, if they don't have
their own systems. And, of course, you observed that many of
them do not; therefore, they are kind of flying blind.
And you are stuck with the fact that you look at statistics
and we look back and say, well, in 1997 it was such-and-such or
1996. We are lucky if we can tell what it was in 1998. It is
kind of trying to fix a problem, and you are looking at
history, but you don't know what the problem looks like right
now.
Therefore, one of the things that I would urge the
committee to do is to look very carefully at how monies move to
the courts to increase their ability to handle their management
information systems and to handle their processes.
I brought with me a document called the ``Resource
Guidelines: Improving Court Practice in Child Abuse and Neglect
Cases.'' This has become the yellow brick road. This has become
kind of the how-to manual across the United States with courts.
This volume tells courts exactly how to handle the problem,
what to do in a very specific way. This is not a lot of
platitudes and nice sayings. It is actually a very detailed
how-to manual.
We know what the problems are. We know how to fix them. The
challenge is to get the training necessary while the system is
running. And, of course, you come to judges and say, look, you
got to change how you do business, and their response is: ``I
am so busy doing what I am doing, I don't have time to look up.
I don't have a chance to try to fix it.''
Now, we know how that can be done. We have seen it happen.
And, by the way, I brought another document along which is
called the ``Child Victims Act: Model Court's Project Status
Report.'' This is 20 courts across the country that have become
very active in the area of trying to address this problem.
These are courts that you will recognize. This is New York
City, this is Miami, Florida. It is Chicago, Illinois, it is
Newark, New Jersey. These are important areas where this
problem is highly, highly visible. These courts are now working
to solve these problems. I am telling you that we are making
progress, but we need more assistance from the standpoint of
funding to improve the training of judges, the training of
court personnel, the opportunity to develop the technical
assistance that these courts most desperately need. And it is
not happening unless we get the kind of financial support that
they need.
The courts have been, as you observed Madam Chairwoman,
they have been sort of the stepchildren. We have poured a lot
of money into the executive branch, into the child welfare
systems, but the courts were just sort of standing on the side
there, and nobody noticed. But if you don't fix the courts,
they are the great accountability agent, they are the people
that possess the wherewithal and the power to hold the entire
system accountable and can make the thing function. But if they
themselves are not functioning properly, it is very, very hard
to get home.
Madam Chairman, I think I have talked long enough, but you
understand my urgency here.
[The prepared statement follows:]
Statement of Hon. David E. Grossmann, Hamilton County Juvenile Court,
Cincinnati, Ohio, and Past President, National Council of Juvenile and
Family Court Judges, Reno, Nevada
Chairman Johnson, members of the Subcommittee, the National
Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) is honored
to have the opportunity to testify before you today on the
court's experience and views on the training needs of court
personnel and on the problem of substance abuse in child
protection.
I am David E. Grossmann of the Hamilton County Juvenile
Court, Cincinnati, Ohio, and a past President of the NCJFCJ. I
currently serve as Chair of the Expedited Adoption Committee of
the National Council, and regularly serve as faculty for the
National Council during judicial and interdisciplinary training
seminars and conferences nationwide.
The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges
Founded in 1937, the National Council of Juvenile and
Family Court Judges is the nation's oldest judicial membership
organization. We are an independent nonprofit organization, and
membership is comprised of state judges and other professionals
of courts who deal with children and families. The case loads
of these courts have grown dramatically, especially in the
areas of child abuse and neglect, family and domestic violence,
juvenile crime, alcohol and drug abuse, divorce, adoption and
non-support of children.
The National Council maintains the National College of
Juvenile and Family Justice on the University of Nevada, Reno
campus. Last year, the College sponsored or collaborated in
implementation of over 191 national, regional, state or local
training programs for over 25,000 judges and system
professionals. NCJFCJ members serve as faculty and also assist
in providing technical assistance to trainees and their courts.
Funding for training efforts of the National Council comes from
a number of private and federal grants, with substantial
funding from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
In 1975, the National Council's research division, the
National Center for Juvenile Justice (NCJJ) was established in
Pittsburgh, PA. With federal support from the Office of
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the National
Center collects data from juvenile courts nationwide and
analyzes data and trend information on juvenile crime issues.
The reports generated by the National Center based on this data
provide the primary source of credible information on juvenile
delinquency nationwide.
The Permanency Planning for Children Department
Now celebrating its twenty-fifth year of providing judicial
training and technical assistance for this nation's juvenile
and family court judiciary and others, the Permanency Planning
for Children Department leads the National Council of Juvenile
and Family Court Judges' effort to improve court practice in
handling child abuse and neglect cases.
The history of the Permanency Planning for Children
Department dates back to the early 1970's, when juvenile and
family court judges who comprised the National Council's
membership began to recognize the need for judicial review of
children in placement. At that time, children were often being
removed unnecessarily from their homes. Once in foster care,
children were lingering for years with no permanent resolution
to their cases. Children who had been abused or neglected by
their birth families were subjected to years of out-of-home
placement. They found themselves moved from foster home to
foster home, with no clear goals for reunification with their
birth families or movement toward alternative permanent
placement. Children were reaching adulthood and transitioning
out of the foster care system with no sense of family, with low
self-esteem, and with no direction for the future.
Public Law 96-272--The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare
Act of 1980
The National Council, recognizing the need for judges to
take a leadership role in overseeing dependency cases and in
moving cases toward permanency, began a national training
effort in 1974 for the education of juvenile and family court
judges, child welfare professionals, attorneys, and other court
and child welfare system professionals. Training was based on
principles which were later encompassed in Public Law 96-272--
The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of l980. An
unprecedented piece of legislation, this Act set out principles
which are key to child welfare and court practice today. The
Act made it clear that courts must take an oversight role to:
(1) Avoid unnecessary separation of children and families; (2)
If removal is necessary, provide for reunification at the
earliest possible time; (3) When reunification is not feasible,
provide for a safe, permanent home at the earliest possible
time.
Upon passage of the Act, the National Council recognized
the continued need for training for judges and
interdisciplinary audiences nationwide to inform key players of
their new roles in the handling of dependency cases and to map
out protocols and plans for changes in practice that
implementation of the new law would require. Training
nationwide focused on the law and its provisions, and resulted
in changes in court rules, child welfare agency practice and in
legislation at the state level across the country.
Early training efforts and subsequent national training
initiatives were funded by the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation,
the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention of
the U.S. Department of Justice and the Children's Bureau of the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In 1984
Permanency Planning Task Forces were established in all 50
states and the District of Columbia. Focused efforts of
judicial leaders at both the appellate and juvenile and family
court levels ensured that training was provided to judges and
court personnel. Training efforts resulted in changes in
practice which improved the handling of child abuse and neglect
cases by the courts and by child welfare systems.
Within the limits of funding provided, training continued
throughout the 1980's, but it became clear at the close of the
decade that in spite of the best efforts of the National
Council and its team of volunteer judicial, child welfare and
court-related faculty, that much more needed to be done.
Although hundreds of training programs had been held, hundreds
more were needed. Even as late as the 1990's system
practitioners in jurisdictions who had not had the benefit of
training around the provisions of the Adoption Assistance and
Child Welfare Act were unaware of their new roles as envisioned
by the Act.
Conducting ``business as usual'' in many jurisdictions was
meeting with disastrous results. Public outcry was often noted
when judges and other key system players who had not had the
benefit of training regarding the Act misunderstood the
``reasonable efforts'' provision of the Act, thinking that
``reasonable efforts'' was synonymous with making ``every
effort'' to return a child home. In spite of the Act's intent,
children were being returned home to unsafe situations and
being harmed as a result of misconception and lack of
understanding as to what the law intended. Clearly, the
desperate need for training on the Act and its provisions had
not been met for many members of the judiciary, the child
welfare system, or other professionals within the child welfare
and court systems. Resources in terms of training dollars were
simply not available to meet the nationwide need for training
for all members of the judiciary and court systems who made
critical decisions regarding the lives of this nation's abused
and neglected children.
The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997
In 1997, another landmark piece of child welfare
legislation was passed by Congress and signed into law. The
Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, P. L. 105-89 placed
additional responsibilities upon courts requiring that they
take an even more vigilant role in monitoring the handling of
child abuse and neglect cases. Additional judicial oversight,
shortened time lines, and increased accountability on the part
of child welfare agencies and courts alike were required to
ensure that children were moved to permanency at the earliest
possible time. Changes in practice on the part of courts,
attorneys, child welfare agencies and all other key players
within the child welfare and juvenile and family court systems
were required to meet the mandates of the law.
The Adoption and Safe Families Act was important in
clarifying the roles of the courts and child welfare agencies
in the handling of child abuse and neglect cases, and set forth
clearly the important considerations in the handling of
dependency cases--that each child be provided a safe, permanent
and stable home, and that the child's safety and well-being be
considered paramount in the decision-making process.
Once again, a new federal law was passed to guide states in
improving court practice in child abuse and neglect cases. And
once again, adequate resources to ensure the training of every
judge handling a dependency docket nationwide were not
available. Training dollars since passage of that law have been
stretched to the limit. In 1995 The Permanency Planning for
Children Department of the National Council conducted 26
judicial and interdisciplinary training programs. In 1999, due
to the rising demand in the field for training around the
Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, the number of training
programs provided totaled 114, reaching 8,156 participants, an
increase of over 250% in three years' time without additional
resources to fully fund such efforts.
Impact of Substance Abuse on Handling of Child Abuse and
Neglect Cases
This nation's juvenile and family courts have witnessed an
unprecedented rise in cases involving child abuse and neglect
over the past decade. Cases are entering the court system which
are more complex and more difficult to handle than ever before.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
in 1997, over three million cases of suspected child abuse and
neglect were reported. Over two million of these cases were
investigated by child welfare agencies, and over one million of
those reported cases were substantiated.\1\ A variety of
reasons for this rise in caseloads and for the increasing
complexity of cases have been cited. These include poverty,
homelessness, and most significantly--substance abuse.
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\1\ Administration for Children and Families; U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, 1999.
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A January, 1999 report by the National Center on Addiction
and Substance Abuse at Columbia University indicated that
``drugs and alcohol abuse causes or exacerbates seven out of
ten cases of child abuse or neglect.'' \2\ The study concluded
that ``substance abuse and addiction dangerously compromise or
destroy the ability of parents to provide a safe and nurturing
home for children.''
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\2\ ``No Safe Haven: Children of Substance-Abusing Parents,''
National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia
University, January 11, 1999.
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In a report released in April, 1999 the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services estimated ``that substance abuse is a
substantial factor in a third of all child abuse and neglect
cases, and up to two-thirds of foster care cases'' \3\
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\3\ ``Blending Perspectives and Building Common Ground,''
Administration for Children and Families, the Office of the Assistant
Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, and the Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services, 1999.
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Information regarding, how to handle child abuse and
neglect where substance abuse is a factor, services necessary
for treatment of these cases, establishment of drug courts as a
method for handling this caseload, and other critical areas can
best be imparted through provision of judicial and
interdisciplinary training at the local, state and national
level.
Improving Court Practice in Child Abuse and Neglect Cases
In 1992, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court
Judges, following a three-year effort, published the RESOURCE
GUIDELINES: Improving Court Practice in Child Abuse and Neglect
Cases. This document, written by a committee of judges, child
welfare professionals, attorneys, consultants and others
identified best practice in handling child abuse and neglect
cases. Endorsed by the Conference of Chief Justices and the
American Bar Association, the RESOURCE GUIDELINES has been used
as a blueprint for change by State Court Improvement programs
nationwide. Over 19,000 copies of this document have been
disseminated to date, and courts and child welfare agencies
alike are using the RESOURCE GUIDELINES as a basis for
assessing current practice and planning for change.
Upon completion of the RESOURCE GUIDELINES, the National
Council established a Model Court Project. The purpose of this
project was to identify courts, nationwide, who were willing to
examine dependency practice, identify barriers to permanency,
implement change and to serve as models to others with similar
goals. The Hamilton County Juvenile Court in Cincinnati, Ohio
served as the first demonstration Model Court. The Model Court
Project currently encompasses 20 courts, including
jurisdictions as large as Cook County, Illinois--Chicago; Los
Angeles, CA; New York City, NY; Essex County, NJ--Newark; and
Dade County, FL--Miami. One third of the nation's children in
foster care are served by the Model Court Project.
Model Courts of the National Council have demonstrated
remarkable success in improving practice in the handling of
child abuse and neglect cases by: (1) shortening time in care
from removal to permanency; (2) increasing adoptions; (3)
building resources for providing services to children and
families through judicial leadership and through collaboration
with key system players in each Model Court community.
Collaboration between courts, child welfare agencies,
attorneys, service providers, the faith community and others
has resulted in better outcomes for children and families in
each Model Court jurisdiction.
Currently, each of the twenty Model Courts involved in the
Model Court Initiative of the National Council is serving as a
mentor to other courts around the nation who are attempting to
improve dependency practice. Strategies for change as well as
programs and principles which have guided the work of Model
Courts are being shared and replicated by other courts
nationwide.
The work of the Model Courts, their successes, and their
challenges is chronicled each year in a written publication
entitled the Model Court Status Report. This has proven a
useful tool in ``getting the word out'' to courts nationwide
who are attempting court improvement efforts on their own.
However, in addition to the written work being generated as
a result of the Model Court initiative, training has been
established as the best method of disseminating the work of the
Model Courts nationwide. Through national, state, and local
conferences, Model Court representatives share their
experience, provide guidance regarding how other jurisdictions
may overcome barriers to permanency, and provide encouragement
to the many inspired judges and others who may wish to
undertake a systems change effort. Training is the essential
tool for allowing jurisdictions to plan and implement systems
change efforts on their own. Resources for this work have been
barely able to keep up with the demand.
Currently there are literally dozens of courts beyond the
twenty Model Courts at work in developing new models for
handling child abuse and neglect cases. The RESOURCE GUIDELINES
provides a blueprint for change. The Model Courts and their
experiences as laboratories for change provide the essential
tools to ready other systems to implement changes without
'remaking the wheel'' and stumbling over similar barriers.
Training regarding the need for systems change for judges
and other system professionals, the work of the Model Courts
and others, emerging issues such as child development and
substance abuse, and trends in juvenile and family court
dependency practice is critical, and resources for doing so are
currently stretched to the limit.
The Importance of Judicial Education
The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, the
National Council's RESOURCE GUIDELINES and Model Court project,
and the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 set policy
guidelines for best practice in handling child abuse and
neglect cases. However, as pivotal and important as they are,
they cannot have a positive impact upon court and systems
practice at the grassroots jurisdictional level until resources
allow for training in every juvenile and family court
jurisdiction across the nation. Judges do not change how they
do business unless they are convinced they need to do so. Child
welfare agencies, attorneys, service providers and others will
not modify their behavior without motivation and the tools to
do so. Training can provide the bridge between current practice
and improved practice. No law can ``go on the books'' and be
effective unless system practitioners understand the intent and
spirit of the law, and the expectations of all parties in
carrying out the mandates of the law. Training serves this
purpose.
The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 is an excellent
piece of legislation, but it will not fully be implemented
until every judge in this nation understands the mandates of
the law and his responsibility under the law. As was the
experience with Public Law 96-272, the Adoption Assistance and
Child Welfare Act of 1980, there may be judges and system
practitioners throughout the country who, if not provided
training, will proceed with business as usual.
A study conducted by the National Council of Juvenile and
Family Court Judges of court representatives across the nation
from 1996-1998 indicated that practice varied widely from
legislation around adherence to time lines and other statutory
guidelines as mandated by P.L. 96-272. In fact, 54% of study
respondents indicated that time frames or other statutory
guidelines as set by the law were ``loosely adhered to'' in
actual practice. ``Composite responses from court improvement
specialists across the nation confirm that supporting good
practice in statute involves careful articulation the duties
and responsibilities of parties, providing guidance with
respect to expectations and required procedures for events,
improving representation, providing consistency and supporting
efforts to monitor case progress effectively.\4\ Training can
bridge the gap between legislative intent and daily practice.
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\4\ Gatowski, Ph.D., Sophia, Shirley Dobbin Ph.D., Krista Johns,
J.D., Margaret Springgate, J.D., ``Child Abuse and Neglect Cases:
Examining State Statutes in Everyday Practice'' and ``Child Abuse and
Neglect Cases: A National Analysis of State Statutes.''
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Making the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 A Reality
The critical need for judicial and interdisciplinary
education continues, and must be met. Every judge in the nation
handling child abuse and neglect cases must be reached, in
order for new twelve-month timelines to be achieved, clear
expectations of courts and child welfare agencies under the law
to be outlined, and goals for improved handling of child abuse
and neglect cases to be developed and implemented.
Resources are currently not available that will allow for
this nationwide judicial training and technical assistance
effort. However, the mechanism for providing judicial training
nationwide is in place. Volunteer faculty, sitting judges who
have the knowledge and desire to motivate others on the bench
to change practice, have made a commitment to serve as trainers
during state, local and national training programs. Information
focusing on the requirements of the new federal legislation and
topical information on subjects related to dependency court are
currently available. Nationally recognized speakers have
indicated their willingness to travel and to speak to judicial
and interdisciplinary training Conferences. Written materials
which can supplement hands-on training are available. The lack
of adequate funding for this training is currently the only
barrier to providing each of this nation's judges the tools
with which to improve court practice in child abuse and neglect
cases. Let us make the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 a
reality by educating a system for change.
Thank you, Mrs. Chairman, for inviting me here today to
speak on behalf of the National Council of Juvenile and Family
Court Judges. I am pleased to be available to answer your
questions or to provide additional information you may require.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. We do have a red light
system, and I always hate to cut people off because your
experience is so terribly valuable to our committee. But we
will have more time to question if we can keep our statements
within the 5-minute limit, and we do include your entire
statement in the record.
Judge Leuba?
STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT C. LEUBA, CHIEF COURT ADMINISTRATOR,
CONNECTICUT SUPREME COURT, ON BEHALF OF THE CONFERENCE OF STATE
COURT ADMINISTRATORS
Judge Leuba. Thank you very much, Madam Chair and members
of the committee. It is an honor to be here to address this
important issue of child protection.
I am a judge of the Superior Court in Connecticut and the
Chief Court Administrator.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Excuse me, Judge. Could
you speak a little closer to the microphone?
Judge Leuba. I certainly can. Thank you.
For the record, my name is Robert Leuba. I am a judge at
the Superior Court in the State of Connecticut and the Chief
Court Administrator for the Connecticut court system. I am
honored to be here today as a member and representing the
Conference of State Court Administrators, which is consisting,
as you know, of 50 States, Puerto Rico, and the Territories.
The State courts are pleased to be included in the discussion
on policy matters relating to the issue before the committee of
oversight of the child protection area.
I have submitted written testimony, and I won't review
that, just to summarize. But before I do, I want to thank you
for last year's passing of the Fathers Count Act with the
amendment that included assistance here, and I guess we will
just have to work harder with the Senators who were here and
others to get that all the way this year, if the committee sees
fit.
I have several key points, many of which have been covered
by the previous speakers. ASFA, the Adoption and Safe Families
Act, is an important program in moving ahead in the child
protection area. I have submitted copies of a resolution
adopted by the Conference of State Court Administrators and
also the Conference of Chief Justices supporting the
implementation of ASFA, and I want to wholeheartedly add my
voice to that resolution.
As you know--it has been said before--that legislation
makes judges a key component of the process. There are many,
many steps in the process in which the judge is the necessary
ingredient. I have listed them in my testimony. I won't
enumerate that here.
It adds responsibilities to the courts without any funding
whatever, and, of course, I guess we are all here today to
indicate to the committee the need in State courts around the
country of financing for training and technical assistance in
connection with the implementation of ASFA.
Specifically, we would request the amendment of the Social
Security Act, Titles IV-B and IV-E, which provide for training
now in the executive branch, but we would need to have the
judicial branches of government around the country included as
eligible participants in that process.
We appreciate the opportunity to be here today, and just
before I conclude, I want to just give you a little idea of
what is happening in Connecticut. In Connecticut, which is one
of the members of the Conference of State Court Administrators,
we have about 3 million people, as you know, Madam Chair, and
we use about $285 million to run the court system, $54 million
of which is devoted to juvenile courts. We have received from
the Federal Government under the Court Improvement Program
$75,000 a year for training, which, as you can see, in
proportion is a small drop in the bucket for us, and we need
more, frankly.
I have given you information in my written testimony about
other States, what they are doing, Arizona and Kentucky and
Michigan, and I won't elaborate further on that except to say I
would be glad to answer any questions you have about what is
going on in Connecticut and to provide any information that is
needed by the committee or staff through the National Center
for State Courts or the Conference of State Court
Administrators, of which I am a member.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement follows:]
Statement of Hon. Robert C. Leuba, Chief Court Administrator,
Connecticut Supreme Court on behalf of the Conference of State Court
Administrators
Introduction
Ms. Chairperson and Members of the Subcommittee, my
statement is submitted on behalf of the Conference of State
Court Administrators (COSCA). I thank you for the opportunity
to appear before you today on the important issue of child
protection.
My name is Judge Robert C. Leuba, Chief Court Administrator
for the State of Connecticut Judicial Branch. The points that I
want to make this afternoon are:
The Conference of State Court Administrators wants
to commend Congress for its efforts to improve the protections
available to children through the enactment of the Adoption and
Safe Families Act (ASFA).
It is our belief that the court systems and judges
are the key to effective implementation of ASFA, but we need
help in meeting our responsibilities.
ASFA significantly increased the responsibilites
of the courts in handling child protection issues, but did not
provide the court systems with additional resources to assist
them in meeting the new demands.
State court systems need additional resources to
provide training and technical assistance to the local courts
and judges so that they can effectively implement ASFA.
Specifically, we are requesting that the Social
Security Act be amended to make judicial training eligible for
federal financial participation and that funds be appropriated
to provide technical assistance to state court systems.
I have been with the Connecticut Judicial Branch for 13
years, both as an administrator and as a trial judge. Prior to
becoming a judge, I served for a number of years in the public
sector and as an attorney in private practice. During my pre-
bench public service career I served as Legal Counsel and
Executive Assistant to Governor Thomas J. Meskill from 1973-
1975; Commissioner of Motor Vehicles from 1971-1973; and Mayor
of the Town of Groton from 1967-1969.
Throughout my years with the Judicial Branch, I have had
the opportunity to preside over a variety of criminal, civil,
and family matters, including those involving the abuse and
neglect of children and termination of parental rights. I
served as presiding judge of the family division of the New
London Judicial District, as well as Chief Administrative Judge
of the Judicial Branch's Civil Division.
Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA)
I appear before you today as a representative of the
Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA). COSCA was
organized in 1953 and is dedicated to the improvement of state
court systems. Its membership consists of the principal court
administrative officer in each of the fifty states, the
District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the
Territories of American Samoa, Guam, and the Virgin Islands.
COSCA is a nonprofit corporation endeavoring to increase the
efficiency and fairness of the nation's state court systems.
The purposes of COSCA are:
To encourage the formulation of fundamental
policies, principles, and standards for state court
administration;
To facilitate cooperation, consultation, and
exchange of information by and among national, state, and local
offices and organizations directly concerned with court
administration;
To foster the utilization of the principles and
techniques of modern management in the field of judicial
administration; and
To improve administrative practices and procedures
and to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of all courts.
Support for the Effective Implementation of ASFA
COSCA and the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ) have
established the effective implementation of ASFA as one of
their highest priorities for 2000, as they did in 1999.
Attached for your information is a copy of a joint resolution
that was adopted by CCJ and COSCA that supports the goals of
ASFA and its effective implementation.
Our interest in this issue grows out of our longstanding
involvement with federal efforts to protect children in danger
of abuse and neglect. The enactment of the Adoption Assistance
and Child Welfare Act of 1980 (P.L. 96-272) vested a unique and
critical responsibility with the courts to oversee the
protection of children in child abuse and neglect situations.
For the first time, the 1980 Act required courts to review and
evaluate state welfare agencies' actions. Further, courts were
required to make judicial determinations that the state
agencies had made ``reasonable efforts'' to prevent the removal
of children from their homes, to reunify children with their
families after a foster care placement, and to provide
permanent homes for children who cannot be reunited with their
families. Congress also required courts to hold dispositional
hearings no later than eighteen months after a child's original
placement and hold a hearing every twelve months thereafter to
review progress on the permanency plan. States in which the
reasonable efforts findings were not made and properly
documented and in which the time frames for hearings were not
met could be sanctioned with the loss of federal funding.
