The Honorable Willie L. Brown Jr.
Speaker of the Assembly
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp and Members of the Assembly

The Honorable Bill Jones
Assembly Republican Floor Leader

Taking a child away from his natural parent is a last-resort decision that the State sometimes must make. The weight and importance of this wrenching decision is such that all logic dictates that the State must then see that the child has a better, fuller, healthier life than is possible with the natural parents.

Unfortunately, the Little Hoover Commission has seen compelling evidence that this is not occurring. Children too often are cast adrift in a foster care system that fails to safeguard their lives and their futures. Despite spending $1.4 billion on welfare services for abused and neglected children, the State has failed miserably to ensure that these children, ripped from their troubled homes, are given the necessary nurturing for them to become well-rounded adults and productive citizens.

The Commission has reviewed California's Child Welfare Services program for the second time in five years and is dismayed to discover that many of the same problems and trends are still evident. In the report that is being transmitted with this letter, the Commission documents its extensive concerns and issues five findings, as well as 16 recommendations for reforms that would substantially impact the quality of life for foster children.

That children can come to harm--and even die--while supposedly under the protection of foster care is not in dispute. Recent newspaper stories have included:

• A foster mother was arrested in Los Angeles on charges of beating to death her 23-month-old foster son, allegedly over toilet training problems.
• Another Los Angeles woman was arrested for the attempted murder of a 19-month-old foster child who she said fell from a jungle gym. Doctors believed the severe head injuries, which may result in blindness, could only have come from abuse.
• A Sacramento woman who was injured in a car accident voluntarily placed her daughter in a foster care facility. During a tantrum by the child, an employee of the facility wrapped her in a blanket and squatted on her. She was later discovered dead.

It is an indictment of the State program that each of these children is now dead or irreparably injured. And it is enough to cause grave concern about the welfare of the approximately 81,000 children who have been removed from their homes--a number that is climbing dramatically each year.

The Commission believes the State should take steps to safeguard these children and to enhance their lives by focusing on several fronts, including:

• Family Preservation. Only about 20 percent of children are removed from their homes because of abuse; the rest suffer neglect for varying reasons. Getting at the cause of that neglect--whether it is drug abuse by parents, lack of parenting skills, extreme poverty--is a far more productive method of improving the lives if children than removing them from their parents. Some experts have estimated that between 35 and 70 percent of foster children should never have been removed from their homes and have suffered far more psychological injury than had they remained with their parents. Others believe that for every $1 spent on family preservation efforts, $3 in long-range costs are avoided. For the mental health of the children and to avoid staggering costs, the State should shift resources to family preservation programs.
• Foster Parents. Poorly trained and poorly compensated, today's foster parents face the responsibility for troubled children with very little help from the State. This has resulted in a lack of adequate numbers of foster parents who are capable of nurturing children into healthy adults. It has also added greatly to the costs faced by the State:The State pays approximately $6,500 to support a child in a foster family compared to more than $32,500 to place him in a group home. It is crucial that the State upgrade the status of foster parents through higher payments and ensure their parenting skills by requiring adequate training and a psychological evaluation.
• State Oversight. Because counties both license facilities and place children in them, there is an inherent conflict of interest when complaints arise or abuse isalleged. Counties rely on foster homes to be there when children must be placed, so the potential for less-vigorous investigations exist. The State must ensure that children are not left with an advocate to oversee their interests. The creation of an ombudsman program, much as there is for the elderly in out-of-home residences, would provide a means of protection.

Children who have cried out to our hearts because of abuse and neglect should not bear the pain of finding themselves in even worse situations once the State has removed them from their parents. The State must take steps to improve the Child Welfare Services Program--for the sake of the children.

• providing treatment services to families to reduce unnecessary placement in foster care:

   

• safely reuniting more foster care children with their families;

   

• increasing the stability of foster care placements; and

   

• placing more adoptable foster care children into adoptions.

Since these reforms took place, a number of studies of the foster care system have been conducted including a 1987 review by the Little Hoover Commission that found a number of major problems in the delivery of children's services in California.More recently, and primarily in response to serious problems in Los Angeles County's foster care program, additional reviews have been done by the California Legislative Analyst, Auditor General and Senate Office of Research.There have been few indications that the foster care system has improved; indeed, all signs point to a worsening of conditions.

In July 1991, the Commission initiated this study of child welfare services to follow up on the foster care portions of its 1987 report and to identify and review any recent issues related to foster care.As a result, the Commission developed the following findings and related recommendations.

In this study, the Little Hoover Commission focuses on some of the key issues surrounding out-of-home placement for children in California.

It is important to point out that an implicit goal of the Child Welfare Services Program is to provide the safety, stability, nurturing and guidance necessary for children to be able to grow up into productive, well-adjusted adult members of the community.This goal is most clearly articulated in a recent report issued by the California Child Welfare Strategic Planning Commission:

... that they reach adulthood having experienced a safe, healthy and nurturing environment.The resulting sense of self-worth, coupled with equal access to resources, will empower them to develop their unique potentials, so that they mature realizing a strong sense of responsibility to self, culture and society.2

Currently, there are more than 81,000 infants, children and youths in out-of-home placements in California's foster care system.Each of these minors has been either:

adjudged a dependent of the court because of child abuse, neglect or exploitation;

• adjudged a ward of the court because of being a law violator;

   

• placed in foster care by a county welfare or probation department pursuant to a voluntary agreement between the department and the child's parent(s) or guardian(s);

   

• relinquished for adoption and placed in foster care by an adoption agency, prior to his or her adoption; or

   

• placed in foster care by an individualized education program that determined the child needs special education services, is seriously emotionally disturbed, and needs 24-hour out-of-home care to meet his or her educational needs.3

Once placed in foster care, the children are supervised by either the county welfare department -- as is the case for approximately 93 percent of the children4-- or the county probation department.

The state, federal and county costs of maintaining foster children in out-of-home care facilities such as foster family homes, group homes and special homes for seriously emotionally disturbed youths, are budgeted to run more than $900 million in fiscal year 1992-93.5 The budgeted cost of counties' provision of child welfare services is an additional $500 million, bringing total annual costs for the Child Welfare Services Program to more than $1.4 billion for fiscal year 1992-93.6

• Too many children were removed from their parents' care, with little or no effort to keep the families intact.

   

• Children in foster care received few, if any, ervices to facilitate reunification with their families.

   

• Children in foster care were allowed to "drift" from one placement to another, with no long-term plan for their future and little likelihood that they would ever enjoy a stable, family-like placement.

   

• Too many children remained in long-term foster care who should have been permanently placed through adoptions.8

In response to these criticisms, the federal government enacted the Federal Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 (Public Law 96-272), which required states to enact specific reforms in order to continue receiving federal funds related to foster care.In 1982, California assimilated the required federal changes into state law through the enactment of Chapter 978 (SB 14, Presley).9 This legislation established four separate child welfare services programs:

1. Emergency Response - Under this program, county welfare departments provide in-person response, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to reports of abuse, neglect or exploitation.The program's primary goals are crisis intervention and referral to other services as needed.State law requires that the services provided in this program include initial intake, crisis intervention, counseling, emergency shelter care and transportation.

    

2. Family Maintenance - This program requires counties to provide temporary protective ervices to prevent or remedy neglect, abuse, or exploitation, for the purpose of preventing the separation of children from their families. The counties provide the services to children (and their families) who have been identified through the Emergency Response Program as victims, or potential victims, of abuse, neglect or exploitation.The primary goal of this program is to allow children to remain with their families under safe conditions, thereby eliminating unnecessary placement in foster care.Among the services provided through this program are social worker case management and supportive services such as counseling, emergency shelter care, temporary in-home caretakers, out-of-home respite care, instruction in homemaking abilities and parenting, and transportation. Families may receive family maintenance services for no more than one year.

    

3. Family Reunification - This program provides temporary foster care services to prevent or remedy the neglect, abuse or exploitation of children who have been temporarily removed from families when the children cannot safely remain at home and while services are provided to reunite the family.The program also provides services to the families of these children, and its primary goal is to safely reunify the children with their families.Social worker case management and supportive services -- such as counseling, emergency shelter care, instruction in homemaking abilities and parenting, and transportation -- are included in the services provided through this program. Children can remain in the Family Reunification Program for no longer than 18 months.After that time, the child must either be returned to the family or transferred to the Permanent Placement Program.

    

4. Permanent Placement - Under this program, counties are required to provide case management services and an alternate, permanent family placement to children in foster care who are unlikely ever to be returned to their families.The primary goal of the program is to ensure that these children are placed in the most family-like and stable setting available, with adoption being the placement of first choice.10

The major goals that Chapter 978, Statutes of 1982 attempted to accomplish through these four programs were to:

• Foster family homes licensed by the State or, as is the case in 46 of the 58 counties,¹² by the county through a contract with the State - The majority of children are placed in this type of home, which comes as close as possible to a "regular" family's home. These homes, run by foster parents, can take up to six children and are not provided professional support. Further, the foster parents may or may not be relatives and/or guardians of the children placed in the homes.

   

• Foster family homes certified by State-licensed foster family agencies - These homes are similar to foster family homes licensed by the county or State except that the foster family agencies -- which are private, not-for-profit organizations or individuals --provide an additional layer of administration. The agencies are responsible for recruiting, certifying, training and providing professional support to foster parents in whose homes foster children are placed.

   

• Group homes - These homes, which are licensed by the State and classified as residential care facilities, can take seven or more children depending on each home's capacity specified by its licenses. Further, the homes can be operated by organizations or individuals either on a profit or not-for-profit basis, are staffed 24 hours a day, and provide some form of treatment and support services. The licensee resides outside the group home.

   

• Small family homes - These homes also are licensed by the State and classified as residential care facilities for children. The licensee provides 24-hour care for six or fewer children who are mentally disordered, developmentally disabled or physically handicapped and who require special care and supervision as a result of such disabilities. Care is provided in the licensee's family residence.

   

• County shelters or receiving homes - These facilities generally are used only for emergency shelter care, but sometimes are used for longer periods when suitable, alternate placement facilities cannot be found.

   

• Medical facilities - These facilities are used when a child's medical needs are so severe they cannot be met in alternate facilities, or when other facilities are not available.

