Daily Update June 10, 2015 - CWLA public policy call on child welfare policy debate
From CWLA
FOLLOW UP
Thank you all for your participation in our two recent calls regarding some of the child welfare policy debate taking place in Washington, DC.
As I indicated earlier and on the call, CWLA firmly believes that all children and families need and should have access to the full array of services and supports that are required to advance their well-being. We further believe that the services should be of high quality and should have as their primary goal to keep and maintain children in their homes and communities. Consistent with this belief, we feel that building-based residential treatment services are critically important as an intervention for some children for a defined period of time but should not be a destination or viewed as a place that children should live. Agencies providing residential treatment services as well as foster care services have a long history in this country. Many of these agencies have significant endowments, name recognition, leadership and knowledge that need to continue to benefit children in the child welfare system. As shifts take place to have the right kinds and amount of services for the full array, we need to capture and redirect these resources in a thoughtful way that can further advance child and family well-being.
There are many residential and foster care programs that recognize they are part of an array of services and not the destination for children. The programs are innovative, committed to excellence, and redirecting their resources to children and families in a way that improves the quality of their interventions, including being more community-based, family- and youth- directed . . .and there are others that are not. As a system, we must proactively restate our long term commitment to excellence and to the goal of advancing safety, permanence and well-being for children by providing the services that they need, when they are needed.
As Washington focuses attention on how they might adapt current child welfare policy and funding we need to bring this philosophy to key policymakers.
UPDATES
In our two conference calls, we updated members on recent developments in Washington.
In mid-May, the Senate Finance Committee began a policy discussion on the role of residential or congregate care. While the hearing focused some attention on the desire to make sure that children do not grow up or stay in what is generally referred to as “congregate” care some of the views expressed raised some concerns.
The Chair of the Committee, Senator Orin Hatch (R-UT) submitted a statement that said in part,
“Groups home, sometimes referred to as “congregate care,” are literally breeding grounds for the sexual exploitation of children and youth. As the committee heard during a hearing on domestic sex trafficking of children and youth in foster care, traffickers know where these group homes are and target the children placed in them for exploitation.”
He discussed earlier legislation he had introduced in the last Congress and indicated that one part of that bill that had not made it into law would be re-introduced,
“. . . a key feature of that bill – which was not enacted – would refocus federal priorities on connecting vulnerable youth with caring, permanent families. This would be accomplished by eliminating the federal match to group homes for very young children and, after a defined period of time, for older youth . . ."
“I know that some might have concerns about limiting federal funds for any type of placement. Here’s how I look at it: No one would support allowing states to use federal taxpayer dollars to buy cigarettes for foster youth. In my view, continuing to use these scarce tax payer dollars to fund long terms placements in groups homes is ultimately just as destructive . . ."
We also outlined to callers how this hearing was preceded by a very positive development in that the Ranking Member of the same committee, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) began to circulate a draft bill that would build on the Administration’s FY 2016 budget request that seeks to expand the use of the foster care “candidacy” category as a methodology to provide home and community based services for children who have not yet been placed into foster care. The legislation would also use this tool to provide services to those children and families that have been reunified or need post-placement services (adoption and kinship placements). Senator Wyden is circulating the draft to solicit input and will introduce that bill near the end of this month.
The Wyden bill represents an important development in child welfare policy debate in that it attempts to move beyond the recent framework of discussion that argued only budget “neutral” proposals can be considered when we discuss child welfare. That standard is not applied to any other policy debates in Washington (including Medicare, transportation, defense, taxation, trade policy, to name a few). It offers a possibility to re-frame the child welfare discussion in Washington, DC.
MEMBER FEEDBACK
During the discussion with our members over the two calls, we heard some consistent themes:
- There are a range of definitions and policies across the fifty states when it comes to defining “congregate/group home/residential care.”
- There are also differences in how systems link or don’t link between juvenile justice, behavioral health, etc.
- There is a great deal of transformation taking place not just now but for several years.
- There are a number of children with serious treatment needs that are glossed over by some of the general and overly broad rhetoric.
- There are other critical parts of the continuum and populations (adoption/kinship, for example) that if not properly supported through services, proper screening may then be reflected later in residential services populations.
- We need to look across systems and make sure pressure on one system (i.e. child welfare) doesn’t push children into other systems such a juvenile justice, homelessness.
- There also has to be a better cross system connection (TANF/health/mental health).
WHAT WE NEED FROM OUR MEMBERS:
If you have surveys or information you have developed such as current child population surveys/census in care, a description of the services being provided.
A list of the definitions you use for the range of services and settings of care (particularly residential/congregate care).
A description of what children are served in by each service or setting, including their ages and treatment needs.
How children enter care: juvenile justice, child welfare behavioral health, etc.
The type of oversight currently required or that should be required (oversight of what?).
We are a system; we are interconnected. We need each other and must speak with one voice. This is what CWLA was established to do and we need that voice even more now. But the voice is not just CWLA staff. It needs to be the collective voice of those of you doing the hard work with children – youth workers, administrators and boards.
WHERE TO SEND AND HOW TO GET ONGOING INFORMATION:
Send your information to jsciamanna@cwla.org.
The Children’s Monitor: http://www.cwla.org/childrens-monitor or
Send an e-mail to jsciamanna@cwla.org to request an early copy on Sunday evening.
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