In 1997, Congress concluded that the promises of the 1980
Act were not realized. Passage of ASFA holds new promises for
children who are vulnerable to abuse and neglect. To realize
these promises, however, Congress needs to recognize and
provide adequate support for the needs of the institutions
critical to ASFA implementation: the courts.
Impact of ASFA on the Courts
The effect of the new mandates on courts has been to
increase the workload of the courts because of the added
judicial determinations and longer hearings needed to resolve
the complex issues required by the Act. The following
represents the highlights of the new mandates and their impact
on the courts.
Judges are required to make the child's health and
safety the primary standard for determining a state's
reasonable efforts to keep the child in the home or reunify the
child and the parents.
Judges are required to make judicial
determinations of when reasonable efforts to prevent removal
and reunify the family are not required because of egregious
circumstances.
Judges are required to make the difficult
decisions pertaining to the termination of parental rights in
cases where a child has been in foster care for fifteen
consecutive or fifteen of the twenty-two most recent months. In
the cases where an exception to the fifteen-month rule is
requested, judges must determine whether the compelling reasons
are sufficient not to file the petition.
Judges are required to conduct hearings on the
permanency plans that have been developed by state child
protection agencies no later than twelve months after a child
enters care, six months earlier than had been required in the
past.
Judges are required to insure that the procedural
rights of foster parents, pre-adoptive parents, and relative
caretakers are protected and that they are notified of hearings
and have the opportunity to be heard at all hearings.
Judges are required to review the placement of a
foster child every twelve months and to determine when the
child will be returned to his or her parents or placed for
adoption or with a relative or with a legal guardian.
Additionally, ASFA strengthened the courts' oversight
authority in reviewing the work of the child protection agency
staff. The combined result of the ASFA changes is more complex
and significantly longer court hearings.
Congress enacted the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA)
of 1997 (P.L. 105-89) in response to the concerns that the
child protection system was not adequately addressing the needs
of abused and neglected children. The Act was designed to
address two major concerns (1) the safety of children in all
decisions and (2) the need to find permanent homes in a timely
manner for children who have been removed from their homes. The
changes brought about by ASFA are positive and will bring about
better results for children.
Please do not misunderstand, we support implementation of
ASFA. Our concern is with ensuring that courts have the
resources necessary to implement the Act, not with its
provisions. We believe that these changes are necessary to
insure better results for children. We share your belief that
the health and safety of our children should be given the
highest priority when deciding the difficult issues pertaining
to the termination of parental rights and the removal of
children from their homes and families. As mentioned earlier,
in establishing priorities for 1999 and again in 2000, CCJ and
COSCA identified the effective implementation of ASFA as one of
their highest priorities.
Court Needs for Training and Technical Assistance
To implement ASFA effectively, courts need federal support
and assistance. To this end, we want to address two issues.
First, courts need to have access to the training funds
currently available to executive agencies under Title IV-B and
Title IV-E of the Social Security Act. Second, Congress needs
to appropriate the $10 million for technical assistance for
states authorized by ASFA.
We have strong evidence that training is inadequate and
that state court systems are in need of technical assistance to
aid them in implementing systemic changes for improving the
handling of child protection cases and in implementing the
provisions of ASFA. In 1993, Congress created the Court
Improvement Project (CIP), a grant program to assist state
courts in improving their handling of child abuse and neglect
cases. Congress appropriated funds to provide CIP grants to the
highest court in each state for judicial improvement efforts.
Congress required each state to use their CIP funds in the
first year to conduct an assessment, to identify problems in
processing child abuse and neglect cases, and to develop
strategies for addressing those identified problems. While
these assessments pre-dated the adoption of ASFA, they
identified clearly the need for more training and technical
assistance for courts. The amount of CIP funds each state
receives is not large, but states have leveraged the CIP funds
with state and local dollars and used the CIP funds to
stimulate a synergy among judicial, executive, and private
resources.
The availability of federal financial participation dollars
for training expenses for judges and non-judicial personnel
will significantly increase the availability of needed training
programs. Many states have used state and local funding and a
portion of their CIP funds for judicial training, but the
funding is not adequate to address all of the training needs
for judges and non-judicial personnel. To effectively implement
ASFA and protect the interest of children, judges and non-
judicial personnel need to know more than the child welfare
laws and court procedures. Judges need training on such topics
as child development (particularly the importance of attachment
and bonding), the dynamics of families, the dynamics of
domestic violence and child abuse, the impact of substance
abuse on the abusers and the family, and the appropriate
application of mediation in child protection cases. These
topics are just a sampling of the training needs. Judges do not
have to be experts on these topics, but they need a good
understanding of the subject matter so they can put the
testimony of the experts that testify in their courts into
perspective. Federal reimbursement dollars would significantly
enhance the ability of courts to provide needed training for
court personnel.
Federal resources to provide states with technical
assistance will allow state court systems to benefit from the
court-based initiatives and experimentation that is taking
place around the country. In a survey, State Court
Administrators and Chief Justices were asked to identify the
types of technical assistance that they need to assist them to
effectively implement ASFA. The responses fell within the
following eight categories.
development of automated tracking systems;
development of automated interfaces between court,
law enforcement, and social service agency data bases;
evaluation of case flow and implementation of
streamlined procedures;
development and implementation of new case
management models;
development and implementation of early case
resolution programs;
development and implementation of mechanism for
monitoring compliance with terms of court orders;
development and evaluation of new models for
representation of children; and
development and implementation of court rules that
facilitate timely case processing.
Courts have struggled to exploit the resources that have
been available to them for improving the handling of abuse and
neglect cases. Certainly, the indicators exist to show that
courts are committed to systemic improvements. States are
experimenting in the development of training programs, case
management models, automated tracking systems, and expedited
procedures. These state efforts would be all the more effective
if additional resources were available to enhance training
efforts and to provide technical assistance to the state court
systems so they can aid each other and share lessons learned.
Additional federal resources will allow state court systems
to go far in effectively implementing ASFA. To provide a
broader understanding of some of the identified training needs
and the opportunities for technical assistance, a brief summary
of activities in Connecticut and other states follow.
Connecticut Experience with Training
The Court Improvement Program funds enable the Connecticut
Superior Court for Juvenile Matters to continue its efforts to
further enhance the court's response to children and families
presented before the court for child protection matters. These
funds are used to pay for technological enhancements, to
support staff development and to improve the quality of legal
representation for children and indigent parents.
As the Committee is particularly interested in the
training, I will focus my remarks on how Connecticut uses court
improvement program funds to pay the costs associated with
providing training to judges and court officials on the complex
issues surrounding child protection.
In Connecticut, a standing committee of state and private
agency training experts has been convened to identify training
needs for child welfare workers, court staff and agency
attorneys and staff attorneys in relevant topic areas. A
primary goal of the group is to focus on experiential learning
for adults that can be applied in daily work. Agency
management, social workers, court administrators, court support
staff, judges, and other public and private child welfare
agency staff will be targeted to receive skill building
training and become familiar with innovations in permanency
planning.
The first endeavor of the group was to plan a seminar
focused on mediation advocacy. This seminar was held in May of
1999 and assisted participants in the mediation process to
understand their role and assist them to understand how to
maximize their participation. Three hundred participants
attended this seminar which proved to be very valuable in
providing a better understanding of the mediation process and
intervention strategies for mediation participants.
The funds available through the Court Improvement Program
have assisted the court in sponsoring multidisciplinary
training for court staff, attorneys, CPS agency staff, and
judges on the Adoption and Safe Families Act. A state team was
sent to the National Grantees Meeting held in Baltimore. The
team was comprised of a judge handling juvenile matters, a
Department of Children and Families administrator, and the
State Court Improvement Program grant manager.
In addition, the Judicial Branch has collaborated with the
child welfare agency and the Office of Child Advocate to
sponsor multidisciplinary training seminars. One seminar, which
was attended by approximately three hundred people, including
attorneys, court personnel, and mental health professionals,
was held on the Adoption and Safe Families Act and the role of
the guardian ad litem. Another such seminar was held on
mediation and the last seminar that was conducted provided
child advocacy training for attorneys.
A concurrent permanency-planning seminar was held in the
Fall of 1999. The National Resource Center for Foster Care and
Permanency Planning at Hunter College provided technical
assistance and training resources.
We are in the process of developing training initiatives on
adoption and attachment issues for staff across agencies and
systems. This portion of this year's Court Improvement Program
funds will be used to design and implement a core curriculum
for attorneys representing children and parents in child
protection cases.
The Connecticut Judicial Branch has received $150,000 for
the period from August 1, 1999 through July 31, 2001 under the
Court Improvement Program which is administered by the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for
Children and Families. Considering the fact that, in
Connecticut, we spend $54.1 million per year on our juvenile
efforts, this $150,000 provides us with some much needed
additional resources, but does not represent a significant
portion of our overall budget for juvenile matters.
If we were given additional resources, we would be able to
enhance our efforts. For example, we would be able to provide
training to senior judges, judge trial referees, and attorneys
who have indicated an interest in serving as mediators.
Currently, in Connecticut, we do not have a mediation program
for juvenile matters that involves full-scale mediation with
family members. We do have, however, a mediation program that
typically involves the attorneys in a particular case. We have
recognized the need to enhance this program, but have been
unable to fund it to-date.
In addition, if funding were made available, we would like
to develop an extensive training program for courtroom clerks,
office assistants, and caseflow coordinators in the child
protection system. It is essential that staff who work in the
area of child protection be given on overview of the entire
system and an up-to-date training manual.
Finally, it has been brought to our attention by the Chief
Administrative Judge for Juvenile Matters that many judges
would benefit from an intensive four or five day seminar on the
use of computers, particularly in the area of child protection.
We do not have the funds at this time, to provide this
intensive training.
Unfortunately, we have not been able to provide all of the
training that is so sorely needed in this area due to funding
limitations. If additional funding were made available, we
would be able to implement this training plan, which would
benefit the children and families appearing before the court
for child protection matters.
Experience and Experimentation in Other States
Kentucky
Kentucky is typical of most states in the way in which they
handle their judicial education programs. States, such as
Kentucky and Connecticut, have taken the initiative to develop
training programs, but limited resources have restricted the
availability of the programs. Federal financial participation
dollars would significantly enhance the availability of
judicial and non-judicial education programs.
The Kentucky court system is striving to improve the
handling of dependency cases. They have initiated innovations,
but are in need of additional resources to help them sustain
and expand these initiatives.
In most states, many guardian ad litems (GALs) have limited
experience in representing children in abuse, neglect, and
dependency proceedings. The GALs essentially practice this kind
of law as one small part of their overall general practice.
Thus far, Kentucky has had the ability to conduct GAL training
on ASFA in certain designated pilot sites and family court
sites. Kentucky court officials see the need for this training
to continue and to be conducted in additional judicial
districts and circuits.
In Kentucky, judges attend ``Judicial Colleges'' every
year. At the Colleges, judges receive training regarding the
method by which courts should conduct their business. However,
more judicial training relating to ASFA is necessary,
particularly in those districts and circuits where family
courts do not exist. An evaluator reporting to Kentucky court
officials concluded that some judges, particularly in rural
areas, have been reluctant to order terminations of parental
rights. The evaluator concluded, ``altering the day to day
behavior of courtroom decision makers, not rewriting statutes,
has the most promise for systemic, meaningful change.'' At this
year's Circuit Judges' Judicial College, a special ``family
court track'' was developed for the family court judges to
attend. At this section, Judge Jim Payne from Indiana conducted
an in-depth training on ASFA. All circuit judges were not able
to receive this training. Kentucky court officials have
identified regional training sessions, in addition to the
Judicial Colleges, as a mechanism to insure that all judges
receive the training they need to comply with spirit and
requirements of ASFA.
Currently Kentucky has a statewide tracking system for
children in foster care; however, access to this system is only
available to employees at the Administrative Office of the
Courts Central Office. The system contains several different
variables, including the findings made by Citizen Foster Care
Review Boards. This tracking system could be expanded to
include real time access in the courtroom to judges during
judicial proceedings involving abuse, neglect, and dependency
cases. This expansion would perhaps allow judges to make more
informed decisions on behalf of children. One essential step in
the implementation of ASFA is the identification of those
children who have been in foster care for twelve months or more
and more importantly those who have been in foster care for
fifteen of the last twenty-two months. Currently, Kentucky
court officials are able to provide family court judges with
statistical reports that identify these populations. Limited
resources have prevented them from providing the same reports
to circuit court judges.
Arizona
Arizona has developed an on-line training program,
available through their state Intranet that would serve as a
good model for other states. The availability of technical
assistance dollars would increase the ability to replicate this
type of training enhancement in other states.
The Arizona court system has been very proactive in
addressing the changes needed to improve the handling of
dependency cases. Starting January 1, 1999, all Arizona
jurisdictions, with the exception of Maricopa County (Phoenix),
were required to process dependency petitions in the ``Model
Court'' format. Due to its size, Maricopa County was given an
additional time for the conversion and brought their cases into
the new process by July 1, 1999.
State Court Improvement funding was made available to
assist Superior Courts with the changes in dependency case
processing. All fifteen Arizona counties receive funds for
Court Improvement implementation.
All counties established a local Court Improvement
Implementation team that oversees ``Model Court''
implementation. The teams may include staff from the Attorney
General's office, Department of Employment Security (DES),
contract attorneys, Clerk's office, behavioral health
providers, and tribal representatives. In April of 2000, all
teams will go to Phoenix for training and to discuss successes
and barriers to Court Improvement implementation. They will
also identify future project goals.
Arizona has spent over a year developing the Juvenile On-
Line Tracking System (JOLTS), a statewide dependency data
collection system. JOLTS has been fully operational in all
counties since September 1999. Although the system continues to
undergo enhancement it has been designed to collect all
dependency case information including hearing dates and
outcomes, family problems, placement information, sibling
information and case plan details.
In 1999, Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Zlaket
signed an Administrative Order mandating that all judges new to
the dependency bench (including pro tem judges and
commissioners) participate in a Dependency Curriculum Program.
The training program is held annually and includes the
following topics:
--Dependency Case--From Removal to Permanency,
--Law,
--Mediation and Settlement Conferences,
--Severance and Guardianship,
--Adoption,
--The Role of Other Players in Dependency Cases,
--Drug Addiction and Treatment,
--JOLTS--Dependency Data Collection,
--Introduction to Child Development,
--Child Abuse and Neglect,
--Mental Illness, and
--Services and Programs.
Because Arizona judicial rotation often occurs mid-year and
Dependency Judicial Training occurs only once a year, it was
necessary to develop an interim training for judicial officers
hearing dependency cases. Judicial staff have access to a
Distance Learning Program via the state Intranet. The Distance
Learning Package focuses on the progress of a dependency case
from petition filing through conclusion. This includes possible
termination of parental rights, permanent guardianship, and
adoption. The training was developed as a tool for judges who
have not yet had the opportunity to attend the full Dependency
Curriculum as required.
As you can see, Arizona has accomplished a great deal in
the dependency arena. They are currently working with a
contractor to evaluate the changes in their dependency system
over the past year. Although it will be a year before the
report is completed, Arizona court officials feel certain that
the changes that they have made will have a positive impact on
dependent children.
Other states could benefit from the work that Arizona has
done if there was a system for transferring the information and
products they have developed to those other states. Although
they have accomplished much within their own state, Arizona
court officials also see the need for additional training and
technical assistance. In particular they cited the need for
training on the Indian Child Welfare Act (P. L. 96-262) and the
Multi-Ethnic Placement Act (P. L. 103-382) and on the new
federal rules for implementing ASFA that were published on
January 25, 2000. As to the types of technical assistance that
may be needed nationally, they cited the need to assist courts
with (1) developing standards for attorneys (both private or
court appointed counsel) practicing before them, (2)
establishing data collection systems, (3) developing judicial
benchbooks, and (4) evaluating the progress made by the courts.
Michigan
Michigan is developing a reporting system to assist them in
monitoring the ASFA timeframes to insure that the local courts
are in compliance. Again, the availability of technical
assistance dollars would increase the ability to replicate this
reporting system in other states.
The Michigan court system is in the process of designing
and implementing a reporting system to gather data on its
compliance with the ASFA time frames. The State Court
Administrative Office will be publishing an annual report for
the State Legislature that includes information and statistics
detailing the court's adherence to the ASFA time frames and
specific reasons for any failures to meet any of the time
frames. On a monthly basis, the State Court Administrative
Office will issue a Permanency Indicators Report to each judge
that tracks seventeen indicators. The seventeen factors follow:
1. Number of days from removal to hearing;
2. Number of days from placement to commencement of trial
or acceptance of plea;
3. Number of days from removal from home to adjudication
(petition closed);
4. Number of days from adjudication to commencement of
initial dispositional hearing;
5. Number of days from commencement of initial
dispositional hearing to entry of Order of Disposition;
6. Number of days from dispositional order or last review
hearing to new review hearing;
7. Number of days between permanency planning hearing date
and review hearing date;
8. Number of days from original filing to permanency
planning hearing;
9. Number of days from trial to termination hearing;
10. Number of days from petition to termination hearing;
11. Number of days from termination hearing to decision;
12. Number of termination hearings (granted, denied on
motion, and dismissed/withdrawn);
13. Number of children made permanent wards;
14. Permanency outcomes (return home, kinship care,
adoption, permanent foster placement, independent living, and
guardianship);
15. Cases with disrupted permanency;
16. Number of days from removal to permanency; and
17. Cases that have not reached permanency.
Michigan is in the process of piloting this tracking and
reporting system. The knowledge that they gain in this project
will be most helpful to other states. As stated previously,
having a mechanism to transfer knowledge and products from one
state to another would benefit many states.
COSCA Recommendations
We ask your consideration of two recommendations--(1)
modify the Social Security Act to make federal funding
available for reimbursing the costs of training for judicial
and non-judicial personnel and (2) appropriate technical
assistance funds targeted at the needs of courts.
As mentioned previously, I have attached for your
information a copy of a resolution that was adopted by the CCJ
and the COSCA at their last annual meeting on August 5, 1999.
While this resolution goes beyond the scope of our testimony
today, it does represent the support of the two Conferences for
ASFA and our respective commitments to the effective
implementation of ASFA.
Courts have been and will continue to be creative and
leverage resources from a variety of sources to assist them in
meeting their responsibilities and your expectations for the
effective implementation of ASFA. We ask your consideration in
making federal resources available to accomplish that end
result. Additional federal resources will allow state court
systems to go a long way toward effectively implementing ASFA.
Thank you for giving COSCA, and through it the state judges
of our country, an opportunity to be heard on this important
issue. I would be glad to address questions from the
Subcommittee.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Thank you very much,
Judge.
Mr. Hardin?
STATEMENT OF MARK HARDIN, DIRECTOR, CHILD WELFARE, AMERICAN BAR
ASSOCIATION CENTER ON CHILDREN AND THE LAW
Mr. Hardin. Madam Chair, Congressman Cardin, Congressman
Camp, thank you very much for the opportunity to testify, and I
want to say first how delighted I am with your remarks and also
the testimony previously from Congresswoman Pryce and the
Senators which demonstrate your concern and your knowledge of
the key role of the courts in foster care improvements and also
your commitment to improvements.
I am speaking today specifically on the importance of
training for attorneys in achieving safety and permanency for
children, and especially the importance of training to achieve
the goals of the Adoption and Safe Families Act. And I will
cover four points: first, the critical role of attorneys in
protecting children and achieving the goals of ASFA; second,
the unique and demanding nature of legal practice in child
protection cases; third, current problems in performance of
attorneys in these cases and how it is related to training
issues; and fourth, how effective attorney training with
Federal help, can help protect children, ensure fairness to
families, and accomplish the goals of ASFA.
My first point was that attorneys play a vital role in
affecting the future of these children. You are already very
aware, as your remarks indicate, that courts play a central
role in planning and decisionmaking for children in foster
care. Well, it is attorneys who largely control the flow of
information that reaches the judge. And when attorneys are
unaware of vital facts important to children's safety and
treatment and, therefore, don't present them to the judge,
there is a greater possibility of tragic judicial mistakes.
Effective attorneys are vital to the success of the
Adoption and Safe Families Act. Agency attorneys, for example,
need to know how to trouble-shoot and move their cases. Agency
attorneys need to learn how to pursue the difficult and
challenging cases instead of waiting for years to bring them
forward when they have become easier in court due to the length
of stay of the child in foster care.
Effective attorneys for parents and children are also
crucial to the success of ASFA. Because of the tighter ASFA
deadlines, basic fairness makes it especially important that
the attorneys for parents and children perform well.
Second, I want to point out that child protection law is
very specialized and very demanding. Very few attorneys outside
our field appreciate the challenges and complexity. Child
protection cases involve a unique set of hearings, each with
very specific purposes and specific strategies. There are also
very many legal issues unique to child protection law,
including special issues related to confidentiality, unique
constitutional questions, evidentiary issues, administrative
law procedure. There are likewise many non-legal areas that
attorneys need to know about, like child development. You
referred to substance abuse. They need to understand something
about that, and they also need to understand about child abuse.
Another challenge for attorneys is the particular severity
of child and family problems in child protection cases. One or
more parents may well have difficulties with substance abuse,
serious psychological disorders, character disorders, and may
be involved in criminal behavior. Likewise, children often have
serious psychological problems often due to the abuse and
neglect, learning disabilities. My point, of course, is that
attorneys need to have training in all these subjects, legal
and non-legal.
Attorneys also deal with very large and complex
organizations including the child protection agency, law
enforcement, a wide array of public and private service
providers as well as with mental health and medical
professionals.
My third point was that the performance of many attorneys
in child protection--while we are working on it and making
progress--is still deeply flawed due to a lack of systematic
training. I am sorry to say that in many courts attorneys still
often meet their clients just a few moments before the
beginning of court hearings. And there are places where this is
still common practice and even accepted.
My final point is that effective training can make a major
difference. Training can explain the special ethical
obligations of attorneys. Federal training monies through Title
IV-E matching funds can help develop performance standards for
attorneys and educational programs to explain those standards.
Training materials can summarize law, describe the hearing
process and, explain key legal concepts. With more stable
funding for training, agencies and courts can set up standard
curricula that all attorneys are expected to learn. Attendance
can be made mandatory, and attorneys can be held accountable
for what they are supposed to learn at those programs.
To sum up, there are many other crucial issues such as
performance measurement and computerized performance
measurement systems. While improvements in training will not
solve all the problems in attorney or court performance, it
ultimately will make a major difference in the lives of abused
and neglected children and their families.
So, again, I will just say how much we appreciate the
opportunity to speak to you today. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement follows:]
Statement of Mark Hardin, Director, Child Welfare, American Bar
Association Center on Children and the Law
Madam Chair, members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify this afternoon.
I am Mark Hardin, Director of Child Welfare at the American
Bar Association Center on Children and the Law. For over 22
years, I have specialized and provided training in legal issues
concerning child abuse and neglect, foster care, and adoption.
I have also testified here a number of times in the last 20
years. I submit this testimony at the request of the President
of the American Bar Association, William G. Paul of Oklahoma
City, Oklahoma.
The ABA has supported court reforms and improvements of the
system that serves children who have been abused or neglected
dating back to the 1970's. We have focused particularly on the
role of judges and attorneys in child abuse and neglect and
foster care cases in the nation's juvenile and family courts. I
am speaking today on the importance of training for attorneys
in achieving safety and permanency for foster children and
especially in achieving the goals of the federal Adoption and
Safe Families Act. I will discuss four points:
The critical role played by attorneys in
protecting children, achieving justice for the parties, and
achieving the goals of the federal Adoption and Safe Families
Act of 1997 (ASFA).
The unique and challenging nature of legal
practice in child protection cases.
Current problems in the performance of attorneys
in foster care litigation, and how that is related to a lack of
training.
How effective training for attorneys can help
protect children, ensure fairness for parties, and achieve the
goals of ASFA.
My first point is the critical role played by attorneys in
determining the future of abused and neglected children.