It should also be noted that children who are placed in foster family homes or licensed small family homes, and who require additional care because of a health and/or behavior problem, are eligible for specialized care to be provided by a qualified care giver.

Findings:

1. Increased number of reports of child abuse and neglect have contributed to workload problems.

    

2. Current approaches for abuse and neglect may prove damaging to families and children.

    

3. There is a lack of comprehensive training for child welfare professionals, foster parents and mandated reporters.

    

4. The court system is experiencing difficulties in dealing with cases of abuse and neglect.

    

5. Lack of emphasis on prevention of abuse and neglect is resulting in long-term problems for children and increased cost to the State.

    

6. There is a shortage of services and placement resources for abused and neglected children and their families.

Recommendations:

1. Give priority to programs that prevent child abuse and neglect.

    

2. Ensure that services to aid family reunification, prompt investigations, counseling and other resources are fully funded.

    

3. Evaluate and develop funding streams that promote interagency cooperation and coordination.

    

4. Require the use of court mediators, where appropriate.

    

5. Require that all counties develop and implement an administrative review process for children in out-of-home care who have had a permanency planning hearing.

    

6. Require the use of video or audio tapes in investigations of child abuse and neglect.

    

7. Encourage continuous case management for abused and neglected children after the emergency response.

    

8. Encourage the statewide use of multi-disciplinary teams.

    

9. Establish a State-supported, multi-faceted interdisciplinary training program.

    

10. Require certification for caseworkers.

     

11. Ensure that health needs of children in out-of-home care arrangements are adequately met.

In the time since the Commission's report, there have been few indications that the foster care system has improved; indeed, all signs point to a worsening of conditions. In October 1990, the State Department of Social Services terminated its contract with Los Angeles County and took over the function of licensing foster family homes because of serious problems in the county's licensing and placement activities. (This situation is discussed in greater detail in Finding #4. )

Because roughly 41 percent of all the State's children receiving these services are in Los Angeles,¹⁴ the focus on that county's problems does not represent a singling out of one geographical area. The size of the program makes any issue in Los Angeles, in effect, a statewide issue.

Largely motivated by the Los Angeles situation, a series of reports looked at Child Welfare Services late in 1990 and early in 1991. The following are brief synopses of the reports' findings.

• The Legislative Analyst found that: the Child Welfare Services program has grown substantially; despite substantial funding increases, the program has had only limited success in meeting its goals; staffing levels are not the primary reason for the program's problems; and there is a substantial shortage of treatment services for Child Welfare Services clients.¹⁵

   

• The Auditor General found that: Los Angeles County was not complying with visitation and medical history requirements; the county may be placing more children in foster care that the law allows; the State's oversight of Los Angeles County's foster care program and its process for revoking foster home licenses need to be improved; and the State's foster care program could lose an estimated $156 million in federal funds for all 58 counties.¹⁶

   

• The Senate Office of Research concluded that: new ways need to be found to encourage families to provide foster care; some foster parents need to be elevated to a professional status; quicker termination of family ties need to be made when reunification is not a good prospect; and expanded efforts to qualify older youths for emancipated status are needed.¹⁷

In addition to the above studies, the State Department of Social Services for the past two years has chaired a Child Welfare Strategic Planning Commission to produce a long-term strategic approach to Child Welfare Services. The commission, which was composed of 34 individuals representing a broad cross-section of those who deal with abused and neglected children, completed a report in November 1991 that identified the myriad needs of children and outlined general strategies to meet those needs.

Finally, an event that occurred in 1991 and that has potential for a significant impact on the State's foster care system was the state-county "realignment" package of bills that was enacted as part of the 1991-92 budget. In general, the package:

• transfers responsibility for financing indigent health, public health, and mental health programs and services from the State to the counties;
• results in a net shift of $521 million in General Fund costs for social services programs to the counties;
• allocates two new revenues -- increases in vehicle license fees and an added half-cent sales -- to counties to enable them to assume increased health, mental health and social service responsibilities;
• allows counties to shift a limited amount of sales tax revenues between social services and health services; and
• makes other changes in realignment programs. (The specific provisions of realignment concerning foster care are discussed in greater detail in the Findings and Recommendations section of this report. )

The realignment package is aimed at: reversing a pattern of yearly cutbacks in state funding for health, mental health and social services; providing a source of funding expected to grow yearly by seven or eight percent; and increasing county flexibility, discretion and effectiveness. The State's role in the realigned programs is supposed to be one of oversight and assessment.¹⁸

To assist in framing potential issues for this study and to review the concepts and direction of this report, the Commission established an advisory committee on foster care. The committee included representatives of the State, county welfare departments, county probation departments, a county mental health department, education, county social workers, a research group and a group home operator. (Please see Appendix A for a list of the Commission's Foster Care Advisory Committee. )It should be noted that the composition of the advisory committee reflects only those parties who accepted the Commission's invitation to participate; the Commission also invited representatives from many other groups interested in child welfare services.

The Commission held two public hearings on foster care; the first hearing was held November 20, 1991 in San Francisco and the second was held January 22, 1992 in Los Angeles. Both hearings addressed the issues presented in this report and elicited testimony from foster youths, parents of foster youths, foster parents, child advocates, special interest groups, a juvenile court judge, and representatives of the State Department of Social Services, county welfare departments, a county probation department, group homes, and a foster family agency. (Please see Appendix B for a list of witnesses providing testimony for the Commission's two hearings. )

In addition to the public hearings, Commission staff conducted extensive fieldwork by reviewing literature, publications and statistics related to children's services in general and foster care in particular. In addition, the Commission and its staff toured county facilities, foster family homes and group homes in San Francisco, and interviewed numerous individuals throughout the State.

In general, however, children do best when they grow up with their own families. Some professionals estimate that between 35 percent and 70 percent of children who end up in foster care should not be there and can be severely damaged psychologically by the experience. According to a former chief of research and evaluation of the Children's Bureau of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services:

Research over the past 40 years says that if you remove the child from home, you traumatize the child more than he is already hurt. You inflict a subsequent injury, especially on a young child who can't understand why he's been removed from his family. They feel they did something bad, and that it is their fault, or they view it as a kidnapping.¹⁹

One psychologist, in speaking of the dynamics of removing a child from his or her family, stated, "Once a child is placed outside his home, something basic changes. A family is a bit like a spider's web. It's a finely drawn, interconnecting set of relationships. Once a spider's web is broken, you cannot put it back together again."²⁰

As an example, consider the effect such a break-up had on a 17-year-old girl who testified at the Commission's November public hearing. The girl told of how she and her 11-year-old sister were removed from her alcoholic mother's care only to drift from one foster home to another and be serviced by five different social workers. The girl said she received nothing but discouragement from the social workers and counselors she came in contact with and, despite her and her sister's pleas to have her family reunited, she was told she could not go home because no services were available to treat her mother. Prior to being removed from her home, the girl was an honors student in school and had a 3. 8 grade point average; since being placed in foster care her grade point average has plummeted to 2.0. The girl also spoke of now living in shame because she felt that, without knowing where she might be moved to next, she could not even give out her address.²¹

Across the nation, as well as in California, the programs share some basic service characteristics in addition to the fundamental goal of protecting children while preventing their removal from home. Most often, specialized staff provide services to the family as a unit, generally in the home. Programs frequently have social workers on-call 24 hours a day. Funds are generally available for the purchase of marketed goods and services, like a housing deposit, the purchase of a playpen, or car repair. Services are intensive and time-limited. Small caseloads allow staff to devote many hours a week to help families make the changes necessary to avoid out-of-home placement. Linkage to community resources is provided to help when the short-term service delivery period ends.²³

Some case examples further help to illustrate the mechanics of the programs:

Critics of these studies claim that they were conducted without control groups to provide an accurate comparison to families not receiving family preservation services and that such high rates are inflated. Some feel that a more accurate percentage of placement avoidance is closer to 10 percent. Studies that did contain control groups, however, showed clear advantages of family preservation services. (Please see Appendix C for a brief discussion of the results of such studies. )

A second goal that can be accomplished through placement prevention programs is the reduction of the growing cost of out-of-home care by helping many troubled families whose children are at imminent risk of removal remain together safely in their homes.³⁰ A 1990 evaluation of the initial three family preservation projects in California concluded that, after only the first pilot year of the projects, the projects resulted in savings of more than $1 million in direct costs of placing children out of their homes.³¹ In Contra Costa County, officials estimate that for every $1,000 spent on a child in the family preservation program, it would cost $3,000 to keep the child in a foster home for the same amount of time and as much as $5,000 to put the child in a juvenile camp, which has very close supervision.³² Another 1990 study projected that an investment of $106 million in placement prevention programs in California over four years would reduce the direct costs of placing children out of their homes by $347 million over that same period.³³ It should be noted that these studies did not contain control groups.

From that perspective, it is fortunate that only a minority of the children placed in out-of-home care are removed from their homes for reasons of physical or sexual abuse. On the following page, Figure 1 shows the reasons for the removal of all children who were placed out-of-home during calendar year 1991. (Please see Appendix D for definitions of the reasons for removal. )

Figure 1

As Figure 1 shows, of all the children removed from their homes during calendar year 1991, only 19.9 percent were removed because of physical or sexual abuse. The remaining 80.1 percent were removed for other reasons, such as neglect by the children's caretakers or violation of the law by the children.³⁵ Some reasons included in the 80.1 percent figure, such as the death of a child's caretaker, would preclude family preservation services. For the vast majority of cases, however, reasons other than physical and sexual abuse would allow children to remain in their homes under a placement prevention program.

It is also interesting to note that physical and sexual abuse have constituted a decreasing percentage of all reasons for removal in recent years. During fiscal year 1988-89, they were the reasons of removal in 22.5 percent of the cases; in fiscal year 1989-90 they decreased to 20.9 percent of all reasons. And in fiscal year 1990-91, physical and sexual abuse were the reasons for removal in only 20.3 percent of all cases.³⁶

Meanwhile, the reasons for removal that are most directly related to parental substance abuse -- specifically, endangerment due to parental neglect, incapacity or absence -- have increased.³⁷ The fallout of substance abuse as felt by the foster care system is discussed more fully in Finding #2.

Instead, California children continue to be removed from their homes in increasing numbers. Figure 2 shows the increase in the number of children placed in out-of-home care.

