In
its testimony, CFSA congratulated itself for bringing down the
percentage of children who are in group homes, independent living, or
residential care, so that 83% of its wards are in the homes of
relatives or licensed foster parents. In my testimony, I raised the
concern that many of these homes are not providing the nurturing and
attention that these fragile children need. I talked about my
personal experience with foster parents who have never visited the
child's school, talked to their therapist, or brought them to the
doctor. Ideally, most children would be placed in foster families
rather than congregate care settings like group homes. But children
with complex problems need a truly therapeutic foster home, based on
a proven model, in which foster parents are provided with extensive
supports, treated as professional team members, and expected to
implement precisely tailored treatment interventions and participate
in frequent meetings and calls. .The District lacks this type of treatment foster care program. (See Rebecca Brink, Improving the Children's Mental Health System in the District of Columbia. Children's Law Center, May 9, 2012. Available from childrenslawcenter.org). The District's so-called “therapeutic foster homes” are just regular foster
homes that are paid more because the children are considered to be harder to serve. The
District also needs more family-style group homes to provide the
intensive attention and supervision that many of our older youth
need.
Director Davidson
lauded CFSA's transformation from “a system with a high child
removal rate and geared primarily for foster care” to “a system
focused on strengthening families and keeping them together.” This
is definitely a good thing as long as the children are kept safe. The
question is whether the children who are kept at home, and their
families, are receiving adequate services. Other witnesses expressed
this concern. I have heard anecdotal information that children who
are finally being removed are more disturbed because they have been
kept too long in extremely abusive or neglectful homes. Child welfare
is always struggling with the balance between too many and too few
removals, then changing course after a disaster like a death of a
child who was not removed. Let us hope that will not be the case in
the District of Columbia.
The
Director boasted that “Over the past two years, CFSA has worked
with national experts to train nearly 3,000 child-serving
professionals....in the cutting edge techniques of Trauma Systems
therapy (or TST).” He stated that CFSA is “now at the point of
introducing a set of screening and assessment tools that will aid
social workers in identifying child, youth, and caregiver issues and
strengths and point them toward service pathways that will help and
heal.” So after two years and 3,000 professionals trained (I myself
underwent two full days plus four hours of in-person training and six
hours of teleconferences), they have not introduced any tools yet.
Moreover, I learned in the most recent training session that they
were still modifying the tools that they had introduced almost two
years ago. It seems like a lot of money down the drain.
In my oral
testimony, I raised concerns about the closure of two private
agencies as of the end of February. I stated that the two agencies
that are closing (Foundations for Home and Community[“Foundations”]
and KidsPeace) are not those with the worst reputations among
professionals in the system. Director Davidson assured the Committee
that the closed agencies are those that scored the lowest on
performance. But I still have doubts. CFSA stopped posting the
“performance scorecards” for private agencies after September
2013. I have filed a Freedom of Information Act for the actual
performance scorecards that were prepared after that time and also
for the specific data that CFSA used in making its decision. I know
that exits to permanent homes are given a lot of weight. But since
Foundations took the oldest and most troubled children, many of whom
have been in the system for years, they cannot be expected to achieve
permanence at the rate of other agencies. Moreover, exits to
permanence should not be measured on a quarterly basis—if that is
what CFSA is doing.
I also expressed
concern about the young people in Foundations foster homes who may be
forced to move because their foster parents will not accept the lower
stipends offered by the other private agencies. Director Davidson
assured the Committee that CFSA will be extending the contract with
Foundations on an individual basis to cover those young people who
are close to achieving permanency or who cannot find another
placement. That was reassuring, but it still means that those who can
find another placement must be moved—even though CFSA is so
concerned with minimizing moves between foster homes because of the
known negative effect of these moves.
In several
instances, I was shocked to learn how little the leadership knows
about how CFSA's services actually work. In answer to a question from
the Chair, Deputy Director Debra Porcia Usher stated that after
children are removed from their families a “Child Needs Assessment
(CNA)” is completed to make sure they are matched with the most
appropriate foster home. That would be absolutely ideal, but I
wonder who would do the CNA (a form which takes an hour) in the
middle of the night, when most children seem to come into care. In
reality, the placement worker calls around until a foster parent is
found who answers the phone and agrees to take the removed child or
children based on little or no information. Unfortunately, rather
than being used primarily to match children with families, the CNA's
are required to be completed quarterly and take at least an hour of a
hard-working social worker's time to no evident purpose.
I
was also surprised that Deputy Director Michelle Rosenberg thought
that the new Catholic Charities Mobile Crisis Services are accessed
directly by the foster parent. Actually, the social worker must call
the Resource Development Specialist, who then makes the referral to
Catholic Charities. The lack of knowledge among agency leadership
about how services work is significant. No wonder social workers are
hampered by policies and procedures that don't make sense—like
completing a “Child Needs Assessment” four times a year rather
than only when a child needs a new placement. Everyone at the Deputy
Director level should spend at least one day a year shadowing the
case-carrying workers who work in the units that they supervise. Then
we might see an end to useless and cumbersome requirements and give
social workers the time to do their jobs.
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