You are already aware, I'm sure, that courts play a central
role in planning and decision making for children in foster
care. Courts must make a whole series of pivotal decisions
concerning each child in foster care. Without a well
functioning court system, children's safety is compromised,
families are needlessly broken up, and children languish for
years in foster care instead of permanent homes. Without well
functioning courts, the goals of ASFA cannot be achieved.
Judges cannot serve families and children effectively
without competent and well-prepared attorneys. Attorneys
largely control the flow of information to the judge. Attorneys
decide what witnesses, evidence, and arguments to present. When
attorneys are unaware of vital facts important to the
children's safety and treatment, these facts may never be
brought to the judge's attention. Without complete relevant
information, judges' decisions may well be ill informed or even
tragically mistaken.
Effective agency attorneys are vital to the success of the
Adoption and Safe Families Act. They must be able to
troubleshoot and identify problems in advance, such as failure
to locate key parties and relatives. They must help prepare
findings for the judge that will move the case forward later.
They must be willing to pursue the difficult and challenging
cases and not wait years for them to because easier because the
child has already stayed so long in foster care.
Knowledgeable and trained attorneys for parents and
children are equally crucial to filling the goals of ASFA.
Given the tighter timeframes for decisions that are required by
the Adoption and Safe Families Act, it is particularly
important that attorneys for parents and children effectively
and diligently represent their clients. If parents' attorneys
are unprepared, family relationships more likely will be
severed unfairly or needlessly. If children's attorneys or
guardians ad litem do not perform well, children's needs may
not be met in foster care and the ASFA decision timelines may
be frustrated.
Child protection law is a very specialized and demanding
area of practice. It remains a little known area of the law,
and few attorneys appreciate its challenges and complexity.
Child protection cases involve a unique series of hearings each
with specific purposes. For attorneys, each hearing requires a
special set of strategies and careful preparation. There are no
close analogues for child protection hearings in different
areas of the law. There are also many legal issues unique to
child protection law, including special issues of evidence,
constitutional law, administrative law, and procedure.
Likewise, there are many non-legal issues attorneys must
understand such as child development, substance abuse, and
basic principles of child abuse and medicine. Attorneys need to
understand the unique way these issues are presented in child
protection cases. They need training to gain this
understanding.
Another factor adding to the challenges of child protection
law for attorneys is the severity of child and family problems
in child protection cases. For example, in the majority of
child protection cases, one or more parents has difficulties
with substance abuse. More often than not, parents often have
serious disabilities, psychological disorders, character
disorders, or are involved in criminal behavior. We know that a
disproportionate number of foster children have psychological
problems (often due to the abuse or neglect), learning
disabilities, and other critical issues and disabilities.
Still another difficult challenge for attorneys is that
they must deal with large and complex bureaucracies, especially
the child protection agency. Attorneys must understand how
these bureaucracies work in order to represent their clients
effectively. In addition to the public child protection agency,
attorneys must effectively work with law enforcement, a wide
range of public and private treatment providers, schools, and
medical and mental health professionals.
Finally, child protection cases present unique legal
strategies. An attorney who is familiar only with criminal or
civil practice is unlikely to appreciate these strategies. For
example, attorneys need to understand that criminal defense
strategies in defending a parent in juvenile court usually is
counter productive for their client and family, serving only to
delay the case. Child protection attorneys also need to
understand the unique ongoing oversight role of the court and
how to develop strategies for the different steps in the case.
The performance of many attorneys in child protection cases
is inadequate. This is directly related to a lack of systematic
training. Recently, under the federal court improvement grants,
the nation's state court systems evaluated their own
performance in child abuse and neglect. The American Bar
Association prepared a summary of the findings of these state
court self-assessments.
The self-assessments found a very real need for improvement
in the performance of attorneys. In many places, low standards
of preparation and performance prevail. In many courts, some
attorneys meet their clients for the first time only a few
moments before the beginning of hearings. No other pre-hearing
preparation occurs.
In addition, many attorneys don't understand their special
roles in child protection cases. One report described new
agency attorneys coming to court and actually asking
caseworkers what they, as the workers' attorneys, were supposed
to do. Other reports describe attorneys not understanding
either law or strategy in these cases.
Many state court self assessment reports said that
attorneys handling child protection cases not only are often
inexperienced in child protection cases, but often also quickly
move on to new areas of law. This fact adds to the need for
systematic and early training for all attorneys taking on these
cases.
Effective training for attorneys can make a major
difference in their performance. Training can explain the
special ethical obligations of attorneys in these cases.
Training moneys can help develop performance standards for
attorneys and then establish programs where practitioners learn
what is expected of them. Training materials can also summarize
child protection law, describe the hearing process, and explain
key legal concepts and issues.
With more stable funding for training, agencies, bar
organizations, and courts can set up standard curricula that
all attorneys are expected to learn. Attendance at such
training should be required. Attorneys can be more easily held
accountable for performing in accordance with their training.
They can receive rapid instructions in new legal developments,
through materials, face-to-face training, and videotapes. If
administrative costs under Title IV-B of the Social Security
Act are made available for this purpose, attorney training will
realize major advances.
While improvements in training will not solve all the
problems in attorney and court performance, it can translate
into significant performance improvements, and ultimately will
make a major difference in the lives of abused and neglected
children and their families.
We appreciate the opportunity to testify and will submit
more complete written testimony at a later time.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Thank you very much, Mr.
Hardin.
Ms. DeLay?
STATEMENT OF CHRISTINE DELAY, VOLUNTEER, FT. BEND COUNTY CHILD
ADVOCATES PROGRAM, RICHMOND, TEXAS, ON BEHALF OF NATIONAL COURT
APPOINTED SPECIAL ADVOCATES ASSOCIATION, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
Ms. DeLay. I am honored to be invited to speak to you
today, Madam Chairwoman and Mr. Cardin and Mr. Camp, about
court-appointed special advocates, CASAs, and the role they
play by helping courts and the different social services make
informed decisions in the best interest of children.
First, I would like to thank you and applaud the
subcommittee's leadership for your work last year on the Foster
Care Independence Act. I am a CASA volunteer with the Child
Advocates of Fort Bend County in Richmond, Texas, and my
husband, Tom, and I have been foster parents for a number of
years. We are well acquainted with the support and services
that older teens need when they are transitioning out of foster
care into becoming self-sufficient. I recognize that this
legislation will be instrumental in helping young adults
transition into independent living.
The committee is considering increasing the training of
court personnel, including court-appointed special advocates.
Let me tell you why this is important.
CASAs are citizen volunteers appointed by the juvenile and
family courts in cases of abuse or neglect. The volunteer is an
independent voice focusing exclusively on what is best for the
child. The courts and the child protective service agencies are
dealing with overwhelming caseloads. CASAs only have one or two
cases at a time so they can give each child's case the
sustained personal interest it deserves.
The volunteer reviews, records, researches information, and
talks to everyone involved in the case before making a
recommendation to the court about a particular child's
placement and their needed services. The CASA remains on the
case until it is resolved, the same CASA, as the child's
tenacious advocate for a safe and permanent home. Sadly,
sometimes this takes years.
It is easiest to illustrate the CASA volunteer's unique
ability to effectively advocate for children by citing real
cases. I want to share one with you. The names and identifying
information have been changed to protect the confidentiality of
the people involved.
The story takes place in my home county of Fort Bend,
Texas. It was in the fall of 1998, and our CASA program entered
a courtroom expecting to attend a third and final termination
of parental rights hearing for a specific case. The drug-
addicted mother of three little boys had relinquished her
rights 6 months earlier. The father of the boys was a career
criminal that no one could find. Previous hearings had resulted
in two 30-day continuances at the request of the court-
appointed attorney for the father. Despite a year's worth of
work by both CASA and CPS to locate the father, his whereabouts
were still unknown.
When the CASA arrived at the courthouse, she heard the same
old song and dance. The father's attorney needed more time and
the other attorneys in the case, including the children's
attorney, were willing to agree to yet one more continuance.
However, the CASA would not stand for it. She told the rest of
the professionals assigned to the case that enough was enough.
She went on to tell them, ``I represent three little boys
who deserve a permanent home. They have been waiting for over a
year for us to free them for adoption. The foster parents want
to adopt, and they have been here three times now hoping the
termination would be granted. We can do better than this. I
don't want them to go home empty-handed today.''
She stated that the father couldn't be found because he
didn't want to be found. It was imperative for the parties
involved to shift their focus to the welfare of the children.
Therefore, she would not agree to a continuance and would ask
the judge to go forward. She did, and he did.
That night, Mark, Scott, and Nathan learned that they were
going to be adopted by their foster parents and they would have
what they had never had in their young lives--a permanent home.
This story illustrates the need for all court personnel to
be trained in the requirements of the new Federal laws. Today
there are nearly 900 CASA programs throughout the country. In
1998, the courts appointed CASA volunteers to the cases of
183,000 children representing more than one-third of the
children in foster care. These volunteers are the eyes and the
ears of the court, and they are critical to the implementation
of the new adoption laws. But training alone will not change
the hearts and minds of a culture. Cultural change will only
come when we as a society really believe that children's safety
and well-being must be paramount.
In the best interest of our children, I would recommend to
this committee that you support training of CASA volunteers as
well as the judges and attorneys. I am sure you recognize this,
and I do want to thank you the committee for passing H.R. 3073.
We were very upset that it was not--that it died in the Senate.
But we are hopeful that the training provisions will be
reintroduced and passed again.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement follows:]
Statement of Christine DeLay, Volunteer, Ft. Bend County Child
Advocates Program, Richmond, Texas, on behalf of the National Court
Appointed Special Advocate Association, Seattle, Washington
Madame Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee,
I am honored by your invitation to speak today about the
Strengthening Abuse and Neglect Courts Act.
First, I would like to thank and applaud the Subcommittee's
leadership for your work last year on the Foster Care
Independence Act. I am a CASA volunteer with the Ft. Bend
County Child Advocates Program in Richmond, Texas. My husband
Tom and I are also foster parents. From my experience as a CASA
volunteer, I am very well acquainted with the support and
services that older teens need when they age out of foster care
and must become self-sufficient.
When Congress approved the Adoption and Safe Families Act
[ASFA], it established a national standard that a child's
safety is of paramount concern in cases of abuse and neglect.
What's more, that foster care should only be a ``temporary''
situation in the precious short time of childhood. Children
should be placed in safe and permanent homes as quickly as
possible. The Strengthening Abuse and Neglect Courts Act
[SANCA] will bring much-needed resources to our juvenile courts
to more effectively manage the backlog of children's cases
already in the system, and to move new cases more
expeditiously.
Among the resources provided to courts through SANCA is the
expansion of Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASAs). CASAs
are citizen volunteers appointed by the juvenile and family
courts in cases of child abuse, neglect or abandonment. The
volunteer is an independent voice, focusing exclusively on what
is best for the child. CASAs handle just 1 or 2 cases at a
time, so that they can give each child's case the sustained,
personal attention it deserves. The volunteer reviews records,
researches information and talks to everyone involved in the
case, before making a recommendation to the court about a
particular child's placement and needed services. The CASA
remains on the case until it is resolved, as the child's
tenacious advocate for a safe and permanent home.
The role of the CASA volunteer becomes even more critical
under the shorter timeframes of ASFA. The courts and agencies
are still dealing with overwhelming caseloads, yet have less
time to devote to an individual child's case. CASAs are an
assurance that a child has an advocate who will take the time
to thoroughly research the child's situation and that important
facts are not overlooked. CASA volunteers are typically
appointed to the more complex children's cases--those in which
the best solutions for a child's safe placement are difficult
to discern. CASA volunteers will delve deep into a child's
situation, including locating and speaking with extended family
members, and report this information to the court.
Today there are nearly 900 CASA programs throughout the
country. In 1998, the courts appointed CASA volunteers to the
cases of 183,000 children, representing more than \1/3\ of the
children in foster care. More than 30% of all children in
foster care live in just ten cities--the country's largest
cities. CASA volunteers advocate for 7,000 children in these
cities. Yet that is just a little more than 4% of the children
in care--an estimated total of 162,000 children in the 10
largest cities.
SANCA will expand the capacity of CASA programs in these
urban areas to advocate for more children, and to assure that
these children do not get lost in systems that are so
overwhelmed.
The legislation will also provide for CASA expansion by
establishing programs that can serve children across multiple
rural jurisdictions. There are already CASA programs throughout
the country--from New York, to Indiana, Oklahoma, Texas, New
Mexico and California--that are serving children residing in
rural areas across two and three counties. SANCA will enable
the National CASA Association to promote and support this model
in the 387 rural court jurisdictions that are still without
CASA advocacy.
In rural Southeast Texas, the Supreme Court Task Force on
Adoption has piloted a cluster court in a 10-county area. The
judge travels among the 10 counties and specializes in just
child protection cases, rather than myriad cases typically
handled by rural county courts. The cluster court can serve as
another model for rural expansion from a central location.
Thank you for your attention and the opportunity to speak
before you today.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. I would point out, it
hasn't died. It is suffering from benign neglect. [Laughter.]
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. And we still have a chance
to get the proper focus upon it, and we will appreciate your
help and the help of all of you advocates in the room to
accomplish that goal.
Mr. Moorman?
STATEMENT OF RONALD H. MOORMAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CHILD CARE
ASSOCIATION OF ILLINOIS
Mr. Moorman. Madam Chairperson and members of the
subcommittee, I do want to thank you for the opportunity to
testify today and recognize the fact that the testimony that I
am going to give is beyond the scope of just talking about
court training. It has to do with another whole sector of the
child welfare community that is in desperate need of training
resources, and that is the private sector, and the link between
what we do in the private sector and what we do in the court
system is extremely important.
My name is Ron Moorman, and I represent 108 voluntary, not-
for-profit child welfare agencies in the State of Illinois, and
these are agencies that basically deliver the full range of
child welfare services, foster care and adoption and
reunification services. The testimony that I am giving is
supported fully by our Governor, George Ryan, and also by other
organizations in our State such as the Catholic Conference and
the Jewish Federation.
I am very, very proud of the role that the private agencies
provide in the State of Illinois. Illinois is a two-sector
system, and it has a very, very strong base of voluntary not-
for-profit child welfare agencies. It is a true public-private
partnership that is, I think, a hallmark of our system. This is
true, and not just in Illinois, but in many other States as
well.
I do need to point out that in the past several years,
under the impetus of the Adoption and Safe Families Act,
Illinois adoption rates have grown in record-shattering
numbers. We had 9,500 wards that moved to adoption in FY 1999.
We had 6,600 in the FY 2000. We have 6,100 projected for this
year. If we include reunifications in that number, we will move
approximately 13,000 children through the court systems in Cook
County.
In order to achieve that record, Illinois places priority
emphasis on a dual public-private sector approach to the
delivery of child welfare services. In fact, Illinois purchases
over 80 percent of its foster care services from private child
welfare agencies.
As the numbers demonstrate, that process works, and what is
critical to that is a dedicated, committed, and well-trained
workforce. That is absolutely essential if we are going to meet
the performance standards that, in fact, you have set up for
the system. Unfortunately, current Federal policies financially
penalize Illinois for its reliance on private sector agencies
in the delivery of child welfare services. I am testifying here
today to urge you to rectify what we perceive to be perhaps an
unintended but clearly unfair statutory policy.
As required under Title IV-E of the Social Security Act,
training funds for public child welfare programs are reimbursed
at a 75 percent matching rate by the Federal Government. This
incentive ensures that States do invest in training public
child welfare workers for the work that they have to do.
However, the current law does not provide States the same
financial match incentives to train child welfare workers from
private child welfare agencies. Plainly, this structure of the
Federal training match unfairly discriminates against States
like Illinois that have a strong private sector child welfare
base.
As I said, Illinois currently purchases over 80 percent of
the foster care services it provides from private agencies, and
I simply have a hard time believing that it was ever your
intention to exclude private agencies from these critically
needed resources. That doesn't correlate with the vision and
the wisdom that you recently displayed in passing the Adoption
and Safe Families Act.
In closing, I would stress that States such as Illinois
which make innovative and successful use of private agencies in
the delivery of child welfare services must be able to take
advantage of the same incentives and reimbursement
opportunities for training that States that rely on a public
child welfare system do. So we would urge the members of the
subcommittee to take immediate steps to rectify this inequity
and pass corrective legislation this year that will ensure the
continued success of public-private partnerships to better the
lives of children and families in need.
Madam Chairman, in the press release that was put out for
this hearing, you had a quote that said, ``Every child deserves
a safe and loving home,'' and that is why it is important to
have well-trained and qualified judges to make crucial
decisions about children involved in abuse and neglect. And
while that is certainly true for judges and it is certainly
true for CASA, it is equally true for those individual
caseworkers, public and private, who on a daily basis hold the
lives and futures of countless children and families in their
hands.
I thank you for your consideration, and I urge your help
with this request. Thank you.
[The prepared statement follows:]
[Attachments are being retained in the Committee files.]
Statement of Ronald H. Moorman, Executive Director, Child Care
Association of Illinois
Madame Chairperson, Members of the Subcommittee, thank you
for giving me the opportunity to testify today on critical
issues related to child welfare. My name is Ronald Moorman and
I am the Executive Director of the Child Care Association of
Illinois (CCA), which is a voluntary, not-for-profit
organization established in 1964, dedicated to improving the
delivery of social services to the abused, neglected, and
troubled children, youth and families of Illinois. This
testimony enjoys the full support of Governor Ryan and many
other child welfare organizations in Illinois, such as the
Catholic Conference and the Jewish Federation.
I testify here today with great pride in describing the
strong private sector base of the child welfare system in
Illinois and want to underscore the strong public-private
partnership that is a hallmark of our system and those of
several other states. Ensuring the safety of Illinois'
children, the availability of stable care, and the
establishment of permanent placements are of utmost importance
to those of us in both the public and private sector who are
participants in the delivery of child welfare services to
children and families in Illinois. Clearly, successful outcomes
for children and families in the child welfare system depend
heavily on the availability of a qualified, highly trained
workforce in both the public and private sectors. Today I will
focus my remarks on a critical problem facing the child welfare
system in America and steps that must be taken to guarantee the
continuing availability of such a trained workforce in Illinois
and in other states with similar child welfare systems.
In the past few years, under the impetus of the Adoption
and Safe Families Act, Illinois' adoption rates have
demonstrated the success in child placement--9,514 wards to
adoption/guardianship in FY1999, 6,623 in FY2000, and 6,112
projected for FY 2001. Additionally, dedicated efforts have
been targeted at ensuring that children's needs within the
State's foster and substitute care systems are quickly and
appropriately met with the right types and levels of services.
In order to achieve such strong and successful results in our
child welfare system, including high rates of adoption and a
``wrap around'' service delivery system, Illinois places
priority emphasis on a dual public/private sector approach to
delivering child welfare services in the state. In fact,
Illinois purchases over 75 percent of the foster care services
it provides from private child welfare agencies.
The Governor of Illinois and the Illinois Department of
Child and Family Services fully expect our provider agencies to
meet high performance and outcome standards. We strongly
support that expectation. Also, to meet such a challenge and to
guarantee that children and families receive quality care, a
high premium is placed on ensuring that both public and private
workers are thoroughly trained. We fully support that
assumption. As adoption numbers alone clearly demonstrate, such
collaborative working relationships help ensure that the vast
needs of children are efficiently met throughout the state.
Moreover, a dedicated, committed and well-trained workforce is
absolutely essential to meet federal performance standards.
Unfortunately, current federal policies financially
penalize Illinois for its reliance on private sector agencies
in the delivery of child welfare services. I testify here today
to urge you to rectify what we perceive to be perhaps an
unintended, but clearly unfair, statutory policy. As required
under Title IV-E of the Social Security Act, training funds for
public child welfare programs are reimbursed at a 75 percent
matching rate by the federal government. This incentive ensures
that states invest in training public child welfare workers to
work effectively with abused and neglected children and their
families. The current law does not, however, provide states the
same financial match incentives to train child welfare workers
from private child welfare agencies. Plainly, the structure of
the federal training match unfairly discriminates against
states that have a strong private sector welfare base, like
Illinois, which as I stated previously, currently purchases
over 75 percent of the foster care services it provides from
private sector agencies.
States such as Illinois should not be penalized for the
private sector commitment of its non-profit child welfare
agencies and their creative use of private resources in meeting
the needs of children and families. Changing the current
federal welfare training match to include training for private
welfare agency workers must occur. The investment of federal
monies in this training effort would ultimately be to the
benefit of all parties involved. In fact, in Illinois,
officials at all levels in both public and private sectors
believe that extending the incentive to train private agency
workers will ultimately result in a less expensive child
welfare system.
Finding permanent homes and safe environments for children
who enter the child welfare system, whether in foster care or
adoptive families, requires a highly trained and committed
workforce. The extensive efforts in training the child welfare
workforce in Illinois has contributed to Illinois' recent
successes--the state is among the nation's leaders in the
number of adoptions from foster care. Permanency results will
continue to improve and children will spend less time in foster
care if the entire system--public and private--is well-trained
and focused on similar child protection and permanency goals.
An enhanced federal matching rate will help achieve these
goals.
In closing, I would like the Members of the Subcommittee to
remember that given rapidly changing public policy, service
delivery standards, and best clinical practices, it is
imperative that ongoing training for welfare workers be
available. States with innovative and successful use of private
agencies in the delivery of child welfare services, such as
Illinois, must be able to take advantage of the same incentives
and reimbursement opportunities for training private workers in
the best clinical practices as are available to states whose
systems are built on public workers. Do we as a nation
genuinely want to push states toward a fully public child
welfare delivery model as the current statutory language does,
or do we want to foster and build the valuable private sector
strengths of states like my own?
We urge Members of the Subcommittee to take immediate steps
to rectify this inequity and pass corrective legislation this
year that will ensure the continued success of public/private
partnerships to better the lives of children and families in
need. Thank you for your time, and I would be happy to answer
any questions.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Thank you. As the former
chairman of a nonprofit children's agency, I hear exactly what
you are saying. It is bizarre, isn't it, that we have--
Mr. Moorman. It truly is bizarre. It doesn't make sense.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. No one in their right mind
would imagine that, you know, government agencies are going to
do all this work. I personally don't know of a State in which
that is the case. Maybe there is one, but certainly Connecticut
has also a very developed public-private partnership providing
the services to this group of children, and we have already
begun getting estimates on that issue.
You raise some very interesting points as a panel.
Certainly you all make a compelling case for training of
volunteers, of lawyers, of judges, of court personnel, and the
training that people need in these areas, that was very
helpful, Mr. Hardin, for you to line out not just the
complexity of the legal issues but the ethical issues and the
child development, the human development information that you
really need to have at least some grasp of.
So if you are going to have this level of training and
sophistication, it seems to me States should not be allowed to
rotate their judges through the children's courts. You know, I
just don't see how we do this anymore. You look at some of the
big complex mergers and acquisitions, and I certainly would
want a judge that would have some experience in that level of
complex case. And we are reaching that same level of complexity
in family law, and the body of information that you need that
is non-legal and the knowledge of the agency network and so on
and so forth. So it isn't just a matter of coordination. It is
a matter of coordinating well-trained parts, well-informed
people.
Judge Leuba, in Connecticut--or, actually, you know, you
represent the court administrators across the country. Are
courts moving now to letting people specialize in this? Should
part of our effort, if we are going to spend money on training,
should we also reward States that are willing to get people to
specialize in this work?
Judge Leuba. My own view for Connecticut, we do rotate
judges as a general rule, but judges who want to stay working
in a particular area do so. And my experience in Connecticut is
that a very large percentage of our judges do stay from year to
year.
We do find, however, that over the long haul there is what
I am going to call, for lack of a better term, burnout. And
when you get a judge who has been in a court for a long time
and just can't stand to go and listen to one more of these
problems, it is my responsibility, I think, to the court that
the judge is leaving to find someone else who is appropriately
qualified, train that person, and get them in the place where
they are needed.
Connecticut is just one of the States. You will notice in
my testimony I highlighted what they are doing in Arizona. They
are developing online training programs so that judges who are
moved into that court are trained before they get there. We
haven't had an online system in Connecticut, but we are doing
annual training programs when court judges change assignments.
So they will be trained in the areas, and the training funds
which you could unleash in this process will assist courts
across the country to be sure that any judge that is assigned
to a court dealing with child protection issues will be
adequately trained. And I hope a lot of that will come from
computer programs.