Figure 2

As Figure 2 illustrates, the number of children removed from their homes increased by nearly 11,000 (15.5 percent) over the four-year period, going from 70,527 in fiscal year 1988-89 to an estimated 81,459 in fiscal year 1991-92.³⁹

In 1991, the California Legislative Analyst compared California's placement rate with two other large industrial states -- New York and Michigan -- and with the nation as a whole. The comparison showed that, once population increases were accounted for, the rate was higher in California than the rates in New York and Michigan and almost double the national average.⁴⁰ Another 1991 study had similar findings: Not only did foster care placement rates increase in more than three-quarters of California's counties, but of the 46 counties large enough to rank, 30 counties have rates higher than the national average and 4 counties have rates double the national average.⁴¹

Figure 3

As described in Figure 3, the cost of placing children in out-of-home care has increased nearly $400 million (72.3 percent) over the five-year period, increasing from approximately $553 million in fiscal year 1988-89 to a budgeted $952 million in fiscal year 1992-93.⁴²

An even more striking view of the increase in placement costs is achieved when one considers that such costs amounted to only $150 million in 1981-82, the last fiscal year before the Child Welfare Services Program was restructured.⁴³ In the 11 years since that time, the cost of placing children out of their homes has increased more than $800 million, or approximately 535 percent.

It is important to recognize that the cost figures discussed above represent only the costs directly associated with placing children out of their homes and in facilities such as foster family homes, group homes and special homes for seriously emotionally disturbed children; these costs primarily are made up of basic caseload costs and grants to maintain the children in the homes. The other portion of the Child Welfare Services Program -- counties' provision of child welfare services -- are not included, but have increased as well. In fact, child welfare services costs have increased from nearly $392 million in fiscal year 1988-89 to a budgeted $512 million in fiscal year 1992-93, an increase of about $120 million (30.6 percent).⁴⁴ The substantial growth rate of child welfare services costs is magnified when one considers that such costs have nearly quadrupled since fiscal year 1981-82.⁴⁵

In projecting caseload and placement costs to the future, the 1990 study, "10 Reasons to Invest in the Families of California," concluded that, "[i]n the absence of an investment in strategies which keep families safely together and prevent the need for out-of-home care, by 1994 California's foster care caseload will grow to 90,000 children and costs will double to $1. 8 billion."

The 1990 study, "10 Reasons to Invest in the Families of California," revealed that children entering foster care in January 1988 left care more slowly than children entering in January 1985. For each 100 children entering foster care, 40 of the children entering in 1988 were still in care 18 months later, as compared to 28 of the children who entered in 1985. Over the three-year period, there was a 42.9 percent increase in the proportion of children who remained in foster care at the end of 18 months.⁴⁹

More recent statistics also indicate an increase in the length of stay for children in foster care. A review of the children who have left the foster care system revealed that the percentage of children in foster care 18 months or longer increased between fiscal years 1988-89 and 1991-92. Table 1 shows the length of stay for children exiting the foster care system.

In further reviewing the data, it was also revealed that an estimated 13.4 percent of the children leaving foster care during fiscal year 1991-92 will have been in the system longer than three years, compared to only 10.8 percent of the children who left during fiscal year 1988-89.⁵¹

Another indication that children are not being returned to their natural homes comes from the caseload statistics for the Permanent Placement component of the Child Welfare Services Program. State law requires county social service agencies to find permanent alternative homes (through adoption, guardianship or permanent foster care) for children who cannot return to their parents after 18 months of reunification efforts. Thus, an increase in the Permanent Placement caseload would be the result of a growing proportion of children who remain in foster care at the end of 18 months. In fact, between fiscal years 1985-86 and 1989-90 there was a sharp increase in the number of children needing alternative homes; Permanent Placement caseloads increased approximately 148 percent during the period (from 14,300 cases to 35,400 cases).⁵² That upward trend has continued, as the estimated caseload for the Permanent Placement program in fiscal year 1991-92 is 41,756, which represents an increase of 18 percent.⁵³

Unfortunately, the number of adoptive placements grew only at a slightly higher rate (19.5 percent) between fiscal years 1988-89 to 1991-92 (from 3113 placements to 3721 placements). Thus, very large numbers of children continue to languish in foster care, uncertain about their future.

In contrast to the increase in the Permanent Placement caseload, there has been a decrease in the caseload for the Family Maintenance program, which has the primary goal of allowing children to remain with their families under safe conditions (thereby eliminating unnecessary placement in foster care). Between fiscal years 1985-86 and 1989-90, the Family Maintenance caseload declined from 31,600 to 29,800 (a 5.7 percent decrease).⁵⁴ The caseload continues to decline; in fiscal year 1991-92, the Family Maintenance program will serve an estimated 27,036 (which represents an additional drop of 9.3 percent).⁵⁵

The following statement in the report, "10 Reasons to Invest in the Families of California," is as applicable today as it was in 1990:

For example, a recent nationwide study of runaway youths has found that more than a third of the youths had been in foster care in the year before they took to the streets. In California, the percentage was even higher, topping the nation with 45 percent of the youths saying they had been in foster care in the preceding 12 months. This situation should be viewed as gravely serious given that runaways who become street kids are subject to a wide variety of medical problems and health-compromising behaviors, including suicide, depression, prostitution and substance abuse.⁵⁷

In addition, a recent study of foster care graduates in California shows that many are poorly educated and cannot afford adequate housing. They suffer from chronic illnesses and drug and alcohol abuse, and are more likely to run afoul of the law. Other studies confirm that disproportionate numbers of children who stumble through foster care tend to end up on the streets or in prison.⁵⁸

Think of this as a very big steamship that was steaming [one] way and we are now trying to have it turn around and go [another] way. . . . We're changing a system that functioned one way; it was a `child-rescuing' system. It took the children out of [one] famil[y], put them in another family, and moved on to the next crisis. . . . We're now asking staff to look at the biological family and put the same level of energy and resources into the biological family. But we have to move the resources to the front-end of the system, and that's going to take some significant time.⁵⁹

As a consequence of relying on the traditional system of foster care, funding has not been primarily targeted at family preservation. One perspective on this occurrence is presented in a 1991 report by the National Commission on Family Foster Care:

Funding patterns reflect our country's historical preference for crisis intervention and out-of-home care, as state studies document that six to ten times as much money is allocated for out-of-home care placements as for child abuse and neglect prevention. On the federal level, funding for preventive services for families at risk of separation decreased (when adjusted for inflation) in the 1980s.⁶⁰

The same can be said of funding patterns in California. For example, in fiscal year 1988-89, the State spent nearly $10 on out-of-home placement and related casework costs for every $1 spent on services to keep children and their families together.⁶¹ With the advent of family preservation programs in additional counties, more funds are being directed to keeping children in their homes; but, as shown earlier, funding of out-of-home placements continue to increase at startling rates.

Figure 4

As exhibited in Figure 4, the cost of out-of-home placement in group homes has escalated from $323,141 in fiscal year 1988-89 to a budgeted $522,685 in fiscal year 1992-93, an increase of $199,544 (61.8 percent).⁶² (The decrease in costs in fiscal year 1991-92 is due to a freeze in group home rates. )

During this same period, the cost of placing children in foster family homes rose only $128,926 (from $220,649 to $349,575), a 58.4 percent increase.⁶³ However, the cost of group homes represents nearly 60 percent of basic caseload and grants costs for all out-of-home placements. Therefore, the increase in the cost of group homes is a major factor in the increase in the cost of placements.⁶⁴

Another way to view the high cost of group homes is to compare it against the cost of other types of out-of-home placements. On the next page, Figure 5 shows such a comparison in terms of the annual cost per child residing in out-of-home placement.

Concern over the high cost of group homes is not to say that group homes do not have a position in the continuum of placement facilities available to counties. In fact, group homes really are the only logical choice for some children and youths that require higher levels of care. For example, the Commission received testimony from one county's chief probation officer who stated, "In Alameda County, few of the minors referred to us are able to tolerate the closeness of a normal family setting and because of the severity of their delinquency, few can be maintained in a minimally structured, community setting."⁶⁷

The chief probation officer went on to point out:

 

The State's resources for serving delinquent children have been directed to the most expensive types of care -- out-of-home placement in group homes and the California Youth Authority.

Between 1985 and 1989, out-of-home placement of court wards increased 11% in group homes, 15 percent in California Youth Authority institutions and 9 percent in county camps. While these three out-of-home care settings had comparable monthly costs in 1985, by 1989 this picture had changed substantially:

 

• California Youth Authority monthly cost per child increased 15 percent despite the fact that increased overcrowding at Youth Authority institutions offset cost increases. In 1989, total California Youth Authority placement costs for children under the age of 18 was $59 million.

   

• The average monthly group home placement cost increased over 43 percent. In 1989, total placement costs for court wards in group homes was $140 million.

   

• County camps, which are funded entirely by county funds showed less than a 2 percent increase in monthly costs per child. Total county camp expenditures in 1989 amounted to $76 million.

Now, let me give you a case in point of how the continual erosion of probation dollars is costing the taxpayer more in the long run. I just told you that county camps are funded entirely by county funds. We all know counties have been hurting since 1978 when Proposition 13 passed. So it shouldn't surprise many that from 1985 to 1989, monthly costs per child only rose 2 percent. As a result, group homes in 1989 cost 50 percent more per month than camps.

Now, can you guess what I had to do three months ago because of reductions in my budget?I had to close a less-costly 94-bed camp so that now, in order to meet out-of-home placement needs, I must use a more-costly group home or California Youth Authority.

Prior to committing a youth to the California Youth Authority, the juvenile court is required by law to exhaust less restrictive treatment options. If state law makes this demand, shouldn't the State be doing more to promote alternatives to group home and California Youth Authority placements for court wards?⁶⁸

Further, 64 percent of the workers surveyed cited a need for additional services in the Emergency Response, Family Maintenance, or Family Reunification Programs. Workers in all three programs believed that additional services were needed most in the areas of in-home services, mental health counseling, parenting classes, and substance abuse treatment and counseling.⁷⁰ Obviously, if some of these additional services were provided, the need for out-of-home placement could be mitigated.

