Grant to help boost foster-children visits
Posted on Monday, November 6, 2006
Just over half of Arkansas ’ 3, 654 foster children see their caseworkers each month.
But a half-million-dollar federal grant aims to improve the frequency and quality of those visits in an effort to keep children safer and connect them to permanent families quicker.
A total of $ 40 million in grants, which may be used to recruit, retain and train caseworkers in addition to purchasing technology, were awarded to every state under the federal Promoting Safe and Stable Families program. In addition to helping children, the grants were given to assist states in preparing for a new federal standard, taking effect in 2011, that requires state caseworkers to visit at least 90 percent of foster children each month, with a majority of the visits taking place at the foster child’s home.
States must first establish their own goals for the percentage of foster children they will visit each month by June 30, 2008. Arkansas aims to visit 85 percent of foster children each month. The U. S. Department of Health and Human Services will reduce its Child Welfare Services funding to states that do not meet their annual visitation goals beginning October 2008, said a spokesman for the federal agency.
“There’s a good deal of research that shows that children who are visited frequently in foster care, versus those who are visited infrequently, spend less time in foster care [and ] are more likely to be reunified with their family or moved toward adoption more quickly,” said Wade Horn, assistant secretary of the U. S. Administration for Children and Families, which is part of the federal Health and Human Services agency.
“Children who are infrequently visited are more at risk for being forgotten.”
Children who remain in foster care, never finding a permanent home, are at a higher risk for a host of problems, including homelessness, suicide and welfare dependency, Horn said.
According to a federal review of 2003 data, only five states — Colorado, Florida, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah — could document that at least 90 percent of their foster children received monthly caseworker visits. California and Massachusetts provided monthly visits to fewer than 90 percent, but more than 75 percent of foster children.
Arkansas, Texas, Tennessee, Arizona and Nebraska showed that 50 percent to 75 percent of their foster children received monthly visits, while data from six other states and the District of Columbia showed monthly visitation rates of less than 50 percent. Washington provided only quarterly data, showing that just over half of its foster children received a visit during a three-month period, while the other states were unable to provide statewide reports.
The federal Administration for Children and Families also evaluates states’ abilities to provide quality caseworker visits with foster children. The Administration’s Children and Family Service Reviews, performed between 2001 and 2004, found that Arkansas and 38 other states needed to address the issue, Horn said.
Arkansas was cited in its review for “not visiting with children or parents frequently enough to monitor and promote the safety and well-being of children.”
Federal officials notified the Arkansas Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Children and Family Services of the $ 552, 829 grant, which requires a 25 percent match of $ 138, 207, in October. State administrators are consulting the division’s Advisory Board and caseworkers to decide how the division will use the grant.
In addition to supporting caseworkers, states may use the grants to purchase technology, such as laptop computers.
Caseworkers could use the computers to update a child’s case file during a visit and to access other information about the child, rather than returning to their offices to perform those tasks, Horn said.
In January 2005, Arkansas relaxed its standards for caseworker visits from a weekly basis and requiring that visits take place in the child’s home, to a monthly basis and expanding the settings where visits may take place. The state still struggles to meet the goal of visiting 85 percent of foster children each month.
The most recent data available show that in April, 59 percent of 2, 954 children received a caseworker visit, in May, 56 percent of 3, 017 received a visit, and in June, 56 percent of 2, 823 received a visit. A total of 310 caseworker positions — 15 percent of which are vacant — are for making the monthly visits. In addition to foster care cases, the workers also handle children’s adoption cases and work with families who are receiving services from the agency, but do not have children in foster care.
Pat Page, interim director of the state Division of Children and Family Services, said staffing issues — including recruiting employees to fill vacant positions and turnover — are the biggest challenges to completing more monthly visits with foster children. While the agency has done a better job of recruiting new workers, some new recruits leave when they find the caseloads, which average 34 per worker, overwhelming, she said.
The agency is working on strategies to relieve caseworkers and make the job “doable,” allowing workers to do good quality work with children and families, she said.
“You can’t do that consistently if you’ve got 50 cases or even 40 cases or even 30 cases. You need to have a workload where you can consistently do a good job for all kids and families, so that’s what we’re shooting for,” Page said.
The agency is also examining whether some foster children visits go undocumented.
Michelle Trulsrud, Pulaski County Court Appointed Special Advocates director, said she knows that state caseworkers try to visit all of their foster children each month, but the high caseloads, which average more than double the recommended 15 per worker, make that task hard.
Regular visits from caseworkers help children to feel included, but when children don’t have monthly visits, they notice and feel lost, she said.
“They feel like they’re kind of floating around without any kind of guidance or someone to ask questions to or know what’s happening because they look to DHS [to ] be the one to tell them, ‘ This is what’s going on and this is where we’re going and this is where we need to get to, ’” Trulsrud said.
“When they don’t feel that connection, they feel abandoned — again.”
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