I asked my own chief administrative judge in the juvenile
area what their biggest need was, and it was in the training of
judges in the computer world and the development of computer
programs for training. So I think that is going to be of
assistance to courts that do move judges around from time to
time.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Mr. Hardin, in discussing
the really desperate need of lawyers for some better training,
it is sort of like post-specialty training in medicine. You
suggested that we might even want to require that to practice
in this arena that you have completed certain courses as a
matter of professional credentials.
That raises the issue of if you are going to offer the
level of training that really we need in many ways, you are
going to give a lot of people in the court system credentials
that should have educational--they should be recognized by the
education system, they should be recognized as accomplishments,
and they should be rewarded in the pay structure.
Mr. Hardin. I agree with that. The courts are beginning in
some instances to set up mandatory training programs, but they
haven't gone as far as they might go in terms of expecting
people to actually demonstrate competence. And they haven't
gone as far as they need to go in creating really systematic
curricula that people are actually expected to master to
perform in this field.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. And, Ms. DeLay, the same
kind of question to you. If we put the money into training and
you testified that volunteers need it as well, we would
certainly have to reward the volunteers for that level of
investment in education with certificates and degrees. You
know, we have certificate programs for people who work in
nursing homes as nurse's aides. And when you look at the level
of responsibility that volunteers take in this system, it
really not only bespeaks a right and an obligation for
training, but some recognition on our part. I hope you will
think about that and see how we might do that.
The other question I wanted you to address was: Is it
common for CASA volunteers to have as much influence in a case
as that really remarkable experience you described?
Ms. DeLay. It is in child advocates of Fort Bend County.
Our CASA is very strong, and it goes back to our leadership. We
have a wonderful executive director and staff, and--
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. So do you have training
for volunteers that is quite extensive--
Ms. DeLay. Oh, yes, we do. You go through a minimum of 30
hours of training before you ever get a first case, and then
you have to complete, I don't know, a certain amount of
trainings throughout each year in order to keep your ability to
be able to volunteer.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. And you have no problem
getting volunteers? This is a pretty demanding volunteer job.
Ms. DeLay. We have a smaller county, so we have enough
volunteers for every child that comes into the court system.
However, some of the larger counties like Harris County in
Texas and Los Angeles County in California, they don't have
nearly enough. But they do send a CASA to court with each child
even though the CASA doesn't work with that child throughout
the year.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Doesn't have the personal
relationship that is possible in the smaller districts.
Ms. DeLay. Yes.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Well, thank you for your
dedication to that movement. This makes such a tremendous
difference. I appreciate it.
On the other issue of credentialing, would that make it
harder to get volunteers or might it be an incentive?
Ms. DeLay. Not in my experience. I mean, we are pretty open
for every bit of training they can get. It is a very passionate
group of people.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. How many hours a week do
CASA volunteers put in?
Ms. DeLay. Well, it varies a lot. A week before last, I was
just assigned a new case, and I probably spent 30 hours the
first week I had it and maybe 20 the second. And then we don't
go to court again until April the 26th, and I probably won't
put in more than 15 hours between now and then.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. That is very interesting
because, you know, both of my daughters are stay-at-home moms
after, you know, a number of years of professional working.
And, you know, if we gave credentials for completing that kind
of training, you set yourself up later on when you want to go
back part-time or full-time with a very impressive record as a
volunteer and documentable experience. Interesting.
Judge Grossmann, when you look at the variety of--the
breadth of training demand and the need for continual
training--I mean, you can't just do this once and let it go.
Are there already seminars going on in your State on other
issues? We passed some pretty complicated legislation in recent
years like the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act. Do you have training
sessions going on that are looking across agency lines and that
would be easy to use to fold this additional burden in?
Judge Grossmann. Yes, there are two sources within the
State. We have, of course, the Ohio Association of Juvenile and
Family Court Judges that cooperate with the supreme court in
putting out training sessions and systems that are very useful
in bringing on judges as they become new to the bench, and
ongoing training for those that have been there for a good
while. And then the National Council does a fair amount of
training, as is outlined in some of my written testimony, which
is also accessible.
But the challenge is great. The turnover, you touched on a
very serious point when you said shouldn't there be some tenure
in this office. I remember going out to California a number of
years ago when they were first trying to struggle with the fact
of bringing their juvenile court judges into some kind of
status where they could stay on long enough to at least find
out where the key to the washroom was.
The problem is very serious when you have fungible judges
and they move in for a year or two and move out, and they have
no clue as to how this system functions. So that is a very,
very serious need.
But, yes, there are tools which, with some funding
assistance, could be spread even wider than they are now.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Well, I do appreciate the
seriousness of the burnout problem, and when you are burned
out, I don't care what your profession is, you really need to
have the right to move on. But also, if the system works
better, we will have a little less burnout.
Judge Grossmann. That is right.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. It is just so terribly
frustrating.
Mr. Moorman, would you like to add anything before I turn
to Mr. Cardin?
Mr. Moorman. Not really.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Cardin?
Mr. Cardin. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Let me just jump in a little bit on the rotation or the
expertise or the burnout issue because I think it is more than
just that. I do think the richness of our court system benefits
from judges rotating to different service, so I think it is not
just the desire to make sure that a judge is trained in a
particular area and knows the agencies that are involved and
the community involved, which is true in any part of law that a
judge has to deal with.
It is also the fact that traditionally at our circuit court
levels we felt that it is important for the administration of
justice for judges to have a broad experience and not to just
concentrate in one area.
Some legislatures have disagreed with that by setting up
family courts, which have worked very well in many parts of the
country where they deal with family issues, including children
issues.
Regardless of what system is used, the judge needs to be
trained, and I think that is the point, and judicial personnel
needs to be trained. And I think the point that each of you
have made is that there are not adequate resources nor have
there been parity in resources in the judicial branch of
government for training the court personnel to deal with this.
And, obviously, our subcommittee recognized that last year in
the fatherhood bill, and the Senators that were here are
committed to trying to do something about that. So I think we
all can work together to try to deal with that specific issue.
Mr. Hardin, your point about lawyers I thought was very
interesting. It is not a very lucrative field of law for
attorneys. Many times the lawyer who gets involved in this area
may do so for a couple of years or for a very small part of his
or her total practice. And it even, I think, cries out more for
the courts to be adequately trained because in children's
issues, the court can exercise more discretion than it can when
dealing with adults. So it points together again the main focus
here, and that is to modernize and train--have enough resources
to make sure that our court personnel are adequately trained in
this area. So I think you all have made an excellent record for
us on this, and we certainly hope that we will be able to move
forward on the legislation that passed the House and perhaps
broaden it. The legislation introduced by our Senate colleagues
is broader than in our bill, and I think there is a lot of
interest on our side to see this effort made even more
comprehensive.
Ms. DeLay, I have one question for you, and that is--it
really follows up on Mrs. Johnson's point, and that is, in your
experience, are the courts paying attention to the CASA
volunteers' recommendations or information? Is it having the
type of impact on the system that you think is correct?
Ms. DeLay. Our family court judge does. It depends on,
obviously, the judge. I would say when we disagree with any
other part of the case, whether we disagree with CPS or maybe
the family's attorney, I would say about 90 percent of the time
he goes with CASA because we know the case better than anybody
else. We spend more time, and he is interested in the best
interest of the child, and these other people, certainly not
CPS, but their clients may be somebody else.
Mr. Cardin. Well, I really do applaud your efforts and the
efforts of the volunteers, and I noticed that Congressman Tom
DeLay was here for most of our hearing. I am sure it had
nothing to do with your presence. [Laughter.]
Mr. Cardin. But we certainly thank him very much for his
leadership on the passage of the Foster Care Independence Act,
and we hope that we can get Tom DeLay and President Clinton
together on more bills so we can get some more things done.
[Laughter.]
Ms. DeLay. No promises. [Laughter.]
Mr. Cardin. I can understand that.
On the Adoption and Safe Families Act, I would like to get
the response particularly from those that have been involved in
the administration enforcement of those provisions as to how
those requirements are working. Are we having the permanency
hearings? Are we dealing with the termination of parental
rights? Are we complying with the terms of that act and
certainly the intent of that act to have more timely
determination hearings? Whoever would like to--Mr. Moorman?
Mr. Moorman. Yes, I would just like to speak from the
private sector and from the Illinois experience. I can
absolutely guarantee you that is happening in the State of
Illinois, and the timelines are being met. There has been a
very aggressive and I think a very positive response on the
part of the court systems in Illinois. And as I said in my
testimony--the results are there. I have been in the child
welfare system for about 30 years in Illinois, and this is a
new experience and a new era, and this piece of legislation
definitely pushed that button. It is an entirely different
experience. It does, back to my testimony, also accelerate the
need for a very well trained staff to be able to meet the court
requirements that are now in this bill. So lots of pieces fall
together here, but it is having, in Illinois--I can just speak
for Illinois--a remarkable effect.
Mr. Cardin. Good.
Judge Leuba. In Connecticut, you would see the same result.
I am not sure it would be so dramatic. I don't have the
statistics. But, really, ASFA has stood the system on its ear
because for many years, as you know--and I am sure that is what
led to your action--the emphasis was on the reunification, so
much so that everyone in the system was spending all their
efforts on reunification, and now I think the Congress has made
it clear to the States that it is necessary to take into
consideration the children rather than the reunification as the
primary goal in the whole process.
Mr. Cardin. The timelines of the act in Connecticut are
being complied with?
Judge Leuba. The timelines are moving. The training will
help us to do more of that. In Connecticut, we have increased
the judges from 9 to 16 in recent years, and the more we can
add to it, the more we will add to it because we need more not
just judges but courtrooms and staff. It is a multidisciplinary
problem, as you know, and everybody has to participate. You
just can't throw the judges in. It has to be a team effort.
Mr. Hardin. Our observation nationally is that ASFA is
certainly having a lot of good impact. Its effects are uneven
in that they are stronger in some States than others, the
impact is much greater in some courts than others, the
knowledge of ASFA varies from place to place throughout the
country. And I guess also when I say knowledge, I don't just
mean knowledge in a very simple sense of a few of the
requirements, but knowledge of what it takes to actually make
it work.
For example, regarding the permanency hearing, the big
difference in an ASFA permanency hearing from what used to
exist is that it is supposed to be a very careful, thoughtful,
methodical decision about what the permanent home of the child
is going to be. In order to have a really meaningful permanency
hearing, it takes time. The court has to set aside more time
for that hearing, and the people who are participating in the
hearing have to be better prepared and they have to really have
put more thought into their decision, and they have to be less
willing to accept continuation of the status quo.
So I see this as an ongoing process with ASFA. We have seen
some dramatic improvements, particularly some of the places
that were the most troubled, and it is very gratifying, for
example, to see what they have done in Chicago. But there is
still considerable room for improvement to truly consistently
carry out the requirements of ASFA.
Judge Grossmann. I would second what Mark says. There is a
substantial improvement in places, but there is a lot of work
to be done. And there are a lot of courts that are not meeting
those timelines. There are a lot of children that are still
languishing. So it is not over yet.
Mr. Cardin. Thank you.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Two very brief questions.
Mr. Moorman, you recommend that we reimburse training for
nonprofit agencies in the same way we reimburse training for
government agencies. In some parts of the country, for-profit
agencies play a very big role, and is your recommendation for
just nonprofit or all private sector child-caring facilities
that contract with the State or something?
Mr. Moorman. I think the issue here is that whoever is
involved in the life of a child or a family needs to have the
training. I think that is a critical piece here. I think that
is the issue. If you are going to be involved, you have to be
trained and you have to have the type of experience and
background to be able to do it.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. And let me just ask, one
of the other big groups of volunteers in the system are the
citizen review boards. How effective are they and do they need
to be included in the training network as well? What is your
experience with them, if any? I will ask this of the next
panel, too. It may have really more direct--
Judge Grossmann. Well, the citizen review board system has
been useful and continues to be useful, but it is not a
substitute for the court doing its own reviews.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Members of the citizens
review, they get involved at an earlier level of case review.
Do they play any role similar to the CASA role in the legal
setting?
Judge Leuba. Not in Connecticut.
Mr. Hardin. Some States have much stronger foster care
review boards than others. They are not similar to CASA
programs to the extent that individual members don't go and
investigate particular cases. But the boards do sit and review
cases carefully, and they also play a role in some States in
identifying and advocating for improvements in particular
aspects of the system. So if they are seeing something in case
after case that is wrong about the adoption process, et cetera,
they can sometimes be quite effective in advocating for
resources or policy changes.
Also, in States that have particularly strong programs,
they can be important in individual cases.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Thank you very much, and I
thank the panel for your testimony. It has been very, very
helpful.
Now let me call Kristine Ragaglia, the commissioner of the
Connecticut Department of Children and Families, accompanied by
Thomas Kirk, the deputy commissioner of the Connecticut
Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, a
partnership that is addressing itself to the substance of the
bill introduced by our Senate colleagues; Nancy Young, director
of Children and Family Futures, from Irvine, California; Mary
Nelson, administrator of the Iowa Division of Adult, Children
and Family Services, on behalf of the American Public Human
Services Association; and Gale Saler, the deputy director of
Second Genesis, Bethesda, Maryland.
Nice to have you with us, too. Frank Horton, our former
colleague in the House, highly esteemed and very effective
former member. Thank you, Frank.
We will start with Commissioner Ragaglia. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF HON. KRISTINE D. RAGAGLIA, COMMISSIONER,
CONNECTICUT DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILIES, AND THOMAS A.
KIRK, JR., PH.D., DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, CONNECTICUT DEPARTMENT
OF MENTAL HEALTH AND ADDICTION SERVICES
Ms. Ragaglia. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Madam
Chair. Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify today
on the topic on the relationship between child protection and
substance abuse. My name is Kris Ragaglia. I am the
commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Children and
Families, which is a multi-service agency in Connecticut which
serves child protection, mental health, substance abuse
services for children, juvenile justice and prevention
activities. I am here today with Dr. Thomas Kirk who is the
deputy commissioner of our adult mental health and substance
abuse system called DMHAS, Department of Mental Health and
Addiction Services. DMHAS is the State's lead agency for
substance abuse services, and I understand that we--I just
wanted to check the clock. I understood we have 6 minutes for
our joint presentation here this morning--this afternoon. We
have submitted written testimony. What I would like to do is
highlight some of the issues.
We know that when we look at our caseload that drugs and
alcohol is a factor in about 60 to 70 percent of all of our
cases. It is certainly a greater factor in our cases that are
neglect cases as opposed to abuse cases, although it has been
identified as a significant factor, 81 percent, in abuse
fatalities in a Connecticut study that covered a two-and-a-
half-year period from 1995 to 1998.
I can tell you as an attorney who used to represent our
child protection agency several years ago that a majority of
the cases where kids are in out-of-home care actually involve
substance abuse.
Before 1995, child protection cases involving substance
abuse followed a basic pattern; we didn't have the expertise to
identify and address parental substance abuse as an issue in
those cases. We didn't consider ourselves as being in any way
responsible as child protection workers for identifying the
issue or ensuring that families actually got to treatment or
followed through, and what tended to happen was that cases
lingered. It didn't really matter if they were in-home or they
were out-of-home cases. They lingered within our system. The
only time that they did not linger was when kids were injured,
either through neglect or through abuse.
Unfortunately in 1995, we had a series of child fatalities
in Connecticut, and it was very clear to us when we looked at
those cases that substance abuse was the primary factor, and it
was not identified, and we didn't know what we were doing in
that area. We knew that we needed to better train our workers
to recognize the signs of substance abuse. We knew that we
needed immediate access to expert evaluations and screenings.
We knew that we needed priority access to services. Hence, back
in 1995, Project SAFE, which stands for Substance Abuse Family
Evaluation, was born in Connecticut, and I think it is probably
one of the first statewide programs that links child protection
with the adult substance abuse system.
We sat down and we worked with a private provider. At that
time DMHAS was not involved. We developed a central intake
system for referral from both our investigations and our
treatment workers. We developed priority access for evaluations
and screenings. All of this was funded through our child
protection system to a tune of $1.6 million.
We hired substance abuse specialists in our regional
offices. We added pre-service training that was mandatory for
workers as well as in-service training, and we felt that we
were starting to make a difference because at least it was on
our radar screen.
Since 1995, we have made 25,000 unduplicated referrals for
evaluation and screening. We have about 5,000 new referrals per
year. Sixty-seven percent of these referrals actually showed
for the evaluation, and 56 percent of the people who came for
the evaluation actually needed treatment or were recommended
for treatment.
We determined we needed to figure out a better way to make
sure that people who are in need of treatment on our caseloads
get to that treatment. Around that same time, ASFA came in with
the 12-month requirement, and we said we really need to get
moving here because we need to prove to the court that we have
made reasonable efforts to reunify.
Shortcomings of the program were identified. First, was the
treatment model. It really wasn't for women, and it certinly
wasn't for women with children. We were also concerned that we
were missing a good opportunity to have early prevention
activities for the kids involved with these families. Treatment
didn't really address issues around a cause for the use or
misuse of the drug and alcohol. The approach failed to address
related issues like housing and drug-free living environments.
So, quickly, because I know that Tom Kirk is watching the
clock tick, we said we cannot do this alone, and we turned to
our counterpart, our adult mental health system, and asked for
their assistance and, hence, Phase II of Project SAFE was born.
Mr. Kirk. Thank you, Chair. It is a privilege to testify
before you today on the important issue of children, families,
and recovery. I am Dr. Thomas Kirk. I am deputy commissioner of
the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction
Services.
Treatment does work. But today's traditional treatment
settings work better for some than others. Last year in
Connecticut, we treated about 27,000 adult persons in our
treatment system. The majority of those persons are what might
be called the more typical substance abuse treatment
population, 72 percent were men, 28 percent were women, the
average age was about 34, the primary substance of abuse, was
alcohol, which was about 60 percent, close to 50 percent of
cases used heroin, about 45 percent used cocaine. I mention
this and emphasize it, and I will emphasize it repeatedly, this
is not the profile for the cases that are coming into the
system through the Department of Children and Families.
The system in Connecticut, in response to the challenges
that we have in terms of providing care, has emphasized access;
the adult treatment system has been responsive. As we began
forming the partnership with the Department of Children and
Families, there were several things that stood out, and
simplistic as it may sound, one of the major things we tried to
attend to. The question was who was the client? Well, if I am
in the adult treatment system, the client is the mother and
father sitting before me for treatment. If I am in the DCF
system, it is not the same.
How is this population different from the entire treatment
population? To be maximally effective, treatment services must
be tailored to the individual needs and circumstances of the
patients involved.
Let me quickly tell you in the time remaining some of the
things we found. One of them was that the 25,000 cases that
were referred through the Department of Children and Families,
5,000 each year, they are not the same as the typical adult
treatment population. Number one, their use of marijuana is
about twice what it is in the traditional adult population.
Fifty percent don't use heroin. It is more like about 10
percent. So what we find is that these 5,000 cases, represent
an expansion on the 27,000 that we are doing, and very, very
important, it is not just a matter of expanding the treatment
population to respond to them, it is providing the right kind
of care.
The University of Connecticut has one of the major grants
from the Federal Center for Substance Abuse Treatment to work
on services for marijuana dependence. Their reports will be out
in June. So if I left you with a couple of points, one of them
would be: number one, your emphasis on children as part of the
system here is critically important, but we also have to
understand that the adult treatment system, it doesn't have the
capacity to treat those persons; and, furthermore, the type of
persons coming in for care are different. When you heard
Senator Rockefeller talk about engagement and retention in
care, those are not terms that we used 5 or 6 years ago, but
they are clearly messages that have to be built into the system
of care at this point in time.
My time is up, or it is close to being up. Let me have a
couple of additional points. The numbers are higher and the
type of care that is being provided is different, so that the
kinds of things that DCF and our agency have worked on the last
couple of years are geared toward a format that says we are
going to add another component to the treatment system, but now
we are going to call it the family recovery system. It pays
attention to the individual. It pays attention to the child.
The type of outcomes that are built in are different. But,
furthermore, the kind of care that must be provided is not the
same as what we have in our current system.
Thank you.
[The prepared statements follow:]
Statement of Hon. Kristine D. Ragaglia, Commissioner, Connecticut
Department of Children and Families
Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members of the Subcommittee
on Human Resources. Thank you for the opportunity to testify
before you today on this important topic. My name is Kristine
Ragaglia, and I am the Commissioner of the Connecticut
Department of Children and Families (DCF). With me today is Dr.
Thomas Kirk, Deputy Commissioner of the Connecticut Department
of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS). In our state,
DCF is mandated to provide mental health, substance abuse and
protective services to children. DMHAS is responsible for the
adult population and is the state's lead agency for substance
abuse services.
I would like to begin by commenting on the extent of
substance abuse among families involved with the child
protection system and the challenge this presents for achieving
permanency for children within the timelines mandated by the
Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA). I would then like to
highlight and comment on Connecticut's Project SAFE (Substance
Abuse Family Evaluation), an innovative and collaborative
approach to dealing with these issues. Dr. Kirk will then
discuss the specific treatment needs of this population and the
importance of developing working partnerships between child
welfare agencies and substance abuse providers in the effort
towards improving outcomes for children and families.
The rise in substance abuse among many of the parents
involved with the child welfare system has complicated the
system's efforts to protect children. Substance abuse is
extremely destructive and is a major factor leading to the
abuse and neglect of children. The impact of substance abuse on
children is a critical issue. Over the last 10 years, the
number of abused and neglected children has doubled nationwide,
from 1.4 million in 1986 to more than 3 million in 1997.
Substance abuse was a factor in 70 percent of those cases. The
impact of drugs and alcohol abuse in such cases is dramatic and
has been identified as a contributing factor in a significant
number of child fatalities. It is estimated that 5 children die
each day as a result of neglect and abuse. Children whose
parents abuse substances are almost three times more likely to
be abused and four times more likely to be neglected than other
children.
If substance abuse issues are left unaddressed, many of the
system's efforts to protect children and to promote positive
change in families will be wasted. We need to break the cycle
of the intergenerational transmission of substance abuse and
child abuse and neglect. Children with substance abusing
parents are more likely than other children to suffer from
significant developmental delays and have a higher risk of
developing substance abuse problems as adults. In addition,
these children are more likely to abuse and neglect their own
children when they become parents. Moreover, children of
substance abusing parents have an increased likelihood of being
placed in out-of-home care.
Given the often difficult task of identifying and securing
appropriate and timely substance abuse treatment for parents
whose children are in out-of-home care, children have
historically remained in placement longer than might otherwise
be necessary. As you are aware, the federal government enacted
ASFA in 1997 in an effort to address this concern and the need
to move children into permanent living arrangements as quickly
as possible following placement into foster care. Connecticut
supports the goals of ASFA and the emphasis it places on timely
permanency for children. More specifically, ASFA set out
shortened timelines for seeking terminations of parental rights
and requires the states to seek termination of parental rights
within 15 months of a child entering foster care unless certain
exemptions apply (i.e. the child is placed with a relative,
there is a compelling reason that termination is not in the
best interests of the child, or appropriate reunification
services were not provided). These shortened timelines have
increased the urgency and need to target substance abuse
prevention and treatment services for parents involved in the
child welfare system.
Connecticut has addressed these issues by developing and
implementing an innovative program called Project SAFE. The
program was initially developed in 1995 to improve the child
protection system by screening for substance abuse, and Gov.
John G. Rowland provided leadership in making the necessary
changes in the child protection system. Project SAFE was one of
the first programs to directly link the child protection system
with the adult substance abuse treatment system on a statewide
basis. The program presently provides centralized intake
procedures and priority access to substance abuse evaluations,
drug screens, and outpatient treatment services.
As a result of this collaborative program, direct line
social work staff in DCF have an ability to secure timely
substance abuse evaluations and screenings in cases where
substance abuse issues are identified. Since the program began,
DCF staff has made over 25,000 unduplicated referrals for
substance abuse evaluations and screenings, and there are
approximately 5,000 new referrals a year. By tracking clients,
we have been able to monitor the show rates for evaluation
screening and outpatient treatment as well as retention in
treatment. These efforts have assisted us in maximizing
resources.