The data regarding the supply of services support the social workers' perceptions that there is an overall lack of services available to families served by the Child Welfare Services Program. For example, the Legislative Analyst reported that of the $439 million counties spent on child welfare services in fiscal year 1989-90, $392 million was used for staff and overhead costs, and $46 million was used for "direct costs."⁷¹ On average, the counties spent $289 monthly for each child welfare services case in 1989-90. On the following page, Figure 6 shows a breakdown of the average monthly costs per child.

Figure 6

As shown in Figure 6, only $11 (3.9 percent) of the $289 in average monthly costs per child supported the purchase of treatment and support services.⁷² The majority of the money is spent on staff salary and overhead costs.

In the absence of services being rendered through external providers, the social workers themselves provide some of the services, usually through their case management activities and face-to-face contacts with families. These contacts alone, however, probably are not sufficient to ensure the effective provision of services. First, the contacts are too infrequent. Most workers indicate that they make face-to-face contact with families at about the minimum frequency allowed by law: emergency response workers about once every two weeks, and family maintenance workers about once every 25 days.

A second reason why face-to-face contacts are not sufficient for effectively providing services is that the primary purpose of the contacts is to accomplish tasks such as ensuring that the child is safe, making referrals to treatment and support services providers, and assisting the parent(s) in understanding court orders. Once these types of case management tasks are completed, there is not sufficient time remaining for the social worker to effectively provide treatment services to the child or the family.⁷³

The report also indicated that the State's foster care grants to group homes do not reflect the total cost of services to all children in group homes. It stated that county mental health departments report that approximately seven percent of the children in group homes received a supplemental payment, a "treatment patch," for mental health services in 1989 and approximately 10 percent of all children in out-of-home care received services by a local mental health department.⁷⁵

Another possible source of improvements in the foster care system is the state-county "realignment" package of bills enacted as part of the 1991-92 budget. In addition to the revenue enhancing features of realignment already outlined in the introduction section of this report, specific realignment provisions relating to social services include:

• increasing the county share of non-federal costs of foster care from 5 percent to 60 percent.

   

• increasing the county share of non-federal costs of the Child Welfare Services Program to 30 percent; previously, the county share was fixed at 1982-83 levels plus specified cost-of-living adjustments.

   

• authorizing the counties to supplement, at county expense, the rates paid to foster parents and foster family agencies within the county, as well as supplements for specialized care, clothing allowances, and infant supplements.

   

• expanding the family preservation program to allow all counties, upon approval of the State Department of Social Services, to operate family preservation programs.

   

• until January 1, 1997, requiring specified data to be reported annually by the Health and Welfare Agency and the Youth and Correctional Agency; the data are intended to monitor counties' maintenance of effort in child welfare, mental health and probation programs, and to avoid inappropriate reliance on institutional care.

   

• requiring the California Youth Authority to convene a task force to identify ways to better coordinate the continuum of services for youthful offenders, including innovative local alternatives to placement in the Youth Authority.

   

• Requires counties that reduce the capacity of their county juvenile homes, ranches or camps in 1991-92 to pay the State for the cost of increased Youth Authority commitments over the current fiscal year.⁷⁶

Clearly, the intent of these provisions revolves around providing counties the opportunity to invest in family preservation programs as alternatives to foster care. They also encourage placing children in foster care only because the children specifically need out-of-home placement to address their particular situation and assure their protection-- not because other more appropriate placement prevention services do not exist.

Whether realignment will have its intended effect, however, is subject to conjecture. The Commission received information from numerous witnesses and interviewees who speculated as to the possible effects of realignment. Some indicated that realignment will, in fact, offer more flexibility to counties and will encourage more investment in family preservation services because of the increase in the counties' share of costs; others suggested that realignment will do nothing to truly reform the system and, instead, will continue to perpetuate existing problems. All, however, agreed that it was too early to tell exactly what the final effects of realignment will be.

Despite this logic, historically there has been an assumption that foster parents do not require special skills. Only in recent years has there been a gradual shift in what is expected of foster parents; foster parents have evolved from merely being a substitute parent to playing a major role in the treatment support of very troubled children and youths and for supporting the goals of permanency planning.

Since the passage of Chapter 978 (SB 14, Presley) in 1982, the population of children who remain in foster care has changed dramatically. Children who are the most severely abused or neglected -- thus, those who exhibit the most serious physical, emotional, psychological and/or developmental damage -- are the children least likely to be candidates for family reunification or to be adopted. Instead, these are the children most likely to become permanent foster care or group home placements.

Moreover, the demands placed on foster parents have escalated given that the types of children entering the foster care system today are more "damaged" than children who have entered the system in the past. The Commission received substantial testimony at both of its public hearings asserting the deterioration of the emotional, behavioral, developmental, physical and psychological condition of children and youths entering foster care. For example, an assistant general manager at the San Francisco Department of Social Services attested, "The challenges facing foster parents have changed dramatically in the 18 years I have been a child welfare professional. Due to a variety of systemic ills such as unemployment, substance abuse and the lack of affordable housing, children are coming to foster care in record numbers with increasingly severe problems.⁷⁷ "This conviction was echoed by a deputy director at the State Department of Social Services who stated:

The characteristics of children in foster care have changed in recent years and the population now consists of more severely disturbed children, including drug-addicted, drug-exposed and HIV-infected children and children with AIDS. The majority of these youth require some degree of specialized care and the role of the foster parent has changed from one of providing a normal family environment and basic board and care for a child to one which requires specialized skills and training.⁷⁸

In addition, many of the documents reviewed during the course of this study's fieldwork commented on the increasing instability of those entering the foster care system. Consider the declaration of the National Commission on Family Foster Care:

The State's statistics on the reasons for removing children from their homes corroborate the concern that substance abuse has become an increasing problem. Endangerment resulting from parental neglect, incapacity or absence are the principal findings used by the juvenile court to place children in foster care when a parent with a drug problem cannot provide appropriate care and supervision.⁸² For the foster children supervised by county welfare departments, (rather than county probation departments, which would not be reflective of substance abuse problems with families), these types of endangerment also are the primary reasons the children have been removed from their homes. Below, Figure 7 provides a comparison of the numbers of welfare department-supervised children, by specific reason for removal, for the fiscal years 1984-84, 1988-89 and 1991-92.

In addition to the increases in absolute numbers, the proportion of these children has been growing in the foster care system. Consider that in fiscal year 1984-85, children (supervised by county welfare departments) who were in foster care because of endangerment due to parental neglect, incapacity or absence constituted 60 percent of all children in foster care; by fiscal year 1988-89 that percentage increased to 70 percent. And for fiscal year 1991-92, those children will have accounted for an estimated 72.7 percent of all welfare department-supervised children in foster care.⁸⁴

As further evidence of the growing problem of drug-exposed babies, the advocacy group Children Now reported in 1991 that experts estimate that between 72,000 and 85,000 babies are born exposed to drugs or alcohol in California-- between 13 percent and 15 percent of babies born each year. The report adds that public hospitals in Los Angeles, Oakland and San Francisco report between 10 percent and 25 percent of births show positive urine toxicology screens for illicit substances, and that survey information from throughout the State shows that the problem is increasing.⁸⁸ At the Commission's January hearing, the director of Los Angeles County's Department of Children's Services confirmed this report, stating, "We have indications that 10 percent of the babies born in Los Angeles are drug-addicted."⁸⁹

But drug-exposed babies are only one part of the new wave of problem-plagued children and youths entering the foster care system. Consider the following case examples of recent removals that are unlikely to have occurred 20 years ago:

Caring for other people's children is only one part of the foster parent's role and function. Foster parents are expected to be able to work with agency staff, the courts, and various human service professionals, including doctors, school guidance counselors, probation officers and family therapists. Further, they often have an active role in reunifying birth families, smoothing children's transitions to adoptive homes, and preparing adolescents to live independently. They can often be expected to act as counselor, physical therapist, medical technician, tutor, and taxi driver -- all in the same day.⁹³

Obviously, the types of skills and knowledge required of foster parents are not inborn; nor are they likely to be attained based on "regular" parenting experience. Rather, the specialized skills needed to deal with the troubled foster children of today can only be acquired through training.

The types of training needed by foster parents begins with basic information on the goals and activities of foster care services and the rules, regulations, policies and expectations of the county agency supervising the foster children. Other prerequisites that are basic to effective foster parenting include: understanding of human behavior; familiarity with normal and exceptional child development; and practical parenting and behavior management skills.⁹⁴ Further, the training may be "pre-service," (before the licensure of a foster parent), or "in-service," usually on an annual basis.

In testimony delivered at the Commission's January hearing, one foster parent told of how she had been invited to take training and how, once she received the training, she could not understand why she had not been required to take it. She further spoke of some of the issues covered in her training in which she had no previous education and which she felt should have to be addressed as prerequisites to becoming a foster parent, such as: abandonment, loss and grief on the part of the foster child; discipline; and birth parents and reunification.⁹⁵

The director of the Los Angeles County Department of Children's Services went one step further: He not only recommended that training be required as a prerequisite to the licensure of foster parents, he suggested that there be psychological testing for potential foster parents prior to licensure so as to identify foster parents particularly vulnerable to the stresses of foster parenting.⁹⁶

At both of the Commission's public hearings, every witness who testified regarding training for foster parents indicated that more training was necessary. Included in this group was the president of the California State Foster Parent Association, who stated:

In the same survey, California was not among either the 14 states that reported providing mandatory in-service training for foster parents, or the 12 states that reported providing voluntary training.⁹⁹

Instead of statewide training in California, training may be required at the county level. A total of 38 counties require pre-service training prior to licensure, and 28 of those counties also require in-service training as a condition of continued licensure. Twenty counties, including Los Angeles, do not require foster parent training of any kind. Table 3 shows the amount of hours required by counties in both pre-service and in-service training.

To put the amount of county-required training into statewide perspective:

• Only 10.3 percent (6 of 58) require more than 12 hours of pre-service training as a prerequisite to being licensed as a foster parent;

   

• Only 20.7 percent (12 of 58) require more than 12 hours of in-service training as a condition of continued licensure as a foster parent; and
• 34.5 percent (20 of 58) of all counties do not require foster parent training of any kind.

