Welfare Watch - July 09, 2010 - Georgia Child Welfare from a National Prospective

The Child and Families Service Review (CFSR) required by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has given states a means by which to compare themselves to other states in regard to child welfare.  The backyard athlete is always great.  It is only in comparison to others nationally can one really see how good one is.  The CFSR allows national comparisons to be made using similar criteria.  Only until these reports were compiled did states know how many children were in foster care much less the rate of re-abuse or percent moved to permanency within 12 months.

Using FY 2008 numbers, Georgia has one of the lowest rates of entry into foster care in the nation.  We are the eighth lowest state in the rate of entries as a percent of the national rate.

Our numbers in foster care is the fourth lowest.  This has been achieved while maintaining some of the highest safety numbers in the nation (less than 3% recurrent maltreatment within six months.) 

The power of these numbers can be summarized in a statement by Andy Barclay who presented these numbers to a gathering at a National Governors' Conference in Georgia, "Today Governor Perdue can quote Georgia’s recurrence of maltreatment rate off the top of his head.  Can your Governor do that? "