At the time Project SAFE was created, DCF began to hire
substance abuse specialists to serve as consultants to social
workers in the regional offices. This provided the needed
expertise and training for the DCF social workers to make the
program work between the two systems and created the necessary
infrastructure. The results of Project SAFE have also provided
the court system with necessary information regarding access to
and availability of substance abuse services in Connecticut.
We found that the Project SAFE client is likely to be new
to the adult treatment system and to present with complex and
multiple needs. Almost 60% of the referrals from Project SAFE
are women. Approximately 67% of clients referred for a
substance abuse evaluation keep the appointments, although some
areas having show rates of above 75%. More than 56% of those
evaluated receive recommendations for substance abuse
treatment. Given that a significant number of clients are found
to require substance abuse treatment following the initial
evaluation, there is a clear need for collaboration with and
access to necessary and appropriate treatment programs.
As noted above, ASFA created new challenges for Project
SAFE by creating shortened timelines for developing permanency
plans for children and by emphasizing the state's
responsibility to provide reasonable efforts to reunify
children with their parents following placement into foster
care. There was a clear need to create a strategic plan for
Project SAFE in collaboration with DMHAS that would meet the
complex needs of our clients within the timelines mandated by
ASFA. We needed to identify and assess the impact these new
requirements would have not only on DCF but also on the
substance abuse treatment system. The child protection system
could not address the issue of substance abuse on its own. The
substance abuse system needed to begin addressing issues such
as gender, family functioning, trauma and parenting skills.
Similarly, the child protection system needed to gain knowledge
about substance abuse screening and treatment.
To address these needs, a new strategic planning
partnership was created in 1998 called Project SAFE Phase II.
This collaboration has provided an opportunity to improve
screening, assessment, bridge the gaps in data and knowledge,
develop joint outcome measures, enhance children's services and
share in resource development.
Connecticut's Alcohol and Drug Policy Council provided the
support and leadership for this interagency collaboration by
developing client-based models. One model was developed for
women and children that focused on the specific and unique
needs of these clients. In addition, in an effort to promote
reunification of families when appropriate, Connecticut
implemented a program called Supportive Housing for Recovering
Families. Based on the client-based model, the program supports
and assists clients in finding safe, drug-free housing and
provides in-home intensive case management services for parents
who have made substantial gains in their substance abuse
treatment and plan to be reunified with their children. The
early success rate based on the criteria for those entering the
program is close to 80%. One reason this program works so well
is that the service closely monitors the parent's compliance
with adult outpatient substance abuse treatment.
The new partnership between the child protection system and
substance abuse providers has created innovative and unique
opportunities for research and education regarding substance
abuse, child development and prevention. While parental
substance abuse may increase the likelihood of out-of-home
placement for children, studies show that the overwhelming
majority of children affected by parental substance abuse
remain in the custody of their parents.
There are a number of projects that we are involved with in
collaboration with the academic community to help break the
cycle of substance abuse and child abuse and neglect and to
assist in maintaining children in their own homes whenever
possible. These projects include integrating parenting groups
within substance abuse treatment settings. More specifically,
the Relational Psychotherapy Mother's Group in New Haven,
Connecticut has found that mothers receiving this service were
at lower risk for maltreating their children, reported higher
levels of involvement with their children and greater parental
satisfaction compared to mothers who did not receive this
service.
The experience in Connecticut is that substance abuse can
and should be identified by the child protection system. The
challenge lies in developing and maintaining working
partnerships between the child protection system and the
substance abuse treatment system and in developing,
implementing and funding effective treatment and prevention
programs.
To discuss these challenges, I'd like to introduce my
colleague, Dr. Thomas Kirk, Deputy Commissioner of DMHAS. Thank
you again for giving Connecticut the opportunity to testify
before you today on this important and timely topic.
Thomas A. Kirk, Jr., Ph.D., Deputy Commissioner, Connecticut Department
of Mental Health and Addiction Services
Thank you. It is a privilege to testify before you today on
such an important issue: children, families and recovery. I am
Dr. Thomas A. Kirk, Jr., Deputy Commissioner for the
Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.
Treatment does work. But today's traditional treatment
settings work better for some than others. The traditional
treatment system is geared primarily for the ``majority''
population of drug abusers (male heroin users with criminal
justice involvement) and treatment slots and strategies for
women (marijuana users with young children) are often not
available.
Let me tell you a story about Cathy J. She has had periodic
episodes of excessive drinking over the past few years, and
especially so in the past six months since separating from her
abusive husband. This 32-year-old mother of two now lives with
friends who also drink. Depression disturbs her sleep and
precipitates episodes of rage, usually directed at her son,
Jack. Jack, who used to be a good student, is now failing in
school. Cathy is determined to make things better, but she
needs help.
We know that approximately 1.84 million American women per
year, like Cathy J., are abusing alcohol or drugs (U.S. Public
Health Service). We also know the impact of these women's
substance use on their children is huge:
Use of substances during pregnancy causes significant
problems for the fetus (Brown & Zukerman, 1991).
During childhood, these children are at risk for emotional
and behavioral health problems (Hawley et al., 1995).
Women who abuse substances are more likely to abuse and
neglect their children (Kelly, 1992).
Women who abuse substances are usually themselves past
victims of childhood sexual abuse. Among women in inpatient
substance abuse programs, about 75% report childhood sexual
abuse (Rosenhow et al., 1988). This history of trauma leaves
women more likely to have problems with self-injury, eating
disorders, abusive relationships, as well as abusing their own
children. To be effective, programs for women must treat
trauma. They must focus on nurturing relationships and provide
gender-specific group treatment for women who have been
victimized by men. They must provide childcare, focus on
parenting, and place more attention on other barriers facing
mothers who are substance abusers, such as their immediate
needs for safe housing and jobs.
In our work with the Connecticut Department of Children and
Families around Project SAFE, Phase II, we have learned that we
must understand, ``Who is the client?'' and ``How are they
different than the entire treatment population?'' To be
effective, treatment services must be tailored to the
individual's needs and circumstances. To answer these
questions, we have developed a system of assessment to
determine: (1) risk to the child, (2) readiness for treatment
and (3) the severity of the substance abuse problem.
Because of the early identification provided through
Project SAFE, Connecticut is seeing an expanded treatment
population. This expanded population requires a new service mix
that our current service system can not fully address. These
services fall outside of the parameters of our current funding
sources.
Women are entering the treatment system in earlier stages
of the addiction cycle. The client is not only the individual
with a substance abuse problem, but also her children and
family. We need to build a range of service options that fit
these circumstances.
Our service system needs to be able to build a family
recovery plan rather than focusing solely on the individual. We
need to look differently at our expectations for outcomes,
considering the health and safety for the children, quality of
life, and other critical factors for family life. We need to
build into that system engagement specialists that may work
with a client for weeks or months to develop her readiness for
treatment. Once actively engaged, retention specialists can
sustain and expand the duration in treatment. This is what
Connecticut is doing!
What works for women and their families?
Case management is effective in getting and keeping women
in treatment by tailoring programs to their individual needs
and addressing barriers to getting to treatment (Erickson et
al., 1997; Brindis & Theidon, 1997). Case management is
associated with decreases in substance use, increased
enrollment in educational and vocational programs, reduced
legal involvement, improved child birth weight, and increased
social support (Linehart et al., 1996), as well as retention in
treatment (Haller, 1991).
Focusing on child welfare can be a helpful, motivating
factor in treating women (Coletti, 1980), and permitting
substance abusing women to live with their children during
treatment is associated with longer stays in treatment (Hughes
et al., 1995; Szuster et al., 1996).
Using a family focus for treatment, and especially
parenting training, improves self-esteem and parenting
attitudes (Camp & Finkelstein, 1997).
Providing attention to trauma issues along with substance
abuse treatment results in greater improvements in substance
use, and fewer trauma-related symptoms (Najavits et al., 1998).
In Connecticut, we are finding that using women in recovery
as engagement specialists, outreach workers, and other peer
support roles significantly improves the likelihood of
connecting women to treatment and other support services.
The message I would like to leave you with today is that
filling this newly identified gap in treatment--services
mentioned above using a family-based model--will result in
healthier and safer children and families. Filling the gap will
provide an opportunity to break a tragic cycle of abuse and
addiction that is handed down from generation to generation.
Thank you.
References
Blending Perspectives and Building Common Ground: A report
to congress on Substance Abuse and Child Protection, U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) 1999.
No SAFE Haven: Children of Substance Abusing Parents by The
National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) 1999
Columbia University.
McCurdy, K and Daro D. Current trends in child abuse
reporting and fatalities: The results of the 1993 survey annual
fifty-state survey. Chicago, National Committee for Prevention
of Child Abuse 1994.
Connecticut Department of Children and Families Substance
Abuse Study prepared by Tere Foley, 1994.
State of Connecticut Project Safe Phase II 1999, by Dr.
Nancy Young, PhD.
Connecticut Alcohol and Drug Policy Reports 1999 and
updated report for 2000.
Luthar, S.S. and Suchman, N.E. Relational Mothers' Group: A
developmentally informed intervention for at risk mothers.
Development and Psychopathology, in press.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Thank you very much.
Dr. Young?
STATEMENT OF NANCY K. YOUNG, PH.D., DIRECTOR, CHILDREN AND
FAMILY FUTURES, IRVINE, CALIFORNIA
Ms. Young. Good afternoon, and I bring greetings to you
from the president of our organization, Sid Gardner, who had
fond memories of working with you in Connecticut. He wouldn't
let me go home if I didn't start by saying that.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. First supporter of
Anderson as president.
Ms. Young. That is right,
I was asked to talk about the scope and prevalence of the
substance abuse problem in child welfare, and there are a
couple of things that I'd like to mention about that. First is
that there is a range of ways that we have looked at the
problem. If we focus first on the larger population in the
general population, if we look at an elementary school
classroom, say there are 30 kids in that classroom, three of
them are living with a parent who is alcoholic or needs
treatment for illicit drug use, 11 percent of the kids in our
country. So if you are talking about 11 percent of the kids in
the country, it sets the context for that more narrow
population of almost 550,000 kids who are living in out-of-home
care.
Clearly, those 8.3 million that are living in a family
where there is an alcoholic or someone who needs treatment for
illicit drug abuse, not all of them are abusing or neglecting
their children. Many of them are. And if we look at that
narrower population of those that have abused or neglected
their children, how many of those have alcohol and drug
problems, it depends on how you ask the question, it depends on
who you ask the question of, and what population you are
looking at.
But as you mentioned earlier, generally the range is--if
you ask workers, they will say at least half of their caseload.
If you do a case review, look at the actual case that comes in,
about 60 percent. In Sacramento County that has done some
pretty in-depth studies and has an assessment process in place,
that has looked for about the last 4 or 5 years and tried to
differentiate that population to not just somebody who has a
substance abuse problem, but the extent of that problem. They
ask, somebody who is using? Is that somebody who has got some
negative consequences as a result of that use and is a
substance abuser? Or is that somebody who has crossed over the
line, that the chemicals in their brain have changed, creating
the compulsion to continue to use that substance, regardless of
the negative effects that it is having on their family?
And when they differentiate that population, they are able
then to make a differential response, so they are using their
treatment resources a bit more wisely by being able to say
these are the parents who need to have intensive services and
these are parents who we can serve in outpatient.
So, again, the estimated prevalence changes. It depends on
how you ask it and when you ask it and of what population. All
of those estimates are not great data, and I used to--just even
up until probably 6 months ago, you would have heard me say we
need better data, and I think I have a written point that says
we need better data. But the prevalence of is over half of the
population--and there hasn't been one of these estimates that
has said it is not over half, so where then is the 60 percent
response? Where is the response in the child welfare system and
in the alcohol and drug treatment system that says it is the
majority of the kids?
Someone made a statement in the first panel about these
kids--or the families are dysfunctional families. Perhaps it is
a dysfunctional coping skill that is being used by families
that have been impacted by abuse and neglect for more than one
generation. Over three-quarters of the women who come into our
publicly funded treatment system have suffered trauma as a
child, either abuse or neglect. So I guess part of the point
is: How do we turn the system around to keep that from
happening in a second generation or a third generation if we
look at that larger number of kids who are being affected by
substance abuse who also are in the child welfare system? In my
written testimony, I have provided a table that gets at some of
those estimates trying to extrapolate the estimates into the
total numbers of children and families affected.
The numbers point out some big gaps, and a couple gaps that
I think we need to emphasize. One is the gap in workers that
can work across systems, that understand the other system
enough that they are able to look at families in a different
way, that look at family recovery, as Dr. Kirk mentioned, how
to intervene for those children. At present, I know of only one
State that has developed a system that tries to intervene on
behalf of the children of substance abusers, regardless of
their parents' receiving treatment and recovering or not. So
turning that system around I think is a big gap.
The gap in data systems, the gap in treatment resources, we
talk about the competition that goes on among women client
groups. You heard that women are only about a third of the
publicly funded treatment admissions, and among those third, we
have different client groups that get different kinds of entry
into the system. But it is a real competition to get a woman,
and particularly a woman with her children, into the publicly
funded treatment system.
This committee has heard me testify before about the clocks
that are operating in the lives of these families, the TANF
clock, twenty-four months on the TANF clock to be in work
participation and 60-month lifetime; the ASFA clock with 12
months for a permanent plan; the recovery clock that says at
least an early recovery, one day at a time for the rest of our
lives; and the child development clock that is one of those
clocks that doesn't stop regardless of what we legislate, and
how to pay attention to that.
Recently, I have become aware of a fifth clock, and that is
a clock on us. How long do we get? If our clients get 24 months
to be in a work activity and they get 60 months in their
lifetime, if they get 12 months to have a permanent plan for
their child, how long do we get as policymakers? We have known
about this problem at least a decade. We need a partnership
between the two agencies that are able to work on systems and
work on the gaps that we have in the system, to fill those gaps
and to work together to make that happen.
Thank you very much for my time today.
[The prepared statement follows:]
Statement of Nancy K. Young, Ph.D., Director, Children and Family
Futures, Irvine, California
Thank you for inviting me to testify on the impact of
parental substance abuse on the placement of children into
foster care. I have been asked to address the issue of the
prevalence and scope of substance abuse problems among the
population affected by the Adoption and Safe Families Act
(ASFA). I'd like to make four primary points on this topic
today:
1. the overall number of children affected by parental
substance abuse;
2. the estimated prevalence of substance abuse among child
welfare cases;
3. the degree of substance-related problems within child
welfare services; and,
4. the implications of this information on the
implementation of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA).
Before I talk about ASFA prevalence and scope issues, I
think we need to focus for a moment on the prevalence in the
larger population that concerns all of us--among the nation's
nearly eighty million children and their parents.
If we think of the typical classroom, which these days
contains nearly thirty children, the National Household Survey
on Drug Abuse tells us that in that classroom there are three
children who are affected a great deal by substance abuse.
Eleven percent of our children live in a household where at
least one parent is dependent on alcohol and/or in need of
treatment for illicit drugs. That's more than eight million
children in the country, and that is the context for our
narrower, but very significant data on the child welfare
system.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Huang, L., Cerbone, F. & Gfroerer, J. (1998). Children at risk
because of parental substance abuse. In Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Administration, Office of Applied Studies, Analyses of Substance
Abuse and Treatment Need Issues (Analytic Series A-7). Rockville, MD:
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Service Administration.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In that system, the most detailed studies performed have
documented percentages of children impacted by alcohol and
other drug use by their parents ranging from 60% to over 75%.
In dependency courts, anecdotal evidence indicates that over
90% of dependency court cases are affected. The range of
estimates depends on which population is under scrutiny and how
the problem was estimated.
In studies that have surveyed workers in public
and private agencies, workers state that at least alcohol and/
or other drugs significantly affect 50% of families with
substantiated child abuse/neglect allegations.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\Child Welfare League of America (1998). Alcohol and Other Drug
Survey of State Child Welfare Agencies. Washington, DC: Child Welfare
League of America.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In multiple sites across the country--Sacramento
County, Oregon, Connecticut--when assessments have been
conducted or open child welfare cases have been reviewed, the
estimates consistently indicate that alcohol or other drugs
(AOD) have played a significant role in the abuse and neglect
of 60% of those cases.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Young, N.K., Gardner, S.L. & Dennis, K. (1997). Responding to
Alcohol and Other Drug Problems in Child Welfare: Weaving Together
Practice and Policy. Washington, DC: Child Welfare League of America
and Children and Family Futures (1999). Project SAFE Phase II Strategic
Plan. Hartford: Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services and
Department of Children and Families.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Among young children in urban areas of two states
(California and Illinois), 78% were estimated to be in out of
home care due to parental substance abuse.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ U.S. General Accounting Office (1994). Foster Care: Prenatal
Drug Abuse has an Alarming Impact on Young Children. Washington, DC:
U.S. General Accounting Office.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
When cases are reviewed in which the child has
been placed in protective custody, estimates are in the 65% to
75% range.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ General Accounting Office (1998). Foster Care Agencies Face
Challenges Securing Stable Homes for Children of Substance Abusers.
Washington, DC: U.S. General Accounting Office.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
However, when we ask Dependency Court Judges who
see the narrow spectrum of cases who have been placed in out-
of-home care, the response is that virtually every case--over
90%--that come into their courtroom has some alcohol and drug
problems in the family that affect the well-being of the
children.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Personal communications with Judge James Milliken, San Diego
Dependency Court; Judge John Parnham, Escambia County Florida Juvenile
Court; Judge Robert Hutson, Orange County, California Dependency Court.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following table shows the population of children
reported as abused and neglected; the numbers reduce to those
who are placed in protective custody. Based on the number of
children affected by child abuse and neglect, the estimated
number of those children who are also affected by parental
substance abuse is shown.
1997 CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES \7\
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Children Affected by Child Abuse/
All Children Affected by Child Neglect and Parental Substance
Abuse/ Neglect Abuse
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Children Reported..................... > 3 Million Unknown
CPS Investigations.................... Estimated 2 Million Unknown
Substantiated Cases................... 984,000 492,000 (50%) \2\
Young Children........................ 490,000* 382,200 (78%) \4\
Placed in Out of Home Care............ 155,200** 100,800 to 116,400 (65% to 75%) \5\
Population of Children in Out-of-Home 520,000 338,000 to 390,000 (65% to 75%) \5\
Care (3/1998)........................
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Approximately half of substantiated case
**Sixteen percent of victims were removed from the home
Projecting these numbers nationally means that between
300,000 and 400,000 of the children in out-of-home care are
from families where AOD problems will determine whether these
children can return home to safe, stable families. We must
remember, however, that in 1997, there were approximately
905,000 admissions to publicly funded treatment in the entire
country. Only 34% of those admissions (306,000) were admissions
for women.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Children's Bureau
(2000). Highlights of Findings from the 1997 National Child Abuse and
Neglect Data System. Http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cb/stats/
ncands97/hl.htm.
\8\ National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors
(1999). State Resources and Services Related to Alcohol and Other Drug
Problems for Fiscal Years 1996 and 1997. Washington, DC: NASADAD.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thus in 1997, providing treatment to the mothers of the
155,200 children placed in out-of-home care in a single year
would require one-third of all annual women's admissions.
Further, providing treatment to the mothers of the entire
population of children who are currently in out-of-home care
would require virtually 100% of annual admission slots. Finding
appropriate substance abuse services for child welfare-referred
women and their children is a daily competition among child
welfare clients and women who seek treatment on their own,
women who are referred by the criminal justice system
(particularly drug courts), women referred by primary health
care providers (particularly pregnant women), and those
referred by the TANF system.
To make the best possible use of these scarce treatment
resources, we need to understand better the differences
revealed by the data among three kinds of AOD-involved parents:
1. parents who are using a substance,
2. those who are abusing the substance--who are
experiencing negative consequences as a result of their use,
and
3. those who have crossed over the line to addiction and
chemical dependency, in which brain chemistry has been altered
in ways, which create a compulsion to continue drug use,
despite the negative consequences for the family.
In Sacramento County, which has done detailed studies of
these three levels; over 3,000 cases have been assessed for
alcohol and drug problems. Among those cases, 7% were
determined to not be substance users, one in five (20%) were
substance users without substantial negative consequences,
another 26% were classified as substance abusers, and 47% were
assessed as chemically dependent; 21% were in early stages of
recovery at the time of assessment.
The State of Connecticut has a well-developed system of
screening and assessing for substance abuse problems among
caregivers in the Department of Children and Families. In State
Fiscal Year 1999, there were over 5,000 substance abuse
assessments completed; 56% of clients assessed (2,735) received
a recommendation for treatment services.
Despite the differences in studies and resulting prevalence
rates, the implications of these numbers in implementing ASFA
strongly suggest that we need to address four gaps:
the gap in workers in both systems who can work
across the systems--who have the ability and will to build the
bridges that ASFA's timetables now demand;
the gap in data systems that can document the AOD
problems that many states and communities are still failing to
capture;
the gap in treatment for the parents who are
willing and able to comply with treatment requirements,
especially for women with children in a treatment system that
is oriented more to males than to women; and,
the gap in communications at the worker level and
at the top policy levels between CWS and AOD agencies who need
to work out agreements on how they will refer and monitor cases
so that children can be returned home to stable families where
they can be safe.
The good news is that the early innovators across the
nation have begun to fill these gaps, using the limited
resources now available to them. Some of their experience is
captured in the Report to Congress commissioned as part of ASFA
that was presented last year and which so powerfully captures
the range of policy actions needed to respond to the problem.
In addition, we are in the midst of developing case studies of
eight of these innovative sites for a monograph that CSAT will
publish later this year.
The other good news is that the early innovators have
enough experience at this point that they have made changes to
their programs and are in a second stage of their initiatives,
building on pilot projects and beginning to go to scale. The
best examples of this that we are familiar with are Sacramento
County and Connecticut's Project SAFE.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Thank you, Dr. Young.
Ms. Saler?
STATEMENT OF GALE SALER, DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SECOND
GENESIS, INC., BETHESDA, MARYLAND
Ms. Saler. Madam Chairman and Mr. Cardin, my name is Gale
Saler. I am deputy executive director of Second Genesis, a not-
for-profit drug treatment and prevention agency providing
residential and outpatient substance abuse treatment and
prevention services to adults and children in Maryland,
Virginia, and Washington, D.C. One of our programs is Mellwood
House for Women and Children. And I am happy to be here today
to bring you some good news about the treatment of substance
abuse as it relates to child welfare and to offer some
opportunities for further improvement.
The women and children's program that we operate was
originally funded by a grant from the Center for Substance
Abuse Treatment. This past year, as that grant ran out, the
Maryland State Legislature at the request of the Governor
appropriated the funds to continue that program based on our
success and, in fact, worked with us to expand that program.
The treatment program we offer is a modified therapeutic
community that allows women to bring up to two of their
children up to 10 years of age into treatment with them. The
program provided is comprehensive, including substance abuse
treatment and education, parenting training, education, work
adjustment training, vocational counseling, child care,
preschool preparation, children's therapy, family counseling,
family health education, and so on. It is not an easy program.
And it is more complex than this brief overview.
The teachers, for example, would be running remedial and
GED classes for mothers and a preschool preparation for 4-year-
olds in the morning, and in the afternoon operating a study
hall for school-aged children, teaching their mothers how to
supervise homework and how to advocate for their children in
the school system.
We do all of this work with the parents--the mothers and
their children for about $152 a day. It is a program that is
much better experienced than it is described. We are located
only a few miles up Pennsylvania Avenue right outside D.C., and
I would welcome you or your staffs to come out anytime and talk
to the women and the counselors who are out there doing the
work every day.
My written testimony details some of the research and
evaluation we and the University of Maryland Center for
Substance Abuse Research completed. I just want to highlight a
couple of items here, and that has to do with follow-up data
that we have gathered on the women at follow-up, which occurred
approximately 9 months to a year post-residential treatment.
Eighty-eight percent of the women who completed treatment
reported no drug use in the days prior to their interview.
Fifty-nine percent of the women who had not completed treatment
had not used drugs. Eighty-three percent of the completers had
negative urinalysis, 47 percent of the non-completers. Fifty-
five percent of the completers were employed, 24 percent of the
non-completers. Ninety-five percent of the completers had had
no further criminal justice involvement after they left
treatment, 79 percent of the non-completers. And none of the
women who had completed treatment had lost custody of their
children. This was true despite the fact that some of the
children had come directly from foster care to Second Genesis,
and other mothers were in treatment because of pressure from
Child Protective Services or the Department of Social Services.