To give an idea as to how much training should be required, the coordinator for foster parent training at one California community college recommended that foster parents receive 30 hours of pre-service training and 30 hours of in-service training annually.¹⁰⁰

Thus, based on the lack of statewide training mandates and the relatively few hours of training, if any, required by the vast majority of counties, it is fair to say that foster parent training has not received a high priority in California. This conclusion is drawn despite the obvious need for such training.

Instead, as some children's advocates say, "the state pays too much attention to the physical conditions of the homes, and not enough on whether the parents are emotionally capable of raising children who often have psychological problems."¹⁰² "They are not looking at what the foster parents know and what kind of people they are," said the executive director of the Association of Children's Services Agencies. "They look at, `Do we have an extra bed?' and that kind of thing."¹⁰³

Among the services needed are support and consultation from skilled social workers, respite care, day care, and immediate response to crisis situations.¹⁰⁵ In addition, foster parents who provide treatment or specialized foster care need weekly and sometimes daily consultation with qualified social work staff, professional development, and partnership in problem-solving and evaluation as part of an interdisciplinary team.¹⁰⁶ Further, because of the stress involved with the job, support groups are needed for all foster parents.

Unfortunately, according to a number of the witnesses that testified at the Commission's public hearings, such necessary support is not routinely available to foster parents. And, as is often the case regarding other aspects of the foster care system, limited resources and overburdened social workers are cited as the cause.

The lack of adequate support services is particularly evident when relatives are used as foster parents. And the use of relatives as foster parents is not an infrequent occurrence. When out-of-home placement of a child is required because of abuse or neglect, state law directs that the first priority for placement shall be with a relative of the child, so long as such placement is in the best interests of the child.¹⁰⁷

Not surprisingly, after the enactment of the law, placements with relatives increased dramatically. The 1990 study, "10 Reasons to Invest in the Families of California," states that "[a] comparison of the location of placements in 1985 and 1989 indicates that county social service agencies are substantially pursuing this policy goal. While total out-of-home placements increased 81.4 percent during this time period, placements in the home of a relative/guardian increased over 200 percent."¹⁰⁸

Recent data indicate that county welfare departments continue to make placement with a relative the first priority. On the following page, Figure 8 displays the types of placements made by county welfare departments during calendar year 1991.

Figure 8

As Figure 8 illustrates, 43.2 percent of the placements made by county welfare departments during calendar year 1991 were with relatives of the children being placed.¹⁰⁹ Relative placements represent an increasing proportion of all placements when compared to: fiscal year 1984-85, when placements with relatives constituted only 27.1 percent of all placements;¹¹⁰ and fiscal year 1988-89, when such placements made up 39.9 percent of all placements.

Maintaining the ties of children with their families through placement in a relative's home should be pursued as part of a broader effort to promote extended-family preservation. Like non-related foster parents, extended families that care for related children play an important role in the family reunification effort and they need training and agency support services to assist them with that role.¹¹¹ But training and support services are even more scarce when it comes to relative foster parents. Often, the limited services that are extended to non-relative foster parents are not available at all to relative foster parents.

Such costs, however, pale by comparison to the consequences of ill-trained or untrained foster parents. As the director of Los Angeles County's Department of Children's Services said, "You start to project that [training cost] to a statewide basis and it is pretty significant. But on the other side of the coin, taking risks with children is intolerable and if this can minimize the risk, I think it is well worth it."¹¹³

Also, the costs of such an endeavor could be mitigated, in large part, by taking maximum advantage of federal funds that are available for training foster parents. Title IV-E of the federal Social Security Act is a program that provides federal cost-sharing for, among other things, training and administrative costs associated with managing child welfare activities. By participating in the program, counties can get federal matching funds to cover 75 percent of their training costs. For example, the Los Angeles County Department of Children's Services uses Title IV-E matching funds to contract with a consortium of three universities' Schools of Social Work to provide core and enrichment training programs for the department's social workers.¹¹⁴

There is concern, however, that not all counties are making full use of this opportunity. Further, it is not clear to what extent the State has provided counties the direction to take maximum advantage of federal funding. In fact, the California Legislature recently passed legislation (AB 840, Hannigan) that, among other things, would have required the State Department of Social Services to seek the maximum federal reimbursement possible for services provided under the AFDC foster care program and Child Welfare Services Program, and required the Health and Welfare Agency to explore ways to maximize federal funding for these programs. The Governor, however, vetoed the bill, stating in his veto message: "Because of the well-recognized fiscal exigencies, the [Health and Welfare] Agency and its departments are already aggressively maximizing federal financial participation for all federal programs. Allocating staff to research, study, and make recommendations to the Legislature would only redirect resources from other important program priorities."

Another concern contributing to counties' unwillingness to require more training is that fewer people will want to become foster parents. Additional requirements could be perceived as more burdensome "red tape," a disincentive to potential foster parents. Addressing this concern at the Commission's January hearing, the president of the California State Foster Parent Association indicated that the concern is unwarranted and that the benefits outweigh the costs, stating:

We have found in Sacramento County, that when we first instituted the requirement for in-service training, many foster parents gave up their license. However, not long afterward, we saw an increase in the numbers of people interested in fostering and have watched a steady increase [in] licensing and retention of foster parents in the county.¹¹⁵

A downside to mandating a substantial number of hours of pre-service training was experienced in one county. San Francisco previously required 30 hours of pre-service training as a prerequisite to licensure. At one point, however, the county also was implementing a major effort to recruit more ethnic minority foster parents. What the city and county found was that the length of time it took to train the prospective foster parents "logjammed" the process of making more foster parents available to take placements. To remedy the situation, San Francisco reduced its pre-service training requirement to 20 hours.

Regardless of the cause for inadequate training and support services for foster parents, the need for the training and services is so great that the consequences of "doing without" are enormous.

But it is the effect on foster children that is of even greater concern. At a minimum, the children and youths are not getting the appropriate guidance needed to overcome the circumstances that landed them in foster care. In the most severe cases, the stress felt by foster parents who cannot handle troubled children results in the parents' taking out their frustrations on the children. This was the apparent reason for the following tragedies:

• In a recent case in Los Angeles, a woman was arrested for the beating death of her 23-month-old foster son. Allegedly, the trouble occurred because of problems with toilet-training the boy.¹¹⁷

   

• In another recent case in Los Angeles, a woman was charged with the attempted murder of her 19-month-old foster daughter after a two-month investigation that began when the woman called paramedics to her home to report that her foster daughter was experiencing convulsions. The woman told the paramedics that the toddler had fallen from a jungle gym an hour earlier. After performing emergency surgery on the girl to relieve pressure on her brain, the doctors called sheriff deputies because they believed the injuries "were not consistent with those reported by the foster mother."The girl sustained severe head injuries that could result in blindness and other medical problems.

  At the time of the incident, four other foster children -- all under the age of 2 -- were under the woman's care.¹¹⁸

   

• A Sacramento woman who was injured in a car accident and could no longer care for her daughter voluntarily put the child in foster care. During one of the girl's frequent temper tantrums, an employee at the facility in which the girl was placed wrapped the girl in a blanket like a mummy and squatted on her until she was subdued. Later that evening, the employee discovered that the girl was not breathing.

  "No parent should have to go through what I've been through. I've never abused my children, and never have and never will," the girl's mother said."All I was doing was seeking help, and it cost me my child's life."

  Since then, the State has taken action to prevent the facility from caring for children ever again.¹¹⁹

In testimony at the Commission's January public hearing, the vice president of the Los Angeles County Foster Parents Association stated that abuse occurs in foster homes where parents are not trained and do not know how to deal with the foster children's issues.¹²⁰

As a result of not screening prospective foster parents, there is a greater likelihood that unqualified individuals will be caring for abused and neglected children. Consider the tale related by a former foster youth, who, at the age of 14, was forced by his foster father at gunpoint to have sex with his foster mother. The foster father beat him and other children in the home; the foster mother punished bad behavior by dipping the wrongdoer's fingertips in scalding water."They need to screen places a lot better," said the former foster youth, who now lives in a downtown residential hotel.¹²¹

Some would argue that such horror stories occur in only a minority of cases which command significant publicity. In fact, a State Department of Social Services official testified at the Commission's November public hearing that problems occur only in an estimated 10 percent of the State-licensed facilities in California and speculated that a similar percentage of foster family homes have problems.¹²² Even if 10 percent strikes some as being rather low, the lives and well-being of the children and youths in those "problem homes" dictate that any percentage greater than zero is far too material to be ignored.

As a point of interest, California's reimbursement rates, as inadequate as they may be, compare favorably with the national average. In 1989, the national average monthly foster care reimbursement rate was only $268 for children at or near age two; $292 for children at or near age nine; and $338 for youths at or near age 16.¹²⁵ Until 1990, comparable rates in California for the same ages were $294, $340 and $412, respectively.¹²⁶

The inadequacy of the reimbursement rates becomes even more acute in regard to foster parents who are relativesof the foster children under their care. As indicated earlier, placement with relatives is increasing in accordance with state law. These foster parents, however, may receive basic rate reimbursement only to the extent that the children are eligible for federal Aid to Families with Dependent Children -Foster Care (AFDC-FC, which is a program that provides money for needy children in foster care). Otherwise, as is usually the case, the relative foster parents may receive only a lesser state AFDC-Family Group (AFDC-FG) payment.

The issue of discrimination against foster parents who are relatives is a national one. Pending federal legislation, if enacted, would make all foster children federally eligible. Until such a measure passes, relative foster parents are receiving substantially less than their non-relative counterparts. Forexample, in a state that pays a foster care rate of $371 per month for a child under five, the monthly AFDC rate for that same child is $109. In a year, a non-relative providing care or one who adopts with a subsidy can receive $4,737; a mother on AFDC or a relative care giver with a guardianship arrangement for that same child would receive only $1,308 to help in raising the child.¹²⁷

Under a plan envisioned by the California Senate Office of Research in 1990, however, the State could actually save money by increasing the reimbursement rates. The Senate Office of Research recommended establishing a new category of "professional foster parent" that would include the following aspects:

• Provision of specialized care for high-risk infants and young children, particularly those likely to remain in long-term foster placement;

   

• Provision of care to children who otherwise would be placed in group homes;

   

• Provision for placement of two or possibly three children in a home;

   

• Requirements that foster parents possess appropriate education, especially in child development or nursing; and

   

• Payments of $2,000 or more per month per child.¹²⁹

The goals of such an approach are several: to place the youngest dependent children in homes instead of institutions, to develop a cadre of foster parents with expertise in raising infants at risk of developmental disabilities or health problems, and to focus government's resources on improving the qualities of the care giver rather than maintaining organizational structure of the agency.¹³⁰

Now consider that there are increasing numbers of infants and young children at high risk of disabling health problems, and that, because there is a general shortage of foster parents to care for these children, group homes have been used more frequently. In calendar year 1985, 274 children under the age of four were placed in group homes; in calendar year 1991, that figure soared to 1,156 -- an increase of nearly 322 percent.

