[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
HEARING ON RACIAL DISPROPORTIONALITY IN FOSTER CARE
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INCOME SECURITY AND FAMILY SUPPORT
of the
COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JULY 31, 2008
__________
Serial No. 110-94
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Ways and Means
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COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
CHARLES B. RANGEL, New York, Chairman
FORTNEY PETE STARK, California JIM MCCRERY, Louisiana
SANDER M. LEVIN, Michigan WALLY HERGER, California
JIM MCDERMOTT, Washington DAVE CAMP, Michigan
JOHN LEWIS, Georgia JIM RAMSTAD, Minnesota
RICHARD E. NEAL, Massachusetts SAM JOHNSON, Texas
MICHAEL R. MCNULTY, New York PHIL ENGLISH, Pennsylvania
JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee JERRY WELLER, Illinois
XAVIER BECERRA, California KENNY HULSHOF, Missouri
LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas RON LEWIS, Kentucky
EARL POMEROY, North Dakota KEVIN BRADY, Texas
STEPHANIE TUBBS JONES, Ohio THOMAS M. REYNOLDS, New York
MIKE THOMPSON, California PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin
JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut ERIC CANTOR, Virginia
RAHM EMANUEL, Illinois JOHN LINDER, Georgia
EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon DEVIN NUNES, California
RON KIND, Wisconsin PAT TIBERI, Ohio
BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey JON PORTER, Nevada
SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
KENDRICK MEEK, Florida
ALLYSON Y. SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama
Janice Mays, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Brett Loper, Minority Staff Director
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INCOME SECURITY AND FAMILY SUPPORT
JIM MCDERMOTT, Washington, Chairman
FORTNEY PETE STARK, California JERRY WELLER, Illinois
ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama WALLY HERGER, California
JOHN LEWIS, Georgia DAVE CAMP, Michigan
MICHAEL R. MCNULTY, New York JON PORTER, Nevada
SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada PHIL ENGLISH, Pennsylvania
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
KENDRICK MEEK, Florida
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C O N T E N T S
__________
Page
Advisory of July 24, 2008, announcing the hearing................ 2
WITNESSES
Kay E. Brown, Director of Education, Workforce, and Income
Security, Government Accountability Office..................... 7
Marian Harris, Ph.D., Co-Chair, Washington State Racial
Disproportionality Advisory Committee, Tacoma, Washington...... 33
Terry Solomon, Ph.D., Executive Director, Illinois African
American Family Commission, Chicago, Illinois.................. 60
Oronde A. Miller, Director, Systems Improvement Methodologies,
Casey Family Programs.......................................... 66
Daryle Conquering Bear, FosterClub, Stoneham, Colorado........... 79
______
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Child Welfare League of America, Statement....................... 96
Child Defense Fund, Statement.................................... 106
Darlene King, Statement.......................................... 115
Elizabeth Bartholet, Statement................................... 116
Joe Salmonese, Statement......................................... 122
Washington Health Policy Coalition, Statement.................... 123
HEARING ON RACIAL DISPROPORTIONALITY IN FOSTER CARE
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THURSDAY, JULY 31, 2008
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Ways and Means,
Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m., in
room B-318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jim McDermott
(Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
[The advisory announcing the hearing follows:]
ADVISORY FROM THE COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
COMMITTEE ON INCOME SECURITY AND FAMILY SUPPORT
CONTACT: (202) 225-1025
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 24, 2008
ISFS-18
McDermott Announces Hearing on Racial Disproportionality in Foster Care
Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on
Income Security and Family Support, today announced a hearing to
examine racial disproportionality in the foster care system. The
hearing will take place on Thursday, July 31, 2008, at 10:00 a.m. in
room B-318 Rayburn House Office Building.
In view of the limited time available to hear witnesses, oral
testimony at this hearing will be from invited witnesses only. However,
any individual or organization not scheduled for an oral appearance may
submit a written statement for consideration by the Subcommittee and
for inclusion in the printed record of the hearing.
BACKGROUND:
Research has concluded that a significantly greater portion of
African American children enter and remain in the foster care system
when compared to children of other races and ethnicities. The
disproportionate representation of these children in foster care occurs
despite the fact that there are no inherent differences in the rates at
which they are abused or neglected, according to the National Incidence
Study of Child Abuse and Neglect. Native American children also
experience higher rates of representation in foster care.
A report released by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in
July 2007 found African American children across the nation were more
than twice as likely to enter foster care compared to white children in
FY 2004, and these children remained in foster care roughly 9 months
longer. Furthermore, GAO found Native American children represented
just 1 percent of all children in the 2000 Census, but comprised over 2
percent of children in foster care at the end of FY 2004. Higher rates
of poverty, limited access to vital support services, racial bias, and
difficulty recruiting prospective adoptive families for these children
are often cited as the primary factors that contribute to the problem.
The GAO report highlighted the potential benefits of increased
Federal support for relatives who become legal guardians of foster
children for reducing the over-representation of African American
children in the system. Bipartisan legislation (H.R. 6307) introduced
by Chairman McDermott and Ranking Member Jerry Weller and passed by the
House last month would provide for these guardianship payments, among
other things.