So treatment is having a strong, positive impact and is
most effective when mothers complete their treatment. For that
reason, we continue to develop interventions directed at
increasing the numbers of women who complete their individual
treatment programs and remain in ongoing recovery programs.
There are challenges that still exist for us. Even given
the availability of treatment dollars, which right now in the
State of Maryland we are lucky to have, there continues to be a
lack of capital dollars to open additional facilities or expand
existing ones. That is a problem that I am dealing with right
now in terms of having the treatment funds to expand the
program at Mellwood up the street, but not having the capital
funds and, in fact, having fund-raised the funds to open
another facility in Baltimore City, which we have been working
on for a number of months, but, again, having difficulty
placing and siting and dealing with zoning issues to open that
facility.
Another infrastructure problem is finding and training
qualified quality staff. In current economic times, counseling,
like teaching, is suffering in recruiting and maintaining folks
in the field.
The other issue that I would hope this committee would look
at is that the monies that we are using to provide the services
that we provide to women and their children are substance abuse
monies, and we are, therefore, limited in what services we can
provide for the children. We need to be able to access other
child-related funding streams to expand the services that are
crucial to long-term prevention with these high-risk children.
I encourage this committee to provide the needed leadership to
ensure that we take those necessary next steps.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement follows:]
Statement of Gale Saler, Deputy Executive Director, Second Genesis,
Inc., Bethesda, Maryland
Madam Chairwoman, and Members of the Committee. I
appreciate this opportunity to testify on the issue of
substance abuse in the child protection system.
For many women with substance abuse problems, the decision
to seek, avoid, or refuse treatment centers on their concerns
about their children. Recognizing the critical need for
residential treatment programs for drug-addicted mothers and
their children, Second Genesis, a substance abuse treatment
agency serving over 500 clients in the Washington-Baltimore
area, applied for and received a 5-year demonstration grant
from the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT). The
primary purpose of the grant was to establish a therapeutic
community for women who had severe histories of substance abuse
and who wanted to have their children live with them while they
were in treatment. In many cases, these were women who had no
safe alternative in which to place their children while they
were in treatment. With support from CSAT, Second Genesis set
up a treatment facility, Mellwood House, so that it could house
21 women and approximately 30 children at any one time.
Studies have shown that chemically dependent women in
general have different treatment concerns than do men. Addicted
women with children have even greater needs than do others of
their gender. According to one study, ``In order to manage the
drug-dependent woman and her child, it is essential that a
comprehensive treatment program be provided. It is necessary to
include intensive prenatal management, psychosocial counseling,
prenatal/parenting education, [and] psychiatric therapy when
necessary'' (Finnegan, 1988).
Young children in families suffering from alcohol and/or
drug dependency are a high-risk group for various developmental
deficiencies and have a greater need for intervention. Risk for
behavioral, psychological, social, educational and future drug
and alcohol problems can be related to the multiple problems
that appear with increased frequency in this population
including: lack of communication and social withdrawal;
assumption of roles for which a child is not developmentally
ready; self-doubt and diminished self-esteem; self-blame;
higher rates of anxiety; phobias, insecurity and nightmares;
disproportionate symptoms of depression; a higher rate of
somatic complaints; centeral nervous system involvement and
lower IQ scores and deficient school performance. For the
Children, the issues related to intervention are in many ways
more complex than for adults. First, it is increasingly
recognized that intervention can occur early in childhood
before detrimental behaviors--become manifest. Second,
intervention for children in chemically dependent families
raises issues related to balancing the individual needs of the
children, and the reality that they need support in a family
environment that is currently dysfunctional (Springer et al,
1992).
The literature demonstrates that providing children and
family services in treatment produces many benefits. Drug-
affected children can exhibit lasting gains from comprehensive
care with early enrichment programs and parental involvement
(Smith, 1990). A National Association for Perinatal Addiction
Research and Evaluation study showed that infants who are
exposed to drugs in utero can catch up the non-drug-exposed
children by the age of two if conditions such as motivated
mothers and nutritional, medical and developmental assessment
and management are provided (Substance Abuse Reports, June
1992).
Perhaps most importantly, bringing children into treatment
with their mothers encourages the formation of an appropriate
bond between mother and child during developmentally sensitive
years.
[Drug-exposed] children, especially, need a safe secure,
predictable environment, where medical needs are met and
opportunities are provided to compensate for neurodevelopmental
immaturities. To maximize the potential for an appropriate
attachment, they require a single, loving, consistent
interactive caregiver--the body of evidence that points to the
consequences of disrupting an attachment, no matter how
tenujous, are compelling reasons for attempting to maintain and
strengthen the parent/child bond (Jones, McCullough, DeWoody,
1990). ``Keeping families together also lessens the strain on
the overwhelmed foster care system, where children of
chemically involved parents are the fastest growing
population'' (Weston et al, 1989).
Second Genesis, Inc., began offering therapeutic community
services for women and their children at Mellwood House in June
1994 under the above mentioned CSAT grant. It was immediately
recognized that the children who accompanied their mothers into
treatment required interventions for delayed development
resulting from neglect, abuse, living in violent households and
exposure to substances in utero. The unaddressed needs of the
children created a significant disruption in the operation of
the program. Services for children were not addressed by the
CSAT grant so Second Genesis secured an $80,000 grant from the
Prince George's County (Maryland) Commission for Children,
Youth and Families to contract with the Reginald S. Lourie
Center to provide a 12-month study from January through
December 1995, to determine the developmental needs of the
children at Mellwood House and to provide interventions
required to address those needs.
The women who came to Mellwood House for treatment had
severe histories of substance abuse and associated problems. On
standardized assessment instruments the women filled out at
intake, more than half reported beliefs and feelings about
parenting that are associated with a risk of child abuse and a
need for clinical intervention. At follow-up, six to eight
months after leaving the program, the women showed huge
increases in holding realistic expectations about children's
developmental capabilities and limitations. This was true for
both clients who completed residential treatment and for
clients who did not. The clients who completed residential
treatment also reported dramatic decreases in levels of stress
associated with being a parent and also associated with risk
for child abuse. Clients who did not complete the program
showed no change in parenting stress levels.
Throughout that year, 51 children received developmental
testing and 14 mothers and their children attended parent-child
groups. The total number of children tested exceeded the
projected expectations of the project. All children were
evaluated within a month of entry into the program. Assessments
focused on sensory processing and reactivity; behavioral and
emotional problems as reflected in play and mother-infant
interactions and child behaviors; and developmental status.
Eighty-eight percent of the children tested had been
exposed to substance in utero, and 12% (6) had not. 15% of the
children exposed in utero qualify for developmental services
through Maryland Infants and Toddlers Program, the preschool
education program, or other school programs because of the
nature and degree of their developmental delays. Twenty-seven
percent of the exposed children fall into the at-risk category
for one or more of the developmental categories listed, placing
them at high-risk for developing more serious delays if left
untreated. The areas that showed the greatest need for
intervention were socialization, daily living skills and
communication. Of the non-utero exposed children tested, it is
significant that although they represented a statistically
insignificant number of the full sample, 25% of them showed
developmental problems. That is significant because it
indicates that developmental problems point to the impact that
socio-environmental variable had on their development. In
addition, 23% of the children who were exposed were tested as
having significant behavioral problems in at least one area.
The children who were so identified were referred for specific
interventions including behavior management, play therapy and
parental guidance.
Mother-child interactions were evaluated using the
Functional Emotional Assessment Scale (FEAS)(Greenspan 1992).
This instrument assesses the child's emotional and social
functioning in the context of the relationship with his or her
caregiver. It also provides a measure of the mother's capacity
to support the child's emotional development. The mother is
asked to play with her child as she might at home for 14
minutes. These unstructured play observations are videotaped,
then the child and caregiver's behaviors are scored for six
levels of emotional development:
1. Regulation and interest in the world
2. Forming relationships (attachment)
3. Intentional two-way communication
4. Complex sense of self: (a) behavioral organization of
sequential circles of communication; (b) behavioral elaboration
of feelings dealing with warmth, pleasure, assertion,
exploration, protest and anger
5. Emotional ideas: Representational capacity and
elaboration of feelings and ideas that are expressed
symbolically
6. Emotional thinking of complex intentions, wishes and
feelings in symbolic communication expressed through logically
connected ideas
This test is intended for children from 7 months through 5
years of age; therefore, play for children over the age of 5
could not be scored. Based on the results of this test, the
mothers and their children showed significant problems in their
capacity to self-regulate, to engage in social interactions
with others, to demonstrate closeness and attachment for one
another, to organize symbolic play, and to represent emotional
themes in play. Pre-tests and post-tests measured the
functioning of children referred to Mellwood House during 1995.
Qualitative observations were made on nine children and their
mothers to document changes in functioning after attending the
parent-child groups for six months. Some of the changes noted
were the following:
For the Mothers:
Increased trust of staff to meet the mothers' and
childrens' needs
Increased pleasure interacting with their children
Increased reciprocity in playing with their
children
Emergence of symbolic play with their children
Controlling anger when confronted with childrens'
autonomy
Tolerating childrens' independence
Learning that their childrens' needs are separate
from their own
Learning to set appropriate limits
Increased pleasure sharing with other mothers
Greater competence with parenting skills
For the Children:
Diminished signs of depression
Less crying and fussing
Increased interest in other children and adults
Initiated interactions with others
Increased attachment for mother
More affectionate to mother and others
Approach staff to ask for things
Improved use of language, gestures
Increased use of symbolic play
Decreased use of pacifier when developmentally
inappropriate
Improvements in daily living skills
Better response to limit setting
Based on these results, it was clear that the interventions
provided at Mellwood House in 1995 were most helpful to
children in improving socialization, daily living skills and
self-regulation (e.g. less irritability, greater ability to
tolerate transitions). Children with difficulties in the areas
of play and sensory processing also showed some progress. The
areas that appear least apt to change appeared to be in
communication and language, fine and gross motor skills, and
attention. Behavior problems may also improve for some
children, while others required more intensive intervention
than could be provided at Mellwood House.
In 1997, Second Genesis utilized data acquired from the
Reginald S. Lourie study to acquire a supplemental grant from
the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment that permitted us to
enhance children's assessment and treatment services from late
1997 through 1998. Funding to meet the treatment and
developmental needs of children has, unfortunately, been
sporadic, and is not considered a substance abuse treatment
cost. Because childrens' services are not typically ``substance
abuse treatment,'' agencies that typically fund substance abuse
treatment services for women have been unable to extend funding
to provide additional services for the children who accompany
their mothers into treatment. And the unmet needs of the
children are a serious problem for program that treats women
with children.
During the course of the 5-year demonstration grant, CSAT
funded an evaluation component designed to evaluate baseline
information, client satisfaction, and client outcomes. The
Center for Substance Abuse Research (CESAR) of the University
of Maryland was contracted by Second Genesis to provide the
program evaluation.
Each woman was allowed to bring one or two children under
age 11 to live with her at Mellwood House while she was in
treatment. Between February 1996 and September 1998, CESAR
interviewed 113 clients at intake about the 156 children they
brought into Mellwood House. We believe the characteristics of
this particular sample of children represent the entire set of
children who resided at Mellwood House during the five-year
demonstration period. The average age of the children was 4.0
years. Almost half of the children were male, and about 77% of
them were African-American. The mothers reported that 45% of
the fathers were known to be using drugs.
Many newborns are not tested to see whether drugs are in
their blood. Nevertheless, mothers reported that 25% of the
children in this sample had tested positive for cocaine,
alcohol, and/or other potentially damaging substances at birth.
Most of the children had grown up in poverty. Many had lived in
dangerous environments (including crack houses). Twenty-eight
of the children (18%) had been homeless at some time in the 2
years preceding treatment. Child Protective Services had
previously removed 13% of the children in this sample from the
mother's care because of abuse and/or neglect. Twenty-eight
percent of the children had not seen their fathers at any time
in the year before admission. Another 12% had seen their
fathers only once or twice. Interviewers from the Center for
Substance Abuse Research (CESAR) at the University of Maryland
administered two standardized parenting questionnaires to
clients when they entered treatment. The first was the Adult-
Adolescent Parenting Inventory (AAPI). The AAPI is an index
that measures attentive and nurturing child rearing attitudes
as opposed to abusive and neglectful child rearing attitudes.
It examines four parenting constructs: (1) Developmental
Expectations of Children; (2) Empathetic Awareness of
Children's Needs; (3) Belief in Corporal Punishment; and (4)
Reversing Parent-Child Roles. The self-report questionnaire
includes 32 items to which clients respond with ``strongly
agree, agree, uncertain, disagree, or strongly disagree.''
CESAR summarized AAPI responses from 132 clients who
entered treatment during the first 3\1/2\ years of the
program--from 9/1/94 to 12/31/97. The distribution of scores
for empathetic awareness was skewed toward the low end of the
scale. Only 7% of the women scored in the high range. Parents
who score in the high range tend to create a supportive
parenting environment, recognizing their children's needs and
accepting their children for who they are. They tend to view
disciplining children as a way to foster growth, not as a means
of exerting strict control. Thirty-three percent of the women
scored in the middle/average range. The majority of the women
-59%--had low scores. Low scores indicate that the mother
usually views children's wants and needs as irritating and
believes that tending to them would spoil the children.
Approximately half (49%) of the women displayed little
understanding of appropriate child-parent roles. Their answers
indicated that they measured a child's worth by the child's
ability to gratify the needs of the parent. Such parents tend
to be needy and to display feelings of inadequacy. Forty
percent of clients interviewed scored in the average range for
this construct and 11% of the clients scored high. Parents who
get high scores on this scale tend to recognize the needs of
both the child and the parent and to are able to put the
child's needs first.
The second parenting questionnaire administered at intake
was the Parenting Stress Index (PSI). On the PSI, the mother
reports how much stress she is experiencing in her role as a
parent in the areas of (1) the child's characteristics, (2) the
parent's characteristics, and (3) life stressors associated
with the parent-child system. Children's characteristics
include adaptability, demandingness, mood, hyperactivity,
acceptability according to parental expectations, and
children's reinforcement of the parent role. Parent personality
and situational variables include depression, parental sense of
competence, attachment, role restriction, isolation, and
health. The self-report questionnaire includes 120 items to
which clients respond with ``strongly agree, agree, not sure,
disagree, or strongly disagree.'' High scores are associated
with increased risk of child abuse.
CESAR summarized PSI responses from 128 clients who entered
treatment during the first 3\1/2\ years of the program. (A few
women completed the AAPI or the PSI but not both. That is why
the sample sizes differ for the two instruments.) A very high
percentage of the clients reported levels of stress to the
child-parent system that would lead to recommending clinical
intervention. Over half (57%) scored in the high stress range
(the top 10% of the scale's range) for overall stress to the
parenting system. Thirty-two percent of clients scored in the
top 10% of the available range for reporting characteristics
that indicate feelings of being overwhelmed and inadequate.
Similarly, approximately half (46%) of the clients reported
that their children's behaviors were in the top 10% of the
scale for child behaviors make it difficult to be a parent.
Unfortunately, we had no direct measure of the quality of
care a mother gave her children after leaving Second Genesis
Mellwood House. However, the AAPI and the PSI have both been
standardized and validated as measures associated with quality
of care. Furthermore, working with an overlapping but different
sample of Mellwood House clients, CESAR did gather data about
whether any children had been removed from the mother's
physical custody between admission to treatment and the follow-
up interview (usually 6 to 8 months after leaving treatment).
None of the mothers who completed the residential program had
had children removed. This was true despite the fact that some
of the children had come directly from foster care to Mellwood
House, and other mothers were in treatment because of pressure
from Child Protective Services or the Department of Social
Services.
CESAR succeeded in locating a high percentage of this set
of clients for follow-up interviews. About six to eight months
after leaving Mellwood House, 85 of the women from this sample
filled out the AAPI (Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory)
again. Among the 21 clients who completed residential
treatment, the number reporting realistic expectations about
children's developmental capabilities and limitations increased
from 25% to 75%. Among the 64 clients who left against advice
or were referred, terminated, or remanded, the number reporting
realistic expectations increased from 15% to 61%. From a
scientific perspective, these changes were decidedly
significant (p<.01). Changes on the other AAPI scales--empathy
for children's needs, opposition to corporal punishment, and
understanding of mother and child roles--were not significant.
71 of these clients completed the Parenting Stress Index
(PSI) at follow-up. For the 51 who did not complete treatment,
changes in reported stress levels influenced by child
characteristics, parent characteristics, and life stressors
were all trivial. Both at intake and at follow-up, between 55%
and 59% of these women scored in the high stress range, not in
the normal range, on each of the PSI scales. The high stress
range is associated with increased risk of child abuse.
For the 20 clients who completed residential treatment, the
number who scored in the normal range (low risk for child
abuse) increased noticeably on each scale. The percentage of
these women who scored in the normal range rose from 55% to 90%
for stress related to parent characteristics (p <.05). It
increased on every sub-scale of the parent characteristics
scale: depression, attachment, restrictions associated with the
parental role, sense of competence, isolation, and health. The
percentages in the normal range for stress levels associated
with child characteristics and with life stressors also
increased, but the changes were not large enough to be
statistically significant.
Unfortunately, we had no direct measure of the quality of
care a mother gave her children after leaving Second Genesis.
However, the AAPI and the PSI have both been standardized and
validated as measures associated with quality of care.
Furthermore, working with an overlapping but different large
sample of Mellwood clients, CESAR did gather data about whether
any children had been removed from the mother's physical
custody between admission to treatment and the follow-up
interview (usually 6 to 8 months after leaving treatment). None
of the mothers who completed the residential program had had
children removed. This was true despite the fact that some of
the children had come directly from foster care to Mellwood
House, and other mothers were in treatment because of pressure
from Child Protective Services or the Department of Social
Services.
Literature Citations:
Abidin, R.R., Parenting Stress Index. Charlottesville,
Virginia: University of Virginia, 1986.
Achenbach, T.M., Child Behavior Checklist. Burlington,
Vermont: University of Vermont, 1989.
DeGangi, G., Ph.D., Annual Report: Lourie Center-Second
Genesis Collaborative Project. Upper Marlboro, Maryland: The
Albert Lourie Center.
DeGangi, G, Poisson, S, Sickel R., & Wiener, A.S. Infant/
Toddler Symptom Checklist. Tucson, Arizona: Therapy Skill
Builders.
Frankenburg, W.K. & Dodds, J.B. (1975). Denver, Colorado:
DDM, Inc. Denver Developmental Screening Test (Revised). DDM,
Inc., Denver, Colorado.
Greenspan, S.I. (1991). Functional Emotional Assessment
Scale. In Infancy and Early Childhood: The Practice of Clinical
Assessment and Intervention with Emotional and Developmental
Challenges. Madison, Connecticut: International Universities
Press.
Substance Abuse Reports, June 1992, Silver Spring, MD.
Sparrow, S.S., Balla, D.A., & Cicchetti, D.V. (1984).
Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales. Circle Pines, Minnesota:
American Guidance Service, Inc.
Betty Byers, (1989) Developmental Disorders of Language,
Whurr Publishers.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6736.001
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Thank you.
Ms. Nelson?
STATEMENT OF MARY NELSON, ADMINISTRATOR, DIVISION OF ADULT,
CHILDREN AND FAMILY SERVICES, IOWA DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN
SERVICES, ON BEHALF OF THE AMERICAN PUBLIC HUMAN SERVICES
ASSOCIATION
Ms. Nelson. Chairman Johnson and Congressman Cardin, my
name is Mary Nelson, and I am the child welfare director in
Iowa. I am also here today on behalf of the American Public
Human Services Association for which I serve as vice president
of the child welfare affiliate. In addition, I co-chair APHSA's
joint work group with NASADAD, the National Association of
State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors.
I am pleased to testify before you today about the urgent
need to address the impact of alcohol and drug abuse on
children and families in the child welfare system. In my
testimony I would like to do three things: first, I would like
to describe the magnitude of the problem and its effects on
child welfare; second, to talk about some of the exciting
efforts that are underway at the national, State, and local
levels; and, third, to ask you to consider creating a Federal
initiative to develop comprehensive prevention and treatment
services for child welfare families with substance abuse
problems.
Substance abuse by parents is one of the most pervasive
problems facing child welfare. Forty to 80 percent of the
children who are involved with the child welfare system have
families with alcohol and drug problems. In my own State of
Iowa, over 50 percent of our family foster care cases involved
parental substance abuse.
Studies indicate that children whose parents abuse alcohol
and drugs are almost three times likelier to be abused and more
than four times likelier to be neglected. Children from
families with AOD problems are more likely to remain in out-of-
home care for longer periods of time and have less chance of
returning home or being adopted. They are also at greater risk
for re-entering care.
While the majority of these families require substance
abuse services, as we have heard this afternoon, studies
suggest that less than one-third receive treatment. Studies
also show a high failure rate for engaging and retaining in
treatment women with children in foster care. More must be done
to develop and increase the availability and effectiveness of
treatment.
Partnership between child welfare and AOD is critical.
There are numerous challenges, however, to collaboration
between our two systems which I have detailed in my written
testimony. None of these challenges are new, but what is new is
the Adoption and Safe Families Act and the urgent need to
ensure safety and achieve permanency for children in expedited
time frames. A redesign of treatment services that engages
parents early on and achieves measurable progress in shorter
time frames is critical. Without this, children will likely
remain in foster care longer because judges will not terminate
parental rights if services have not been provided or families
will be broken up when they might otherwise have remained
intact.
State agencies have taken a leadership role at both the
national level and in their own States and localities to
address the problems I have described. Soon after ASFA's
enactment, APHSA joined with NASADAD to bring administrators
from both the child welfare and AOD systems to the table as
problem solvers. My written statement includes a detailed list
of issues for joint attention by our work group. All of these
activities are directed at the goal of improving the
accessibility and effectiveness of substance abuse prevention
and treatment services for child welfare and achieving the
goals of ASFA.
In Iowa, we have provided AOD training for our child
protective staff and developed strategies to better serve this
population such as recovery coaches and support groups. Next
month we are holding a statewide conference to further develop
these partnerships across the State.
Project SAFE, as you heard about in your own State of
Connecticut, Madam Chairman, is another good example of a
promising collaboration. Also, a handful of States are
implementing IV-E waivers for substance abuse services,
including your State of Maryland, Congressman Cardin.
Individual counties are also taking important steps to forge
partnerships to address the AOD service needs of child welfare
clients so that safety, permanence, and parental recovery can
be addressed.
States and localities, however, are at different places
with respect to progress. These efforts need to be expanded
statewide and across all States to meet the goals of ASFA. Even
with these exciting efforts underway, the extent of the problem
far outstrips the current resources of either system. Other
Federal funding streams, such as IV-B, the substance abuse
block grant, Medicaid, and IV-E, are either tapped out or
limited in how they can be used for these purposes. We need
additional targeted funding to address the unmet need as well
as increased flexibility in current funding.
APHSA and NASADAD have been working with other national
organizations--Child Welfare League, Children's Defense Fund,
and the Legal Action Center--to develop a general outline of a
Federal partnership grant program. If funded, a program like
this or like the proposal you heard this afternoon from Senator
Rockefeller could support and enhance child welfare and AOD
agencies' efforts to address the impact of alcohol and drug
abuse on children and families in the child welfare system. We
ask for your consideration of such an initiative and would
welcome the opportunity to work with you on this.
In closing, I would also like to add my support for
enhancing training opportunities and resources for judges and
court personnel. The courts and public and private child
welfare agencies play critical roles in achieving safety and
permanency for children. ASFA imposes new requirements for
State courts, and we need to ensure that all partners have the
resources and training to handle their additional
responsibilities. We appreciate your efforts and look forward
to working with you on this issue as well.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement follows:]
Statement of Mary Nelson, Administrator, Division of Adult, Children,
and Family Services, Iowa Department of Human Services, on behalf of
the American Public Human Services Association
Chairman Johnson, Congressman Cardin, and Members of the
Subcommittee. My name is Mary Nelson, and I am the
Administrator of the Division of Adult, Children and Family
Services in the Iowa Department of Human Services. I am also
here today on behalf of the American Public Human Services
Association (APHSA), for which I serve as Vice-President of the
child welfare affiliate, the National Association of Public
Child Welfare Administrators (NAPCWA). In addition, I co-chair
APHSA's Joint Workgroup with the National Association of State
Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors (NASADAD). APHSA is a
bipartisan organization of state and local human service
agencies and individuals whose mission is to develop, promote
and implement public human service policies that improve the
health and well-being of families, children and adults.