With group home rates averaging more than $2,700 per month for these infants and young children -- with some as high as $5,013 per month -- if even one-third were placed with professional foster parents, California will have taken a step forward in care and in cost savings.¹³¹

San Francisco has a model program based on the criteria of the professional foster parent. The city and county licenses "therapeutic foster homes" in which severely emotionally disturbed children reside and the foster parents, who have experience and education in child development, are paid up to $2,059 per month more than the base rate for regular foster parents.¹³²

Current law expresses legislative intent to increase General Fund support for such specialized family homes by five percent in the current fiscal year. Specifically, Chapter 1294/89 states the funds should be used to:

• increase foster family home grants to foster parents who care for children with special needs;

   

• recruit and train foster parents to care for the children; and

   

• develop county programs to encourage the placement of the children in foster family homes.

The Department of Social Services estimates that it would cost $12. 7 million from the General Fund to support these activities in 1991-92. To the extent that these activities are effective at increasing the number of children placed in foster family homes, rather than in more expensive group homes, these activities could have resulted in net savings to the foster care program in 1991-92. The Governor's budget, however, did not include funding for these programs.¹³³

Another concept to consider as an alternative to the present system is one of changing the role of county welfare departments to be more like a foster family agency -- to be responsible for recruiting, certifying (licensing), training, and providing professional support to foster parents. This role should not be unfamiliar to the welfare departments since it was their role before they gave up those responsibilities to foster family agencies. The counties relinquished that role in an effort to fill a void in service delivery; the counties were having difficulty finding a sufficient number of foster family homes that would take children and youth difficult to care for because the counties were not providing sufficient support services, yet to place those children and youth in group homes was prohibitively expensive.

Under this approach, counties would receive the rates now paid to foster family agencies, which are several times the statewide basic foster care rates. The counties should be able to fulfill the above-mentioned responsibilities efficiently because they already have an administrative structure in place. Such efficiencies should allow a higher payment to the foster homes, and the higher payments would attract the educated, qualified foster parents needed.

Others, such as the director of the Los Angeles County Department of Children's Services, dismiss this notion, believing, "If you want good quality foster parents, you have to pay them accordingly."136 Further, one school of thought suggests that increasing reimbursement rates would increase both the quality and the availability of foster parents by attracting qualified persons who might not otherwise be able to afford being foster parents. For example, such an increase would be attractive to educated, middle-income persons who feel a social responsibility to foster children but who cannot afford day care for the children while they work. Such a potential pool of foster parents, in which both parents work, should not be taken lightly. In 1990, 58 percent of mothers with children under age six were working or looking for work outside their homes. Further, 74 percent of women whose youngest child was between the ages of 6 and 13 were working or looking for paid work.¹³⁷

As it is, however, the rate of reimbursement for foster parents can hardly be considered an attraction at all -- in fact, it is a disincentive. As indicated earlier, a paltry $345 per month is not enough to cover basic costs; it does not even begin to cover child care expenses, which can amount to $350 per month. Foster parents historically have subsidized the child welfare system through their volunteer time and out-of-pocket expenses for child care. The increasingly difficult role of the foster parent may no longer be attractive to and appropriate for the volunteer.¹³⁸ In fact, numerous witnesses testifying at the Commission's public hearings decried the current rates of reimbursement.

In a 1991 report, the National Commission on Family Foster Care states:

Given the current and projected economy and workforce picture, foster parent recruitment and retention will continue to be adversely affected until foster parents are recognized and compensated for the services they provide, whether those services are general or more specialized. Agencies and communities must assist and support foster parents as they fulfill their enormous challenges, for the value of family living is compelling. Without attention to this issue, children and youths are at risk for inappropriate and multiple placements, insufficient care, more rejection, and further harm.¹³⁹

The lack of adequate reimbursement negatively affects foster parents' self-esteem and fails to afford them appropriate standing in the hierarchy of skilled jobs. It is a contradiction to entrust such lowly compensated individuals with the noble and critically important responsibility of parenting abused and neglected children. It is little wonder that high attrition rates have made recruitment of new homes a constant priority for supervising county agencies and foster family agencies alike.

With full consideration for the proximity of the natural parents to the placement so as to facilitate visitation and family reunification, whenever a child is being considered for placement in foster care, the following order of placement preference regarding racial or ethnic background shall be used, except where application of these priorities would not be in the best interests of the child:

 

1. . . . in the home of a relative. . .

    

2. . . . with a foster parent with the same racial or ethnic identification as the child. . .

    

3. . . . with a family of a different racial background or ethnic identification where there is evidence of sensitivity to the child's race, ethnicity, and culture. The child's religious background shall also be considered....¹⁴⁰

In only a few exceptional circumstances -- such as a request by the child's parent or parents, the extraordinary physical or emotional needs of the child, or the unavailability of suitable parents after a diligent search has been completed for families meeting the preference criteria -- can a child be placed in a setting not in accordance with the above preference criteria.¹⁴¹

The law's intent is clear: to the extent possible, transracial foster care placements must be minimized. The importance of raising children in an environment that is sensitive to their cultural needs is paramount.

Figure 9

As Figure 9 shows, ethnic minorities represent 65.1 percent of all children in foster care. The proportion of all foster children made up by ethnic minorities has been increasing, as can be seen in Figure 10, which shows such proportions for fiscal years 1988-89 through 1991-92.

Figure 10

As Figure 10 illustrates, the percentage of all children in out-of-home care that is composed of ethnic minorities has steadily increased. In fiscal year 1988-89, ethnic minority children represented 60.5 percent of all foster care children; this figure jumps to an estimated 65.1 percent for fiscal year 1991-92.¹⁴²

The mere fact that ethnic minorities constitute a majority of foster care children points to the disproportionate representation of these ethnic groups in the population of abused and neglected children. On the following page, Figure 11 compares the percentage of foster care children who are ethnic minorities with the percentage of the general population of California's children who are ethnic minorities.

Figure 11

As can be seen in Figure 11, perhaps the most glaring disproportionate representation exists with African-American children, who, while constituting only 6.3 percent of the State's population of children, make up 40.1 percent of all children placed out of their homes.¹⁴³

What makes this situation even more compelling is the apparent paucity of African-American foster family homes and group homes licensed in California. Although statistics on the ethnicity of licensed homes are scarce, the Commission received adequate anecdotal evidence to verify that there is not a sufficient number of available ethnic minority homes. Further, statistics relating to ethnicity of group home employees who work day-to-day with foster children corroborate the presumption that "culturally competent" placement settings are sparse. For example, a study conducted by the University of California, Berkeley indicated that the ratio of ethnic minority child care workers and social workers to foster children in group homes is lower for ethnic minorities than for whites.¹⁴⁴ Thus, despite the intent of the law, there are many ethnic minority children being placed in homes that are not racially or ethnically compatible with the children.

A consultant with the National Association of Black Social Workers echoed this concern, saying his association is receiving complaints that many California counties are making no effort to place children with families of their own race. "Black folks have a tradition of caring for their young. Most agencies have not made an effort to find them," he stated.¹⁴⁶

For the State's part, however, the Department of Social Services did acknowledge the problem of a shortage of ethnic minority foster parents and attempted to address it by creating a Minority Home Recruitment Program. Until the Department recently eliminated state-level staff for the program, its features included:

• a contracted public relations program aimed at African-Americans and Hispanics;

   

• television programs (such as "California's Waiting Children");

   

• recruitment efforts at fairs, conventions and similar gatherings statewide;

   

• a speakers bureau that trains community groups to make recruitment efforts;

   

• an adoption exchange;

   

• a toll-free telephone number to refer prospective parents to local agencies; and

   

• seed money for the start-up of two minority adoptive agencies in the Los Angeles area and the rejuvenation of another in San Francisco's East Bay Area.

Although the state-level staff have been eliminated, the "California's Waiting Children" television program and the Minority Adoption Exchange will continue with $574,000 in state funds to be used at the local level.¹⁴⁷

County activities include local public relations programs, speakers bureaus, recruiting at community events and through community organizations such as churches, Parent/Teacher Associations and civic groups, and highly publicized fairs that attract prospective foster and adoptive parents.¹⁴⁸

Still, one line of reasoning suggests that more recruitment is possible. Given that the population of African-Americans aged 18 years or greater numbers more than 1. 5 million in California,¹⁴⁹ it would appear that there exists a large, mostly untapped pool of prospective foster parents. As with the population of any ethnicity, not each of the 1. 5 million can be considered a prospective parent; but certainly a sufficient number might be available to provide homes for that portion of the population of African-American foster children in need of "culturally competent" placement.

Without greater recruitment efforts, it is clear that many ethnic minority children will continue to grow up in an environment that does little to preserve their cultural identity. Also, it is critical to note that the importance of "culturally competent" placement applies to all ethnic minority children, not only to African-American children as exemplified in this finding.

State officials are concerned, however, about reported complaints from across the State that the law's intent for preferential placement in families of the same race as the child are being interpreted too strictly by some social workers. Thechief of the Adoptions Branch in the State Department of Social Services said some workers so strongly oppose transracial placements that they are interpreting the law as prohibiting them. The chief's interpretation is that the law only strengthens race as one factor in the placement decision, and he said that an advisory letter will be sent to clarify that such placements are not prohibited.¹⁵⁰

Voicing additional concerns about the law are groups such as the National Coalition to End Racism in America's Child Care System, which fears that children are being denied homes because of the unavailability of homes of the same race. "Children do not deserve to be denied a family on the basis of race," the coalition's executive director said."How long do you want them to wait while they are traumatized by the very system that is supposed to come to their aid?"¹⁵¹

Similar laws nationwide have prompted much controversy and have resulted in custody battles, lawsuits and federal civil rights investigations, according to a Sacramento Bee newspaper article:

Michigan state officials found that black foster children languished in institutions because workers refused to place them until a black family could be found. Federal officials found the regulations biased against minority children.

