Provider Watch - March 8, 2010 - Maltreatment is Attacked

Today DHS Commissioner B.J. Walker spoke to her commitment in attacking the maltreatment problem facing Georgia's foster care system.  Everyone agreed that "No child who has already been maltreated should ever be hurt again on our watch."   Even one child being hurt while in the care of the State or a private provider, is one child too many.  Most providers agreed that the worse nightmare is for a child to be severely hurt while in their care.  Georgia "maltreatment" rate is 1.35 percent.  The national standard is .32 percent.  Georgia has much work to do to get this rate to zero. 

For three hours, preliminary data was reviewed, hypotheses offered, and solutions proposed.  Even in the discussion about "maltreatment," a working definition of what constitutes maltreatment was never offered.  Maltreatment has been defined from anything from inadequate supervision to a slap on the wrist to sexual assault and anything in between.  Children running away from a group home has been defined as maltreatment.  Missing medications has been defined as maltreatment.  Certainly some of the offenses that come under the definition of maltreatment are mistreatment and policy violations, but fall far short of severe harm to a child. 

Maltreatment reports increased from FY2006 to FY2007. Several reasons were proposed for this.  In 2007, Georgia "debundled" its therapeutic services to children by moving away from the Level of Care system.  In the process, the therapeutic milieu that was operational under Level of Care was eliminated.  Children did not have available the supports as before that kept them from harm.  Under this move, children were often placed in facilities not equipped to manage at-risk behaviors which led to "maltreatment in care."  Children do not fail in placements, adults fail to assure the appropriate placement for a child. 

Another hypothesis was that because there were 40% fewer children in care, the children most apt to be in care were the most at-risk of maltreatment.  Because there were almost a half fewer children, then one would see almost a doubling of the maltreatment percentage even if the number of children maltreated stayed the same. 

Of the reports of maltreatment, the highest incidents fell into these areas. 

Length of time did seem to be a factor in whether a child was at risk of maltreatment.  Most children who were maltreated were in care less than 3 months.  In 46% of the substantiated maltreated the child was in care less than one month.  Some of these reports have to do with "retrospective reporting" by the child.  Children when they come into care will often report abuse or neglect that occurred prior to entry into care. 

The "G-Process" will allow providers and the State to find ways to address the problem of maltreatment in care.  "Hindsight explains the injury that foresight would have prevented." Georgia's maltreatment numbers will decline with a commitment to best practice, vigilant supervision, and a commitment to the wellbeing of all children. 

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 Provider Watch, an email newsletter of the
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                            Normer Adams, Editor
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