I am pleased to testify before you about the urgent need to
address the impact of alcohol and drug abuse on children and
families in the child welfare system.
In my testimony today I would like to do three things:
First, to describe for you the importance of responding to
the problems of families who come to the attention of the child
welfare system with alcohol and drug problems in a timely and
comprehensive manner. I also want to describe some of the
challenges states face in doing so.
Second, to detail for you some of the exciting efforts that
are underway at the national, state and local levels to forge
partnerships between child welfare and alcohol and drug
prevention and treatment agencies, and related service
providers. These partnerships are designed to ensure that the
needs of children for safety, permanence, well being and
parental recovery can be addressed.
Third, to ask you to consider creating a federal child
welfare and substance abuse initiative to develop a
comprehensive system of prevention and treatment services for
families with substance abuse problems who come into contact
with the child welfare system. New targeted funding would
promote safety and permanence for children in the child welfare
system and recovery from alcohol and drug abuse for their
families.
Alcohol and Drug Problems Facing Families in The Child Welfare
System
State human service administrators and child welfare
directors have identified substance abuse by parents as one of
the most pervasive problems affecting the child welfare system
today. The facts are staggering. An estimated 40 to 80 percent
of the children who are involved with the child welfare system
have families with alcohol and drug problems. In my own state
of Iowa, over 50% of our family foster care cases involve
parental substance abuse, and at least \1/3\ of our ``in-home''
cases involve parental substance abuse. In Polk County, which
contains our state's largest city Des Moines, the Youth Law
Center reports that 55% of new child welfare referrals to
Juvenile Court (in-home supervision and placement cases)
involve parental substance abuse.
National studies indicate that children whose parents abuse
alcohol and other drugs (AOD) are almost three times likelier
to be abused and more than four times likelier to be neglected
than children of parents who are not substance abusers.\1\
Children from families with alcohol and drug problems are more
likely to remain in out of home care for longer periods of time
and have less chance of being reunited with their parents or
adopted. They also are at greater risk of reentering care once
they are returned. While the majority of these families require
some kind of substance abuse service, studies suggest that less
than one-third are able to be provided with treatment.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Kelleher, K., Chaffin, M., Hollenberg, J., & Fischer, E.
(1994). Alcohol and drug disorders among physically abusive and
neglectful parents in a community-based sample. American Journal of
Public Health, 84,(10), 1586-1590.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
These statistics point to the serious lack of alcohol and
drug treatment services nationally, a problem which is
compounded by a lack of appropriate and effective service
interventions tailored to women with children, particularly
those who come to the attention of the child welfare system.
While there are good examples of treatment programs that have
been effective for women and children, most substance abuse
services are not designed to meet the specific needs of the
child welfare population. Studies show a high failure rate for
engaging and retaining in treatment women with children in
foster care. More must be done to develop and increase the
availability and effectiveness of such programs. A redesign and
rethinking of current service delivery is critical to
addressing these challenges as well as an expansion of services
to address the unmet need.
The Federal substance abuse confidentiality laws and its
implementation add to these challenges. Confidentiality
barriers, whether imposed by statute or in practice, can often
prevent critical information from being shared across systems.
Caseworkers cannot make critical safety and permanency
decisions if they do not know how the parent is progressing in
treatment or if they are attending. Judges are reluctant to
reunify families or terminate parental rights if they do not
have the critical information needed to make informed decisions
about safety and permanency.
None of these challenges are new to child welfare
directors. These issues have confronted the child welfare
system from the time of the crack cocaine epidemic and have
continued with the rise of methamphetamines and the resurgence
of heroin. But what is new is the Adoption and Safe Families
Act (ASFA) and the urgent need to achieve permanency for
children in expedited timeframes.
The problems of alcohol and drug abuse among families
involved with the child welfare system and the inadequacy of
resources and appropriate treatment have become especially
apparent since the enactment of ASFA. States are committed to
ASFA's goals of safety, permanency and well being for children
in the child welfare system. The need for closer connections
between the child welfare system and the alcohol and drug
system is clear--now more than ever. The complex issues facing
their common clients call for both systems to work together to
find better ways of treating families and addressing the
safety, permanency and well being of children.
These problems transcend the availability of sufficient
resources. We must do better with what we have. But the extent
of these problems far outstrips the current resources of either
system and additional funding, including federal funding, is
needed. Funding for Title IV-B has competing service demands.
The Substance Abuse Block Grant has priorities and set-asides,
and there is not enough funding to meet the competing claims on
those dollars from other populations such as criminal justice.
Medicaid is limited in its ability to pay for the range of
comprehensive services that need to be part of substance abuse
treatment for parents in the child welfare system, particularly
with respect to non-medical supportive services. Medicaid does
cover medical treatment, such as inpatient detoxification, but
does not cover a wide range of preventive and supportive
services that are necessary to ensure successful outcomes.
Title IV-E does not cover substance abuse services and child
welfare waivers for these services have been limited to date.
Good practice demands that parents be appropriately
assessed and engaged in treatment early on, unless of course,
risk to the child makes reunification inappropriate. Treatment
interventions must be improved to achieve measurable progress
in shorter timeframes. Child welfare agencies and family court
judges must have the critical information from AOD treatment
providers to assess risk and safety, and make informed
permanency decisions. Without the above, children will likely
remain in foster care because judges will not terminate
parental rights if services have not been provided, or families
will be broken up when they might otherwise have remained
intact with the provision of services. Initial screening and
assessment, coupled with early treatment and enhanced
engagement and retention strategies, will make it more likely
that realistic assessments of the likelihood of reunification
or appropriateness of other permanency options can be made
within the timetables mandated by the Adoption and Safe
Families Act. The states are accountable and committed to
meeting these new timetables. However, increased resources are
essential to improving the capacity of states to meet the ASFA
mandates.
Collaborative Efforts Between Child Welfare and Alcohol and
Drug Agencies
There are both philosophical and structural challenges to
collaboration across the child welfare and AOD systems.
Historically, at all levels of government, Federal, state and
local, child welfare and AOD systems have functioned
independently of each other, even when administrative
responsibilities for both systems are located within the same
department, and even though they frequently both work with the
same families. Each system operates with different clients
(either the abused/neglected child or the substance-abusing
parent), goals, frameworks, legal mandates, and desired
outcomes.
Recognizing the impact of parental alcohol and drug abuse
on children, states have paid increased attention to the need
for child welfare and alcohol and drug partnerships at the
national, state and local levels. There are some exciting
efforts that are underway to forge collaborative efforts
between child welfare and alcohol and drug prevention and
treatment agencies, so that the needs of children for safety,
permanence and well being and for parental recovery can be
addressed. However, states and localities are at different
places with respect to their progress on this. These efforts
need to be expanded statewide and across all states to meet the
goals of safety, permanency and well being embedded in ASFA.
National Partnerships
APHSA and NASADAD Joint Workgroup on Substance Abuse and
Child Welfare. With the enactment of the ASFA in November 1997,
APHSA and NASADAD members felt it was imperative to bring state
agencies from both systems--child welfare and AOD--to the table
as problem solvers. Our associations formed a task force in
March of 1998 to work together, with the goal of improving the
accessibility and effectiveness of appropriate substance abuse
prevention and treatment services for families in the child
abuse and neglect and foster care systems. APHSA and NASADAD
identified the following issues for joint attention by its
members and the workgroup:
Developing shared knowledge and understanding on
the part of both systems regarding underlying values and
missions of each system, as well as identifying ways to work
more collaboratively across systems.
Developing shared knowledge and understanding on
the part of both systems of the impact of AOD issues on
families in the child welfare system.
Need for and development of shared screening
tools, training for child welfare (e.g., on assessing need for
AOD treatment) and AOD staff (e.g., on risk assessment and
permanency planning), joint protocols for collaborative work at
the practice level, data collection and performance measures.
Identifying and developing methods for better
engaging families referred by child welfare into AOD treatment,
keeping them engaged in treatment, and re-engaging them when
necessary; as well as identifying and developing treatment
methods that can achieve success with families in shorter time
frames.
Identifying and developing ways to work within
existing Federal laws, as well as changes in Federal laws which
may serve as barriers to working together (e.g.,
confidentiality prohibitions, which may limit cooperation and
coordination).
Identifying and disseminating information about
successful models of joint child welfare and AOD programs.
Addressing the need for additional resources for
prevention, treatment, and other essential support services;
and ways to access and utilize various Federal, State and local
funding streams.
APHSA and NASADAD also developed joint recommendations in
response to the HHS Report to Congress required by ASFA
entitled Blending Perspectives and Building Common Ground.
APHSA and NASADAD urged HHS to provide leadership and support
for a variety of activities including improving and expanding
treatment and services, improving state systems and
collaboration, identification and dissemination of best
practices, support for state-based cross training, addressing
confidentiality barriers, increasing Federal funding for
prevention, treatment and aftercare, and removal of barriers to
current funding streams to make them work more effectively, and
enhancing research, data and performance. The ultimate goal is
to develop, enhance and sustain an array of comprehensive and
timely services including prevention and early intervention
that addresses the needs of children and families in the child
welfare system.
State Partnerships
Collaborative efforts also are underway at the state level.
Iowa. For example, in my home state of Iowa, we
provide AOD training for our child protective staff--including
indicators, screening, relationship to abuse, and
interventions. In addition, Iowa has used some of the Promoting
Safe and Stable Families funding as well as local ``decat''
funding (flexible state child welfare funding), to develop
strategies for serving this population, such as child welfare/
AOD liaisons/coaches and support groups (e.g., Moms Off Meth).
The Department of Public Health also funds several residential
programs for moms and their children, but not near enough.
At the local level, child welfare and AOD practitioners in
several communities are developing joint strategies and
partnerships.
Next month, my Department of Human Service and Department
of Public Health, which contains Iowa's AOD agency, are holding
a statewide interactive audio-visual conference which will
include all our local offices, local child welfare providers,
and substance abuse providers. The goal is to make sure
everyone has same baseline information and a shared
understanding of the issues, and to foster these types of
partnerships and planning for next steps across the state.
Connecticut. A good example, Madam Chairman, is
your home state of Connecticut. Last November, I had the
opportunity at the HHS Stakeholders Meeting on Substance Abuse
and Child Protection to hear about Connecticut's Project SAFE
(Substance Abuse Family Evaluation). In this project, parents
or guardians with substance abuse problems who are in the child
welfare caseload are given priority access to drug testing,
substance abuse evaluations, and outpatient treatment services.
In its first four years, Project SAFE made 23,000 referrals for
substance abuse evaluations. Approximately two-thirds of the
families were evaluated. About 60 percent of the assessments
resulted in treatment referrals, but only a smaller percentage
of those, 35 percent, kept the treatment appointments. When the
alcohol and drug and child welfare agencies examined this
further, they discovered that the outpatient treatment
traditionally provided was not meeting the needs of the
families in the child welfare system. In Phase 2 of the
project, just underway, new treatment options including
residential treatment are being provided. A related pilot
project, Supporting Housing for Recovering Families, offers
housing and intensive case management to the families in
treatment who are preparing to return to the community.
Federal IV-E Waivers. Four states, Delaware,
Illinois Maryland, and New Hampshire, are implementing federal
waivers to use their federal Title IV-E foster care funds to
hire alcohol and drug counselors, special family support teams,
or recovery coaches to assist child protection staff and
families so appropriate follow-up and treatment can be
provided. It is believed that these supports will help ensure
prompt and appropriate treatment, which then speeds the process
of determining whether or not children can stay with their
families. In Delaware, which began its demonstration in 1996
and is furthest along, the counselors help get families into
treatment and also provide counseling throughout the process.
Preliminary evaluation results show that to date they have been
successful in connecting more families to treatment, and in
reducing the length of time that children remain in care by
just over one third.
Local Partnerships
In some cases, individual counties also have taken
important steps to promote local partnerships between the
public child welfare and alcohol and drug agencies.
In Sacramento County, California, the Alcohol and
Other Drug Treatment Initiative (AODTI) has been in place since
1993. It was established by the Sacramento County Department of
Health and Human Services to incorporate substance abuse
services as an integral part of its service delivery system,
including child welfare. It is a good example of how child
welfare and AOD service providers can effectively work together
to lessen the gap between those that need services, and those
who receive services. Training has been an important part of
Sacramento County's initiative. It developed a 3-tiered AOD
training component that introduced all staff to basic AOD terms
and basics around identification; provided staff who carry
caseloads training in advanced assessment and intervention, and
offered this last group more specialized group treatment
skills. An evaluation of the training showed improved staff
attitudes in working with AOD clients, greater confidence among
staff in the effectiveness of treatment modalities, and
increased staff's ability to assess child safety issues,
especially in regard to AOD issues.
The initiative yielded a significant increase in the number
of child welfare workers who conducted AOD assessments with
families. The initiative also spawned the development of
pretreatment groups being run by social workers and/or AOD
counselors. These groups immediately engaged clients that are
believed to be in need of treatment--the antithesis of the
typical practice of referring clients with AOD problems to ``a
waiting list'' at a treatment program. In some cases the
pretreatment group proved sufficient to address the families'
needs; for high-risk families the groups provided an important
interim service while waiting for a more intensive treatment
slot to open.
In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Project S.T.A.R.T.
(Sobriety Treatment and Recovery Teams) employs and trains
Family Advocates--women who have been in recovery at least five
years and often have been previously involved in the child
welfare system--to work alongside social workers. Mothers in
the program begin treatment within 24 hours of their first
meeting with the program staff. S.T.A.R.T. staff work closely
with the treatment providers and the families, monitoring the
children and the mother's progress in treatment. Child safety
is the top priority.
In Cook County, Illinois, the state Department of
Children and Family Services funds a Juvenile Court Assessment
Unit on site at the Cook County Juvenile Court. Judges can
refer parents appearing at temporary custody hearings and
others directly to the unit for an alcohol and drug abuse
assessment and an immediate same-day referral to treatment, if
warranted. Judges and caseworkers receive feedback on the
results of the assessment by the next business day at the
latest and are electronically tracked in the assessment unit's
data base to keep track of the parents' status and progress.
A Federal Child Protection/AOD Partnership
The examples of partnerships mentioned above demonstrate
the commitment by state and local agencies to address these
issues. And while states have been creative in leveraging
funding for these activities, there nevertheless remains a
significant unmet need. As part of APHSA and NASADAD's joint
activity related to addressing the need for additional
resources at the federal level, our two associations joined
together with several other national organizations with long
traditions of involvement in child welfare and alcohol and drug
reforms, who also provided leadership on the need for
partnerships between these two systems. These organizations are
the Child Welfare League of America, the Children's Defense
Fund, and the Legal Action Center.
The Child Welfare League of America in 1997
developed a survey to find out what policies, protocols and
programs state agencies have in place to support chemically
affected children and families involved with the child welfare
system. Through this original research, CWLA identified
numerous policy and programmatic gaps. CWLA is working to close
these gaps by recommending actions that professionals from
child welfare, alcohol and other drug prevention and treatment,
health, mental health and welfare can take to develop and
implement responsive policies and programs. Toward that end,
CWLA produced Responding to Alcohol and Other Drug Problems in
Child Welfare: Weaving Together Practice and Policy written by
Nancy Young, Sid Gardner and Kimberly Dennis. In addition, CWLA
is in the final stages of development of an assessment tool and
decision making guidelines that front-line child welfare and
substance abuse treatment providers and supervisors can use to
determine how alcohol and other drugs are impacting child
safety, family functioning and assist workers in determining
the most appropriate intervention options for each family. CWLA
provides ongoing support to member (and non-member) agencies
which includes research and information dissemination, resource
referrals, training seminars, and working with agencies, other
service institutions and their communities to facilitate
communication and enhance service delivery.
The Children's Defense Fund published Healing the
Whole Family: A look at Family Care Programs in the Fall of
1998. Healing the Whole Family reported on CDF's survey of 50
residential care programs for women and children around the
country, half of which served families where substance abuse
was the primary problem. The report outlines through examples
the key components of comprehensive service programs for
families with substance abuse problems whose children come to
the attention of the child welfare system. Particular emphasis
is given to the programs' services to the mother, the child and
the parent and child together. The study laid the foundation
for CDF's continuing work to expand attention to and treatment
for the needs of families with alcohol and drug problems that
come to the attention of the child welfare system.
The Legal Action Center, the only not-for-profit
law and policy organization working at the critical
intersection of welfare, addiction and crime, has published two
important publications which detail ways to address alcohol and
drug problems among women with children who are receiving
welfare. Tools for Confronting Alcohol and Drug Problems Among
Welfare Recipients discusses the extent of the alcohol and drug
abuse problems and strategies for responding to them. Steps to
Success: Helping Women with Alcohol and Drug Problems Move from
Welfare to Work profiles a number of treatment programs that
effectively address the needs of women on welfare and their
families through a comprehensive array of treatment, health,
education, employment training and social services. The Legal
Action Center also offers training and policy advocacy support
to 25 state associations of addiction service providers and
provides direct legal assistance to individuals and families
with alcohol and drug histories.
Recognizing a shared goal, these organizations together
with APHSA and NASADAD have worked to explore and promote
opportunities for expanding activities to achieve improved
collaboration and cooperation between the child welfare and
alcohol and drug systems. In the Spring of 1999,
representatives of these organizations, joined by the General
Accounting Office, presented a briefing for congressional staff
on the problems of alcohol and drug abuse among families in the
child welfare system and effective strategies for responding to
these problems to ensure safety and permanence for them.
The APHSA/NASADAD Workgroup and the staff from the
organizations also developed the general outline of a federal
partnership grant program that, if funded, could support and
enhance child welfare and alcohol and drug prevention and
treatment agencies' efforts to partner to address the impact of
alcohol and drug abuse on children and families in the child
welfare system.
Last week, APHSA's policy-making body, the National Council
of State Human Service Administrators, adopted a policy
resolution to address the serious problem of substance abuse
and its impact on children and families in the child welfare
system. The council's policy asks Congress to consider the
creation of a child welfare and substance abuse initiative to
enhance state agency capacity to collaborate on the development
of a comprehensive system of services to address the prevention
and treatment needs of families with substance abuse problems
who come into contact with the child welfare system. Such an
initiative should be developed in consultation with the states.
We support additional federal funding for this critical area,
however, we must emphasize that new federal funding for this
initiative should not come at the expense of other human
service programs. In addition, the resolution urges Congress to
maintain core funding for current critical public human service
programs.
In recognition that collaboration is a critical component
of achieving positive results in this arena, we believe the
initiative should promote state child welfare and substance
abuse agency partnership in applying for and administering the
new program funds. The program should provide states with
maximum flexibility to use funding for a full range of joint
service and capacity building activities such as 1) screening,
assessment and referral to services; 2) comprehensive
prevention, early intervention, treatment and after care
services in home-based, outpatient, and residential settings;
3) engagement and retention strategies; 4) joint training of
child welfare and AOD agency staff, judges and court staff; 5)
enhancement of data collection efforts to monitor progress and
evaluate outcomes; 6) evaluation strategies to identify
effective treatment approaches; and 7) technical assistance.
State human service administrators are committed to
accountability in operating these joint programs, and are
interested in working to develop performance measures to assess
state performance in implementing such an initiative. These
measures should be developed in consultation with state and
local public officials responsible for administering child
welfare and AOD programs. New measures should be consistent
with the federal outcome measures developed for ASFA and for
the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant.
Information sharing among substance abuse, child welfare
agencies and the courts is critical to making permanency and
safety decisions for children and to achieving positive service
outcomes. APHSA is committed to examining the barriers that
federal confidentiality statute and regulations pose to states,
educating key stakeholders on these issues, and to recommending
statutory, regulatory and/or practice changes that would better
facilitate sharing and disclosure of information between the
two systems. We believe sharing of information is especially
critical around assessing progress in treatment, assuring
safety and making informed decisions regarding permanency.
Furthermore, APHSA urges Congress and the Administration,
to the fullest extent possible, to increase the flexibility of
IV-E, Medicaid and the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment
Block Grant. Increased flexibility would enable funding to be
used to provide a variety of substance abuse treatment and
prevention services to the families who come into contact with
the child welfare system.
We believe that realization of these recommendations will
provide states with the needed resources and capacity to
promote safety, permanency, well being and parental recovery in
families who come to the attention of the child welfare system.
Thank you.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Thank you very much for
your testimony. One of the things that comes through loud and
clear in different ways from your testimony is the need to use
the money in a way that meets the needs of the child or family.
I think it is fair to say that the evidence shows that
recovery from drug addiction can take years, and most of our
programs are months or a year. So if we pour a lot of money
from the Federal level into substance abuse treatment, as
opposed to giving States more money to treat families, you
know, you run the risk of focusing those dollars on the months
or the year as opposed to a system that supports identification
and treatment and support and development thereafter.
So while I see over and over again that need for
flexibility, for coordination, for money to follow need, I am a
little concerned about spelling out in public law exactly what
the nature of the interagency collaboration ought to be and
exactly precisely what we are going to fund, because even
though it will be on a broader scale, look what we did just a
few years ago with great good intent in the Adoption and Safe
Families Act. We completely ignored the court system. So here
we are with a great system forcing the agencies into these
timetables, and we don't have the rest of the system in place.
So I know the waiver that we have in Connecticut, I have
read the minutes of these meetings. The barriers to really
integrated action are just so systemic and so State- and
Federal-based that it does worry me to start a whole new piece
of legislation as opposed to new money and pursuing--and this
will take a long time to figure out, but we are going to meet
with people who have done waivers. We are going to get into
that in a seminar setting so we can understand what is
happening with the waivers. But, Ms. Saler, you mentioned that
your money ends up getting identified and that limits your
approach
Ms. Saler. Right, because we have treatment funds, but even
when the treatment dollars are available, we have serious
infrastructure problems in the whole treatment system in
establishing enough services. And as you said, one of our major
issues is many of the children who come into our program have
serious developmental delays, which we know are a precursor to
them following the pattern that their mothers have taken. We
don't have the money from the children's service side to
actually treat them while they are with us, to begin the
treatment for those problems.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. For instance, educational
problems and behavioral problems.
Ms. Saler. Right.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Kristine, in your joint
effort here, how are you making sure that the full scope of
services gets focused on the needs of this family?
Ms. Ragaglia. Well, perhaps I should start and let my
partner finish the answer because he is more the expert in the
actual treatment modalities.
I think the first step has really been identifying the
issue that we didn't have the right treatment modalities
available in terms of women and their children and trying to
address all the numbers of issues and looking at this from a
real family-focused approach. One of the things that we have
discussed is that we really need to have our Department of
Social Services at the table with us because they have some
added components, you know, and having our Department of Mental
Retardation would give us some of the early childhood
developmental delay kind of money at the table as well.
I don't think it is that hard, quite frankly, for
commissioners to sit down and work together and figure out how
to do it together. But it really takes a commitment on the part
of the people who lead the agency to do that.
Now, we can do that legislatively, but the question will
be, when we force it that way, will that be effective, either?
You know, a marriage--
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. I don't want to pay you to
work together. I mean--
Ms. Ragaglia. That is what I--
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. You ought to be working
together. I don't mind paying you for--
Ms. Ragaglia. It is a marriage by consent--
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut.--service money out there,
but--
Ms. Ragaglia. Yes. Well, a marriage by consent I think
works better, and I think it was our agency's realization that
we needed to partner that led us to where we are today. At the
same time, I think that what you heard from Deputy Commissioner
Kirk's testimony was that because the client population that we
are talking about and that we are identifying through Project
SAFE is different from what already exists out there, there are
issues about appropriate services being available in terms of
marijuana treatment, which is something that is very different
from what presently exists out there. And I will actually defer
to my colleague on that in particular.