Lawsuits have been filed in several states seeking damages after children have been hurt because they were put into dangerous situations after foster homes were chosen solely on race.¹⁵²

As with any law, legislative intent is important in the interpretation of the law. In its capacity as the statewide administrator of the Child Welfare Services Program, the State Department of Social Services carries the responsibility of ensuring that counties appropriately interpret the law regarding placement preference.

This placement pattern presents a unique problem, however, because, as presented in Finding #2, foster parents who care for relatives generally receive a smaller amount of reimbursement than do non-relative foster parents.

Legislative attempts to rectify the inequity of reimbursing relative foster parents have failed. The most recent attempt occurred in 1987 when AB 1221 (Areias) declared the legislative finding "that the current policy of disparate payments to relatives and nonrelatives is not in the best interests of the foster child." In general, the measure would have allowed relatives to receive the same benefits as non-relatives. AB 1221 was passed by the Legislature but vetoed by then-Governor George Deukmejian, who stated in his veto message that the current, lower reimbursement rates extended to relatives are "adequate to provide [the children's] basic needs and has served to mitigate financial problems of their relatives. Public funds available for foster care are limited and the higher benefits should be reserved to induce nonrelated persons to become foster parents."

Proponents of equal reimbursements decried the former Governor's veto. For example, in testimony submitted for the Commission's November hearing, an assistant general manager of the San Francisco Department of Social Services stated:

Repeated legislative efforts to stop this discriminatory practice have failed, ostensibly because of concerns about the cost of extending foster care payments to relative caretakers. But, we also believe there is something ugly at work here in the form of a belief that relatives should not expect financial assistance to care for their medically fragile, substance-exposed grandchildren. In fact, in his veto message to the bill extending foster care payments to relatives, former Governor Deukmejian said as much. He claimed that in times of scarce resources, the State would have to depend on family members' generosity towards these children and the knowledge that they would not be able to bring themselves to surrender the care of the children to strangers.

Just as the State is struggling financially, so are most California families. It is a cruel fantasy to believe that the average relative caretaker has the financial resources to meet the medical and emotional needs of children placed with them. Yes, the cost of extending foster care benefits to relatives is high; but the future costs of untreated medical, emotional, educational and developmental problems, while incalculable, are absolutely going to be higher.

It is important to realize that the inequitable rate structure affects not only the foster parent, but ultimately the foster children as well.

Among the specific responsibilities of the Department is the licensing of foster family homes and the investigation of complaints against foster parents, but the Department can contract with counties to perform these functions. In fact, as of December 16, 1991, the Department contracted with all but 12 of the 58 counties to perform the licensing functions.¹⁵³

Counties, in turn, are responsible for determining in which foster family homes children should be placed and for monitoring the children, such as through periodic visits.

In the vast majority of counties, however, it is the county welfare department that acts as both a placement agency and a licensing agency. A conflict of interest exists when, for example, a problem arises in a home that a county has come to rely on for the placement of children who are difficult to handle. On one hand, the county has the responsibility to fully investigate the problem in an unbiased manner and take action against the home, if warranted. On the other hand, the county has developed a relationship with the home that has benefitted the county. Such a relationship could impair the county's perspective as to the home's culpability and/or suitability for continued licensure in a situation that may be dangerous for the children who have been placed in the home.

Continuing with this scenario, if a problem did exist in the foster family home and the county did not take the appropriate action against the home, the State may not ever become aware of the problem. According to testimony given by the Department's chief counsel at the Commission's November hearing, the Department becomes aware of a problem in a home only if the county reports the problem to the Department.¹⁵⁴ Under the above scenario, it is highly unlikely that the county would report to the State a situation that the county inappropriately ignored or dismissed.

In one case, a 15-year-old girl had been voluntarily placed in a foster family home after her mother requested help from the county's welfare department. The mother had gone to the county because she and her daughter had experienced severe emotional problems as a result of the deaths of several close family members from cancer, and the sexual molestation of the girl by her stepfather. They both were grieving for their lost relatives and feeling stress while the stepfather was being prosecuted and a divorce was looming. When the daughter began acting out as a result of the molestation and other stress, the mother felt unable to handle her and asked the county to intervene.

The girl was placed in a home that took in emotionally troubled adolescent girls and remained there for three months. During that time, the mother and daughter claim, the girls in the home and the foster mother dressed in skimpy nightwear and posed for suggestive photographs, and the owners of the home frequently told explicit sexual jokes and made comments about their own and the girls' sex lives.

The home's owners subsequently were investigated by the county welfare department, sheriff's office and district attorney's office, but they were not prosecuted or disciplined. In addition, a county superior court judge held a hearing on the foster home and concluded that there had been no wrongdoing.

Since then, the mother and daughter have filed a $1. 8 million claim against the county and the owners of the home. Also, as a result of the information brought out in the Commission's public hearing, the State has launched an investigation into the matter. Further, the home's owners have relinquished their license.

In the second case presented at the Commission's November hearing, a father, mother and two daughters testified that the girls had been removed from their parents (and a younger brother) on allegations that the father had physically abused them. Although the girls eventually were returned to their natural home after the charges were determined to be unfounded, the family is pursuing legal recourse against the county because of the problems experienced by the girls while they were in out-of-home placement.

The 15-year-old daughter had been placed in the same foster home described in the preceding case, and the same problems were alleged to have occurred. The 14-year-old daughter was placed in a home certified by a foster family agency. While there, her father testified, the foster father sexually molested her one evening. Fearing for her safety, the girl escaped from the home and wandered back roads through the foggy night until she was picked up by a motorist and driven to the police station.

The ensuing investigations by the county welfare department, sheriff's office and district attorney's office resulted in the girl being removed from the home but no prosecution of the foster father.

Regardless of future determinations as to the veracity of the above-described cases, they both illuminate the lack of a readily available procedure by which individuals, such as the natural parents of foster children, can pursue situations that they perceive as problems.

As stated in Finding #2, the Department testified in the Commission's November public hearing that problems occur only in an estimated 10 percent of the State-licensed facilities in California and speculated that a similar percentage of foster family homes have problems. Not only does the Commission maintain that even 10 percent represents too great a number, but it believes the estimate may be understated given that it is based on the number of cases reported to the Department; such an estimate is a highly suspect figure given the lack of a good, unbiased reporting mechanism.

Such a system could work in foster care, as well, particularly since there already exists a network of volunteers in a highly successful program designed to advocate for children in court: the Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) program. The CASA program's goal is "to provide the child with a long-term, consistent and supportive relationship; to advocate for the child in the child welfare system; and to improve the quality of information presented to the juvenile court on behalf of the child."¹⁵⁶ The advocates are trained volunteers who work one-on-one with foster children and become officers of the court in order to advise judges on their placements.¹⁵⁷

There are approximately 1,500 volunteers working in 14 CASA programs throughout the State. Funding for the program can come from a variety of sources; for example, the $100,000 budget for the Sacramento program is being paid by the county, the State Judicial Commission, the Junior League of Sacramento, the Stuart Foundation and the Children's Trust Fund. An official with the National CASA Association said there are 452 programs operating in 48 states, and that studies have documented county savings and better service delivery to children. One study in Seattle found that the program saves the county about $2 million a year in attorney fees.¹⁵⁸

A foster care ombudsman established in each county could work in conjunction with a CASA program in that county. Such a cooperative effort could result in improved service delivery not only to the children but to other interested parties, such as foster parents and natural parents.

For several years, the Department had serious concerns about the administration of the Child Welfare Services Program and the delivery of program services to the children and families in Los Angeles County.¹⁵⁹ According to the Department, repeated efforts to determine the causes of problems and implement solutions were frustrated by the assertion of the Los Angeles County Department of Children's Services (County) that inadequate funding was the sole problem and that, until funding reached adequate levels, no discussion of service delivery was appropriate.¹⁶⁰

Beginning in October 1989 and finishing five months later, the Department conducted an audit to verify the County's claims of inadequate funding and found that:

[t]hroughout the County there are deficiencies in the accuracy of the caseload information reported to [the County's Children's Information System (which tracks and reports to the Department the County's Child Welfare Services' cases upon which the County's state funding allocation is based)]. There are also serious system and performance deficiencies and inefficiencies which contribute to and result in inaccurate caseload reports. The audit procedures used by [LA] are inadequate in identifying and ensuring continued accuracy of caseload information.¹⁶¹

The Department's audit found that of the 4,040 cases investigated, 1,462 cases (36 percent) were incorrectly reported.¹⁶² Examples of the incorrectly reported cases include:

• a case in which the review child was 23 years old;

   

• a case in which the court at least nine months earlier had terminated jurisdiction on the case because the review child was released to the father in North Carolina;

   

• a case in which the review child had died, possibly more than four and one-half years earlier;

   

• duplicate (two) cases in which the review child, who was living with his father in Oklahoma since 1988 and should not have been counted at all, was counted as receiving services in California; and

   

• a case in which a police referral was received on the review child's sibling, but the review child was included on the referral (as receiving services) even though the child lived in Arkansas.¹⁶³

The Department's audit findings resulted in a $7. 5 million net reduction of LA's 1990-91 budget allocation, which was reduced to a figure that was $30. 8 million less than what LA's allocation would have been if the DSS had accepted LA's claims of a caseload increase.¹⁶⁴

Also during the course of the audit, the Department identified numerous instances in which the County failed to protect children in foster care from substandard conditions and physical and sexual abuse, including:

• A case in which the County discovered 10 children sleeping on the floor of a garage while 10 more youngsters were living in one bedroom upstairs. Although three of the children had been abused, two of them severely, the County waited five months before reporting the case to the Department for license revocation. When the home was finally closed (six months after the discovery of the problem), the County removed five children who were still in placement. Based on a medical examination, one of the children was determined to have been physically abused, resulting in a skull fracture and two broken limbs.¹⁶⁵

   

• A case in which the County discovered a home in which only one person was looking after 20 infants who were sleeping in 10 cribs. Although the home was licensed for only four children, the County failed to report the conditions to the Department, pending a coroner's report on the death of a baby who had been living at the home. The County removed the 20 children only after the Department had learned of the conditions through "an independent source" and informed the County that 20 infants in a foster family home licensed for 4 placements was grounds in and of itself to suspend the home's license and remove all of the children.