Mr. Kirk. Let me just make a couple points. One of them
is--and Kristine mentioned at the time--that the Governor
established something known as the Connecticut Alcohol and Drug
Policy Council about 5 years ago because he said that he has 15
different agencies that are all somehow involved with substance
abuse and they don't necessarily collaborate with one another.
The legislature went ahead and put the council into
statute. So each year in Connecticut, we produce a master
report. But one of the things that came from that effort was
that we came up with the concept of what we call ``client-based
models,'' and in my testimony we attached a profile of what we
call the client-based model for women and children. Basically
what it says is ``stop paying so much attention to who is
funding the service and give me a picture of what the services
are that these women and children need.''
I think the second piece that stands out--and Nancy Young
has really driven this home to us in her work with us--is joint
accountability. Each of us as agencies are involved with the
same family, but when we sit with our providers, historically
we had different outcomes for each agency. And so that from a
system point of view, we as two state agencies holding the
provider responsible for the care produced joint
accountability. The system historically has been a fragmented
kind of system. And that is the world we live in. But the
reality is there are clearly mechanisms available in terms of
accountability and in terms of a funding system that would make
more sense.
Ms. Young. May I respond also? You said something to the
effect of not paying the agencies to work together. Well, the
reality is that the work that goes on after those collaborative
meetings is what the funding--is one of those funding gaps. I
mentioned it as the workers who can work across systems. Those
workers are those kind of boundary-spanning positions. Who
understands the other system enough to be able to look at what
they are trying to create and make it work? And those positions
are not in the systems, generally, and they are always the
positions that go quick. When there is a funding cut, those are
the ones that get cut back.
So someone in the previous panel referred to it as--or I
guess the Senators from the quilting bee area referred to it as
stitches. We refer to it as the glue. You can't have
collaboration unless you have glue that holds it together. The
outcomes might be the final thing that is the final glue, but
you have got to have some personnel that understand enough of
the other system to be able to work together to get there.
So when you say you don't want to fund systems to work
together, there has to be the directive, the willingness to
make that happen, but there also has to be the personnel power
to implement it and to make it happen not just at the
administrative level but when we go into States or into
counties, there may be the will at the top level. Getting that
down to the line is a whole other deal, and you can't do that
unless you have dedicated staff to keep that going.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. I hear what you are
saying. We did have a very interesting study done the first
round of welfare reform, and what was fascinating was that the
States had just bit the bullet and cross-trained the front
worker so they could do all the eligibility stuff and all the
job training stuff. They were the ones where the success rate
was the fastest, where you still had to--as you still do in
Connecticut--go from DSS to Department of Labor, even if they
are in the same building, it is a different person, there isn't
a holistic approach, and there isn't the system knowledge.
My experience with the kind of person you describe is that
not only are they the first to go when there is a budget cut,
but depending on the character of the commissioners, they may
or may not have any influence.
Ms. Young. That is true.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. So I worry about--I mean,
I think we need to give this a lot of thought. How do we
leverage this level of collaboration? Do we require a client-
based model and you can't do it without this? You know.
Ms. Young. Right.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. And joint accountability
mechanisms, do we look at that kind of thing? Then we recognize
that there has to be some cross-training money. We are going to
need a lot of help with this one.
Ms. Young. In looking at the resources that are in the
system, the only data that I have seen looked at how many of
the States actually put some of their TANF money into substance
abuse treatment found that 18 States put TANF funds into
treatment. That was about in 1997 or so that survey was done.
In my own State, in California, we did allocate TANF
dollars to go to substance abuse treatment, and the counties
have gotten very creative on how they can use those funds for
families that are in the child welfare system. But it counts
towards participation in our State, but our State gets nothing
out of the Federal work participation rate. We are almost
penalized by having looked at that as a support service that
needed to be in place in order for women and their families to
get ready to enter work. We can do that within our State, but
our State doesn't get anything on the Federal work
participation requirements.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. That is an interesting
point.
Ben?
Mr. Cardin. Thank you.
As was pointed out, my State along with others have had
waivers in which they tried to provide for substance abuse to
the people within the welfare system. I am curious as to--we
have been talking a little bit about that during this panel,
but whether you could perhaps summarize what you think the do's
and don't's we've learned from that experience, if we are going
to establish a national funding source for people within the
welfare system to deal with substance abuse, what have we
learned from the State waivers as to what works and what
doesn't work?
Ms. Young. I think HHS would probably have to answer it as
far as what they have learned from the waivers. I think there
is only one State so far that has evaluation data in, and that
was the first State that addressed substance abuse
specifically. That was Delaware. The other States, there are
three others that have waivers that are specific to substance
abuse, and they are just really beginning--Maryland, Illinois--
Ms. Nelson. New Hampshire.
Ms. Young. New Hampshire. Thank you. And there are
different models that have been created in each of those, and
some--
Mr. Cardin. That is the concept of waivers so that we can
get--
Ms. Young. Right. But I think one of the common threads is
to be able to jointly plan for the case. They are doing it in
different ways, but there is a partnership that is created
between the substance abuse treatment agency and the child
welfare agency. It might be that they are carrying the case
jointly. It might be that substance abuse specialist is out
stationed in a regional office and they provide assistance to
the child welfare agency. There are different ways that people
across the country, not just in the waiver States, are
approaching the issue, but at its core it is how to bring
together the professionals in a way that is looking at the
family as a whole instead of you do this part and we will do
this part and instead are jointly planning together what is
going to happen at the service end and what happens at the
administrative end.
Ms. Nelson. I think Delaware does have some preliminary
results that do show they are, through these partnership
efforts and through the joint training and the kinds of things
Nancy talked about, where they are being able to get more
families connected to treatment so they are successfully
accessing the treatment and they are actually reducing length
of stay for the kids that are out-of-home.
Mr. Cardin. Ms. Saler?
Ms. Saler. Yes, with the waiver in Maryland, one of the
things that we have been able to do is access multiple sources
of funding, including increasing the participation of DSS and
child welfare in substance abuse treatment. Right now, if we
look at the funding sources that are allowing us to expand our
services for women and children in Maryland, they would include
the State appropriation that we got, but also the fact that we
are able to receive Medicaid payments for the treatment for the
families, and we are receiving what is referred to in this
State as 512 money, which is monies that are appropriated for
treatment of women whose children test positive at birth for
drugs.
So with all of it and the increasing awareness, we have
been able to access and use more dollars.
Mr. Cardin. Dr. Kirk, I am struck by the relationship
between substance abuse and domestic abuse. Throughout all of
your testimonies, there is a high percentage of individuals who
had been abused that will have a substance abuse problem
themselves. It is more likely that their children will have
suffered from some form of domestic abuse. And, Dr. Kirk, I
noticed in your testimony you bring out those high percentages,
but it seems like you are implying that the current funding
sources do not permit you to deal with the domestic abuse
issue. Or maybe I am reading your testimony incorrectly there.
Is this something we should take into consideration? If we
are going to be able to provide for comprehensive help, do we
also have to have a component here that deals with domestic
abuse?
Mr. Kirk. Yes, let me answer that because it ties to
something that Madam Chair indicated. One of the things that is
unique about this population--and I have worked in this area
for 20 years, but I am learning new things the last 5. When you
are working with this particular population--Madam Chair, you
made the distinction--you talked about recovery. And what I
would urge us all to think about is the difference between what
I call treatment and recovery, and also pre-treatment.
We will have, because of domestic violence situations, for
example, an engagement specialist who will work with a woman
for weeks or months before she actually goes into treatment.
Why? Because she doesn't trust the system. The precise cases
you are talking about from the clinical point of view, one of
the after-effects, post-traumatic stress disorder or whatever
you want to call it, is a great deal of distrust. The
difficulty in getting this woman to come into the system when
clinically she distrusts the relationships involved is very,
very strong.
That is why you see, when you look at this client-based
model--we have a whole range of services we call pre-treatment.
Medicaid and general assistance and these other traditional
payor sources--they don't pay for pre-treatment services. That
is different.
Secondly, what I tell our clients as well as people we are
involved with, is the following ``you will be in treatment for
a defined period of time; you will be in recovery for a longer
period of time.'' And one of the challenges with the
relationship with the child welfare agency is to get everybody
to accept that while the person is in active treatment, you may
not want to go for reunification. You may be very concerned
about the risk to the child. Once the person is stable in
recovery, then that is perfectly fine because the family
stability is likely to be there.
Please distinguish between an intensive treatment phase
where the risk relative to the child is far greater than once
they go into recovery. But the domestic violence piece, it is
not so much the domestic violence itself as much as it is what
does that mean in terms of the impact on the individual person.
Mr. Cardin. And I very much agree with you. Domestic
violence causes major trauma scars as well as a challenge to
prevent in the future domestic violence. So we have to deal
with both aspects of it.
I guess my point is that in developing perhaps a new
Federal role in dealing with vulnerable families on substance
abuse, should we also include in that the flexibility to deal
with domestic violence?
Mr. Kirk. Yes, yes. Let me add one quick point. One of the
pieces, the Federal group just came out with something from
SAMSHA called ``Substance Abuse Treatment for Persons, Child
Abuse and Neglect.'' And one of the interesting things they
point out is that if during the substance abuse screening the
history reflects history of domestic violence or child sexual
abuse in the person's background, one of the things that should
occur is a mental health comprehensive evaluation.
Well, our typical substance abuse providers, whether State-
operated or private, do not typically have that resource
available to them. So when you talk about these additional
resources, it is not building on top of a stable base. It is
broadening the base so that the kinds of things that are
provided are responsive to precisely what you are talking about
here.
Mr. Cardin. Ms. Ragaglia?
Ms. Ragaglia. And if I may actually add to that, an
additional component that is not necessarily at this point in
time available to our adult substance abuse providers is the
role of the child, because the impact of a child living in a
home where the parent is a substance abuser is a significant
one. And if we are not using the opportunity for the parent who
is in treatment to also address the impact of all of that on
the child, we have lost a major long-term prevention activity
which probably isn't going to cost a whole lot more, but if we
can figure out a way to do that--and that is one of the things
that we have been talking about--that is a key component. If we
can hit it at that point in time, then we have made a huge
long-term impact on the issue in general.
Mr. Cardin. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. I hope you will read--we
didn't have the details of Senator Rockefeller and Senator
DeWine's bill, but I am sure it will be on the Internet at some
time. But I am concerned about isolating out a problem, even a
problem as big as substance abuse, and treating families with
substance abuse through a different program. And certainly, you
know, I would rely on your long experience and professional
guidance and others out there. I am not in a position to make
that judgment, but it does worry me. I have just seen all too
often well-intentioned programs become straitjackets in 5, 6,
8, 10 years.
So certainly the more holistic approach to the family and
getting some of the barriers out of the way that you brought
up, like the work rules and the fact that treatment doesn't fit
in, even the timelines in our Adoption and Safe Families Act,
if the family is serious about treatment, you know, do we need
to recognize that may rightly influence the 15-month line? So I
think we need to think through a lot of these issues.
I did want to just ask you if you are running into privacy
issues, into data issues as you try to work interagency. And is
there a difference between the privacy rules for children and
adults?
Ms. Young. My experience has been that people talk about
that as being one of the major barriers, and there are some
people in the field who feel like it is the major barrier. My
experience has been, in working with probably 20 jurisdictions
across the country in the last 3 or 4 years, it is something
that has to be dealt with, but it is not something that is a
barrier that can't be dealt with. It needs the discussion. It
needs the work-through. It has to go through their county
councils, their State attorneys, and then they get it and have
the opportunity to be able to work through it. Others probably
don't share that same view.
Mr. Cardin. If the Chair would yield on that, I take it is
different in every State.
Ms. Young. Well, the Federal regulations related to
confidentiality are not, but being able to figure out how to
make that work at the local level on how they are going to
exchange information, it is unique to your own system of how
they make it work.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Did you want to comment,
Ms. Saler? You looked like it. [Laughter.]
Ms. Saler. I was nodding because that is very much our
experience. The Federal confidentiality requirements for
substance abuse are very strict. On an individual basis, we are
very much able to find ways to work with the system, and also,
we make it very clear to women who come to us that we will
always act first to protect the child. And that is a given. It
is told to them. It is given to them in writing. They
understand that we will do that and that we intend to, and we
ask them to sign releases for us to talk to the child welfare
agencies that their children might be involved with. So we do
that up front.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. How do you overcome their
fear at that? This is what I hear from my Head Start friends,
that they can see there is a problem, they can encourage them,
they can quietly try to get them to services, but everybody,
including their friends, you know, are hoping that they can
work this out because they are terrified. And the irony is that
then we can't get them in early.
Ms. Saler. That is right. The women--
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. They need counseling and
some more modest approach to that. So I don't know whether
there should be some sort of 6-month immunity or something if
somebody really gets in there and does it, then--I don't know.
This is something you need to help us with.
Mr. Cardin. Madam Chair, before you adjourn, I just want to
ask unanimous consent that my opening statement be put in the
appropriate part of the record.
Chairman Johnson of Connecticut. Yes, I would be happy to
accommodate. I did offer him the opportunity, but it is hard
once we get rolling.
I also want to say in closing that it is very nice to have
a State as progressive as Maryland nearby and to have a ranking
member that is as knowledgeable about the services available in
a State and who has worked as closely with as many providers
because it does give us the chance often to have people from
the front line in Washington, and that isn't always easy. I
appreciate the distance that some of you have come and your
willingness to prepare testimony and to take thoughts away
about what has gone on that will enable you to give us
continued input over the months ahead.
Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 3:23 p.m., the hearing was adjourned].
[Submissions for the record follow:]
Statement of Child Welfare League of America
The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) welcomes this
opportunity to submit testimony to the Subcommittee on Human
Resources for the hearing on child protection issues.
CWLA is an 80-year-old national association of over 1,100
public and private voluntary agencies that serve more than two
million abused and neglected children and their families. CWLA
member agencies provide the wide array of services necessary to
protect and care for abused and neglected children, including
child protective services, family preservation, family foster
care, treatment foster care, residential group care, adolescent
pregnancy prevention, child day care, emergency shelter care,
independent living, youth development, and adoption.
CWLA is pleased that the committee will be hearing from
such a distinguished panel on the devastating impact on
substance abuse on the children and families involved in the
child welfare system. We especially applaud Senator Rockefeller
for his leadership on a new initiative to improve our systems
of care and to respond more effectively to the needs of
children and families. Mary Nelson, Administrator of the
Division of Adult, Children and Family Services, Iowa
Department of Human Services, is testifying today on the
challenges in addressing child protection and permanency issues
among families with alcohol and other drug (AOD) problems. Her
testimony reflects the concerns and suggestions that CWLA and
others have put forth to enhance the capacity of our systems of
care to respond more appropriately and effectively and to
improve results for the children and families involved.
CWLA takes this opportunity to provide comments on the
second subject of the hearing, the challenges for state courts
under ASFA and how pending legislation will help address them.
New Demands on State Court Resources
The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA, P.L. 105-89)
imposed new requirements for state abuse and neglect courts,
but did not provide any new resources for courts to handle the
additional responsibilities. Courts are now expected to decide
early in the case whether reunification services are required.
Courts must conduct a permanency hearing at 12 months, rather
than at 18 months, as under previous law. Courts must also
process the petitions to terminate parental rights, which
states are required to initiate for children who have been in
foster care 15 out of the most recent 22 months. Under ASFA,
courts must also adopt procedures to ensure the participation
of foster parents, preadoptive parents, and relative caretakers
of abused and neglected children.
CWLA strongly supports legislation introduced in the Senate
by Senator DeWine and others that will provide state abuse and
neglect courts with additional resources to be better equipped
to handle their new responsibilities. This legislation, (S.
708) the Strengthening Abuse and Neglect Courts Act, supports
grants to courts to reduce pending backlogs of abuse and
neglect cases so they can hire additional personnel, extend
court operating hours or conduct night court sessions so that
more cases can be handled in a timely manner. The legislation
also authorizes additional training for judges, abuse and
neglect attorneys, and court personnel and provides funding for
courts to improve their automated data collection system.
The House is already on record in support of a provision of
that bill that allows Title IV-E training funds to be used to
train court personnel in matters related to the court's role in
expediting adoption procedures, implementing reasonable
efforts, and providing for timely permanency planning and case
reviews. CWLA supported that effort and encourages Congress to
take action this year to pass legislation to provide courts
with the resources they need to be able to make more timely
decisions about permanency options for abused and neglected
children so that more children can move to permanent homes.
Enhanced Resources and Options for Child Welfare Training
The focus on these key training issues as they pertain to
the courts also allows important consideration of other
critical aspects of training that require clarification and
enhancement to resolve current and future problems. ASFA's
emphasis on better and faster permanency decision making also
fundamentally requires well trained caseworkers.
In recent years, some states have experienced significant
problems in accessing and utilizing Title IV-E training funds
to support appropriate and needed training for staff in private
agencies that are state approved and meet federal eligibility
criteria as child care institutions. The law outlines that
short-or long-term training at educational institutions is
reimbursable at the 75 percent match rate for such training of
state agency and local public agency staff. The statute also
prescribes that short-term training of current or prospective
foster or adoptive parents and private agency staff can be
reimbursed at a 75 percent federal match. Federal regulations
to implement these provisions narrow the focus of allowable
activities, limiting the availability and accessibility of
these critical training resources.
One commonly confronts differing interpretations of what is
allowable, which entities are eligible, and what is the level
of reimbursement. Various states, private agencies, and others
have reported widespread difficulties in accessing this
critical training resource. The difficulties have grown with
the continued lack of clarification as well as inconsistency in
guidance given to the states. States, as a result, differ
considerably on what they do and what they have been told they
can or cannot do. In the end, public and private agencies have
had to cobble together strategies to support needed training.
As we seek to expand appropriate training opportunities to
court personnel and others involved in child welfare decision
making and services, the current difficulties will only be
compounded in absence of addressing the inconsistencies in
current program directives and operations.
CWLA urges you to resolve these problems to permit
equitable access to Title IV-E incentives for training parent
caregivers; direct care workers, case managers, and others in
the broad array of child welfare services in public and
approved private child welfare agencies; and, those in critical
areas of decision making, including court personnel and special
advocates. In addition, reimbursable activities should include
full menu of training that can enhance capacity to improve
outcomes and are consistent with the state plan to achieve
safety, permanency, and well-being.
Outcomes for children and families improve when those
involved in making decisions and providing services and
supports have been well trained in good practice. Appropriate
access to the Title IV-E training resource will help assure
that.
In sum, we commend this Subcommittee for continuing to
investigate ways we can better address the needs of abused and
neglected children and their families. We look forward to
continuing to work with you to help protect our most vulnerable
children.
Statement of Barbara Bryan, National Child Abuse Defense and Resource
Center, Roanoke, VA
Re: ``Square One'' Training for all in Child Protection Claims
As the only child/family volunteer advocate to regularly
attend my state's Social Services State Board meetings (first
in 1986), I recognize ``training'' as part of the child
protection lobby's mantra: ``More money, more workers, more
training.'' None has, will, or can work unless and until there
is training in recognition of false allegations of child abuse
and neglect: mistaken, mischievous, and malicious, however they
originate.
Training system employees or adjunct volunteers--whether
judges, court, CASA or other caseworkers, and alleged experts
on child protection--to move children more swiftly through the
system per ASFA/CIP and Adoption 2002 provisions, has created a
counterproductive effort funded by Congress and operating under
color of law.
Failing after the initial allegation to catch OR QUESTION
reality of an allegation, ``trained'' personnel procedurally
rush children from natural protectors per labels and
``diagnoses'' of never scientifically validated theories such
as mythical Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy and variant names.
That there is NO peer-reviewed professionally published journal
article showing MSbP and variants EVER has been subjected to
any scientific methodology in replicated research, COURTS are
CRUCIBLES for ``acceptance.''
Using MSbP's attached myths, now that ``safety'' trumps
extended family in ASFA/CIP, children are kept from extended
family, ``fast track'' adopted out in record time, ``legally''
and tax subsidized. That is hardly an admirable ``Adoption
Option.''
Leader among states in getting training on MISTAKEN CLAIMS
OF CHILD ABUSE is Virginia. Official representatives have
attended NCADRC's International Conference since 1995.
Generally the Governor selects appointed members of the VDSS
State Board as his eyes and ears. Anyone whose judgment is
valued by a Governor should hear the law and science which
those receiving millions of federal dollars may prefer are
untold. Too often, ``abuse'' is the excuse for organizational
and ``training'' funding but NOT for child protection. Too many
innocents have ``days in CLOSED DOOR courts'' where hearsay
from third party financially interested witnesses becomes
``evidence.''
For more information on both September's 9th International
Conference and also on MSbP and how its misuse is fracturing
families, please see the sites: www.stop-abuse-org click on
Plug, and www.falseallegation.com (still under construction).
Too little has changed since our participating in an April
4-5, 1990 hearing of this same Subcommittee when similar
underlying issues of child removal/foster care were discussed
and predicted horrors of crack cocaine babies were offered.
Please return to Square One ``training'' for abuse/neglect
allegations with something like SWAP. That is our Social Work
Again Proposal vs. unchecked actions of child protection
caseworkers.
Thank you, Barbara Bryan, volunteer, Communications Dir.,
National Child Abuse Defense & Resource Center (Toledo-based),
at: P.O. Box 8323, Roanoke, VA 24014 Phone: 540/345-1952 Fax:
540/345-1899 Email: ``mailto:[email protected] [email protected]
Statement of Voice for Adoption
Voice For Adoption (VFA), a group of more than 70 national
and local special needs adoption organizations, welcomes this
opportunity to submit testimony on the child protection issues
related to the training needs of court personnel and the extent
of substance abuse in child protection.
Founded in 1996, VFA participants include professionals,
parents, and advocates committed to securing adoptive families
for America's waiting children. Our distinguished board of
directors is made up of recognized leaders in the field of
adoption. Organizations on VFA's board include: the Adoption
Exchange Association (AEA) in Colorado, Children Awaiting
Parents (CAP) in upstate New York, Child Welfare League of
America (CWLA) in the District of Columbia, Institute for Black
Parenting in California, National Adoption Center (NAC) in
Pennsylvania, North American Council on Adoptable Children
(NACAC) in Minnesota, Spaulding for Children in Michigan,
Family Builders Adoption Network in California, and The
Adoption Exchange (TAE) in Colorado. The mission of VOA is to
ensure to ensure permanent, nurturing families for our nation's
most vulnerable children and to strengthen support for families
who adopt.
Our nation has seen a dramatic increase in child abuse and
neglect cases over the past twenty years. The U.S. Department
of Health and Human Serivces reported that in 1997
approximately 2,980,000 children were reported to state and
local agencies due to someone's concern about their safety. The
courts were able to substantiate approximately one third of
these cases.
Congress passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA,
(P.L. 105-89) in 1997 to ensure that all decisions regarding
the permanency options for children in the child welfare system
be made more swiftly. This law has placed new requirement on
our nation's abuse and neglect courts. ASFA requires the courts
in abuse and neglect cases to decide whether reunification with
the child's birth family is possible or whether the court
should terminate parental rights within 15 months. Yet ASFA
does not provided additional resources for the courts. Today,
there are over one-half million children in the foster care
system. In 1998, there were approximately 36,000 adoptions from
the foster care system, up from 31,000 in 1997 and 28,000 in
1996. While states have increase their finalized adoptions in
the past two years since ASFA, many of these children were
legally free and part of a backlog of children that found
permanent families.
The Brianna case here in nation's capital illustrates the
need for training and increased financial resources. On
December 22, 1999, D.C. Superior Court Judge Evelyn E.C. Queen
ordered a 22 month old little girl named Brianna Blackmond back
to her mother's care. Weeks later the child was dead from blows
to the head in the home of her mother. The Judge had not seen
the report from Brianna's caseworker that urged the judge not
to send her back. Also, Judge Queen made the decision without
holding a hearing on the subject. Due to confidentiality rules,
many of the case's facts have not been brought to light.
However, it is clear that with more training and resources the
court decision might have been different and Brianna still
alive today.
VFA endorses legislation introduced by Senator DeWine (S.
708), the Strengthening Abuse and Neglect Courts Act. W e
strongly urge Congress to pass this vital legislation this
session. The bill will improve training and resources for our
nation's court system. Most importantly, the bill will improve
the lives of many children by moving them through the court
system in a more timely manner, and finding them permanent
loving homes more quickly.