  When the infants finally were removed from the home (more than a month after the County initially discovered the conditions), the County's children's service workers were so ill-informed that they had to rely on the home's operator to identify the children and to help find their placement workers. In several instances, "[t]he wrong children were given to the placement workers because the staff person at the facility and some of the placement workers did not know which child was which."

  As if the situation were not bad enough, once all of the original 20 infants were removed from the home, another County placement worker placed a child in the same home over the succeeding weekend.¹⁶⁶

It also was during the period of the audit that the Department's legal division discovered a "secret room" containing 15 file cabinets holding approximately 3,000 case files on facilities that experienced problems but that were not referred to the Department for administrative action. After its discovery, the Department confiscated all of the files.¹⁶⁷

In June 1990, the Health, Human Services and Labor Subcommittee of the Senate Budget & Fiscal Review Committee adopted language to reduce the County's allocation, and a joint Senate/Assembly hearing was conducted to investigate problems occurring in the County. Subsequently, budget language was enacted requiring the Department to determine the County's propriety and issue a formal statement of non-compliance if necessary.

The Department issued the formal statement of non-compliance and on October 1, 1990, the Department officially took over the licensing function of the County. Further, the County was required to submit a detailed corrective action plan for many of the placement problems previously identified by the Department.

The Department now is required to periodically report to the Legislature on the County's progress in implementing its corrective action plan. At the Little Hoover Commission's January 1992 public hearing on foster care, representatives from both the Department and the County testified that the County had made substantial improvements in correcting many of the problems identified during the Department's audit.¹⁶⁸

As part of its responsibility for oversight of county program operations, the Department has implemented a review and corrective action process for the Child Welfare Services Program to determine the degree to which each county welfare department is in compliance with the most important statutory and regulatory requirements.¹⁶⁹ The Department states that it is reviewing one fourth of the Child Welfare Services caseload annually, and that when a county is found to be out of compliance, the Department monitors the county's corrective action plan on a semiannual basis.¹⁷⁰ The Department does acknowledge that, although this review process determines whether basic safety and due process standards are met, it does not evaluate the appropriateness of caseworker decisions, the quality of the services being offered or case outcomes.¹⁷¹

Given recent budget cuts and the chronic problem of insufficient staff for monitoring, it remains to be seen whether the Department's review process will be sufficient to ensure that a situation like Los Angeles County's does not occur elsewhere in the State. As it is, even when the Department determines that there is a serious problem in a county, it takes years to correct the problem, as evidenced by the protracted efforts to clean up Los Angeles County. The danger in such a prolonged period, of course, is that children could languish in unspeakable situations.

Also lacking is a bona fide longitudinal study of the foster care system and its effects on the children who have gone through it. Without such a study, the State is unable to determine the long-term effectiveness of the system and its ability to provide abused and neglected children the safety, stability, nurturing and guidance necessary for them to be able to grow up into productive, well-adjusted adult members of society.

Many counties have intake and processing procedures that can involve as many as 22 child welfare professionals, each of whom must interview and review a child's case separately.¹⁷² This extended process is not only duplicative, but it also can be very damaging to the welfare of the child and can result in great frustration and psychological damage as a child is forced to recall accounts of pain and suffering.

San Francisco: Child Protection Center

One model of interagency screening can be found in San Francisco's Child Protection Center (CPC). The CPC is considered the gateway to the foster care system in San Francisco. Upon being removed from a family by either law enforcement officials or social workers, a child is brought to the CPC, located in San Francisco General Hospital, where a medical screening is performed and physical and mental health needs are assessed. Further, through the use of an automated data base, the CPC determines where the most appropriate placement is for that child according to his or her particular circumstances.

If the child brought to the CPC has been sexually abused, he or she is referred to the Child and Adolescent Sexual Abuse Resource Center (CASARC), which is located next to the CPC in San Francisco General Hospital. The CASARC utilizes a trained multi-disciplinary staff (through a 24-hour crisis intervention program) to provide prompt medical examination and treatment, to offer immediate psychological support, and to collect evidence for the court at the time the molestation is reported. Part of the evidence collection occurs during an initial interview, conducted by sexual abuse specialists, which is viewed through a two-way mirror by staff from the social services department, the district attorney's office and the police. In addition, the CASARC provides follow-up counseling for the child and family.¹⁷³

Programs similar to the CASARC model exist in Orange County and Sacramento County.¹⁷⁴

San Bernardino: The Children's Network

The San Bernardino County Children's Network coordinates the efforts of the various agencies serving children in the county. An interagency protocol specifies the responsibilities of and services offered by the Sheriff's Office, the Social Services, Probation, Public Health and Mental Health Departments, the schools and the agency serving developmentally disabled children. The Network agreement provides for the exchange of information to facilitate the provision of comprehensive services in the least restrictive environment to children at risk and their families. An annual conference promotes interagency communication and cross-training. The protocol states, "Services to children must be undertaken in a purposeful, coordinated, integrated, fair and cost-effective manner."¹⁷⁵

Placer: The SMART Program

Placer County's Probation, Mental Health, Health and Medical Services, and Social Services Departments and the County Superior Court have established a Special Multi-Disciplinary Assessment and Referral Team (SMART). The program has four objectives:

• to encourage families to resolve problems without public intervention;

   

• to help children in trouble;

   

• to intercede before children enter the court system; and

   

• to identify unmet needs of problem youngsters.

Children referred to SMART are assigned to a lead agency for case management, but have their histories reviewed by the multi-agency Assessment and Referral Team for a determination of the service needs of the child and family.¹⁷⁶

Orange: A School-Based Program of Mental Health Services

Orange County's system provides treatment to children with diverse mental health problems who are referred by police, hospitals, the County Social Services and Probation Departments and the schools. At the heart of the model is a school-based treatment program that integrates community volunteers, in-home supportive services, special education classrooms, and interagency coordination to form a comprehensive approach. The program is targeted to those severely disturbed minors who may require mental health services to benefit from special education and those who run the greatest risk of hospitalization or group home placement.¹⁷⁷

The "Ventura Model" and the Comprehensive Children's Mental Health Services Act

Ventura County was the first county authorized to establish an interagency system of local mental health services for seriously emotionally disturbed minors at risk of out-of-home placement. The approach utilizes intensive family services as part of a comprehensive coordinated system of care for specific court wards and dependents with serious mental health treatment needs. Between 1985 and 1989, the number of children in group homes increased 58 percent statewide; in Ventura County it increased only 24 percent.

The Comprehensive Children's Mental Health Services Act established an interagency, comprehensive system of care for seriously emotionally disturbed children and youth. Building upon the concepts tested in Ventura County, the "system of care" is designed to coordinate mental health and other necessary services to meet the needs of severely emotionally disturbed children and their families. Keys to the "system of care" approach include developing and providing services that are less restrictive, more normative, culturally appropriate and individualized to the child and family. Case management is the hub of the system, including outreach and early intervention. Through collaborative planning, resource identification and case management, the mental health, educational, substance abuse, health, social services, developmental and vocational service agencies are brought together to meet the needs of each child. Programs are operating in Riverside, San Mateo, Santa Cruz and Ventura counties. While each county system has been organized to meet unique local conditions, each county has implemented outcome objectives to measure the impact of the services provided to each child.¹⁷⁸

San Mateo: Human Services Agency

San Mateo County plans to achieve interagency screening through a departmental reorganization that would create a single Human Services Agency. The county's new program will consist of a 24-hour phone line and emergency response capability plus a multi-disciplinary assessment team composed of professionals with expertise in public health, mental health, child protective services, drug and alcohol services and special education. Among the county's anticipated benefits:

There currently exists an ideal opportunity to create the vehicle through which State leadership could be provided in the area of interagency coordination: State legislation (SB 479, Morgan) is pending that would establish the Child Development and Education Agency. At the direction of the Secretary for Child Development and Education, a position which was created by the Governor in 1991 through Executive Order W-1-91, this cabinet-level agency would transcend departmental boundaries to most effectively encourage interagency coordination at both the state and county government levels.

Without interagency screening and cooperation at the county level, children are traumatized twice: once by their situations at home and once by the system that supposedly is designed to protect them. Further, without interagencycoordination, a county's inefficiencies result in costly duplication of effort.

Without any good indication of the long-term effectiveness of the foster care system, it is not practical to assess the success of the system. But even in light of the system's short-term goals of eliminating the unnecessary removal of children from their homes and ensuring the safety of all children removed by necessity, the system has failed miserably.

To rectify these circumstances, the Commission recommends that, so long as the safety of children is not compromised, the State emphasize investment in less-expensive services that focus on removing the problems from dysfunctional families rather than removing the children.

As a remedy to these shortcomings in the foster care system, the Commission recommends that training be a prerequisite to licensure as a foster parent and that available federal funding be maximized for use in training foster parents. Further, to the extent that the State can reduce itsreliance on group homes and other more costly types of out-of-home placement, the State should increase the statewide basic care rates of reimbursement so as to adequately cover the costs of raising foster children.

To address these problems, the Commission recommends that the State Department of Social Services reinstate funding for its Minority Home Recruitment Program and work with counties to emphasize recruitment of ethnic minority foster parents. Also, the Department should monitor counties' administration of the foster care program to ensure the counties are making placements in accordance with the law.

What the Commission feels is needed in this instance is a foster care ombudsman program patterned after the ombudsman program for the elderly. As an added measure, the State Department of Social Services should not contract with counties to perform the licensing functions in the foster care system; instead, the Department should be solely responsible for those functions. In addition, the Department should complete the performance standards in accordance with the law, and a bona fide longitudinal study of California's foster care system and its clients should be conducted to determine the long-range effectiveness of the system.

To provide the vehicle through which State leadership could encourage interagency coordination, the Commission recommends that the Child Development and Education Agency be established. Further, the State should provide start-up funds for counties to establish systems that institute interagency coordination.