In announcing the hearing, Chairman McDermott stated: ``Racial
disproportionality challenges our ability to ensure the well-being and
permanency of every child in our nation's foster care system.
Overcoming this problem is critical to achieving positive outcomes for
all children in care. This hearing will allow us to get a better
understanding of the factors that contribute to this problem and
promising strategies that will lead to a long-term solution.''
FOCUS OF THE HEARING:
The hearing will examine the prevalence of racial
disproportionality in the foster care system, the primary factors that
contribute to this problem, and promising initiatives that are
currently being implemented in several States to address it.
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noted above.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. This meeting will come to order. Today
we are going to talk about racial disproportionality, which is
a fancy name for the fact that certain groups appear more in
foster care than others.
Foster care is obviously a necessity for some children. Our
goal, really, for every child is a permanent, loving home.
Unfortunately, this goal seems like a distant dream for too
many kids in foster care, especially for African American and
Native American children.
We are here today to focus on the over-representation of
some children of color in foster care, a problem that has been
called racial disproportionality. Big words don't do well in
the press, so we will try and avoid them as much as possible.
As you can see from the chart which is in front of you on
the screen which comes from the GAO, white kids are to the
left, and then you've got African American kids. You can see
that the number of children, the red bars, are the number of
children in foster care. So, you can see that African American,
and then you can see on the far right, Native Americans, there
is very few Native American children, but disproportionately,
again, they are in foster care. It's that issue that we are
really trying to look at today.
Now, there is not really, in my view and I have been
looking at these things, for a long time. When I was in the
State legislature, I was involved as a child psychiatrist in
looking at deprivation of kids, deprivation of parents, their
parental rights. So, I know a lot about what goes on in a
State.
There really is not a single factor driving the over-
representation of these kids in the system. Poverty, limited
services in certain communities, single-parent families, racial
bias, difficulty in recruiting prospective adoptive homes all
play a role in this. I think that I started the first, or maybe
the second adoption subsidy program in the United States, and
it was back in 1971, trying to get racially mixed kids into
adoptive homes. So, I have seen the system for a long time, and
we're really looking forward to hearing from the witnesses.
Unfortunately, I think some of what I saw in 1971 is still
going on today. So, we may not learn much, but I think it's
important for everybody at this time to really be thinking
about it.
We are also looking and listening for solutions. I want to
know if the panel agrees that investments in strengthening
families will make abuse and neglect less likely to occur. If
so, what are the interventions that we should focus on first?
Obviously, we are not going to be able to do everything under
the sun, but we can pick some things that may make some sense.
Additionally, improvements to child welfare practice needs
to prevent racial bias from affecting placement decisions. I
think we need to remember that the rate of entry into foster
care is only part of the problem. Longer stays for some
children also increases the disproportionality of these kids.
It should trouble us when we hear that African American
children, on average, remain in care about 9 months longer than
white kids. More comprehensive service to help children return
to their families, and improve the recruitment of potential
adoptive families for children who cannot return home would
both likely reduce the time these children spend in foster
care.
Now, the Subcommittee recently acted on another response
that may likewise move children more quickly from foster care
to permanent homes, ``The Fostering Connection Act,'' which Mr.
Weller and I introduced, and which we rifled out of here like a
rifle shot over to the Senate, and now we watch it sit over
there. I understand there is going to be a hearing tomorrow, a
mark-up in the Senate, at least there was one scheduled in the
Finance Committee, to look at this issue.
So, we are still hopeful that it may get through before we
get out of here. The bill would give Federal payments to legal
guardians of foster kids, so-called ``kinship care.'' GAO
specifically recommended this step to reduce the over-
representation of African American children in foster care.
Supporting relative guardianship will open the doors for
more permanent homes for all children, but it is especially
felt to be helpful for African American kids, given their lower
adoption rates in our system.
The same legislation also would provide direct access to
Federal foster care and adoption assistance to Native American
tribes. This is a bill that Mr. Weller and I cosponsored,
allowing for tribal communities to find permanent homes for
Native American children. I am hopeful, as I said, about the
Senate taking this bill up.
Like so many complex problems, racial disproportionality is
not explained by a single cause, and it isn't going to be
solved by a single remedy. Saying a problem is difficult is not
saying it is insurmountable. There are steps we can take today
that will make a positive difference, even as we continue to
search for additional solutions in the future.
I would like to yield the microphone to Mr. Weller, my
Ranking Member. I said to him this is our last hearing with him
on the Subcommittee. Now, there may be one in September. He
wants to choose the subject, but we will see about that. Jerry.
Mr. WELLER. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. If this is our
last hearing, I just want to say I have enjoyed working with
you, and we still have six more months to work together in my
role as your Ranking Member. I just want to commend you for the
leadership you have given, and the opportunity to work with you
in a bipartisan way. I thank you for that.
I also want to thank you for arranging today's hearing, and
thank the witnesses for joining us. Today's hearing reviews
complicated questions about race in the nation's child welfare
system, including foster care.
As we have learned from prior hearings in this and other
congresses, this is a system in need of improvement and reform.
To our credit, and with the help of many advocacy and
supportive groups and individuals, we have made progress this
year.
Just last month, the House passed the Bipartisan Fostering
Connections for Success Act, H.R. 6307. Chairman McDermott and
I developed this legislation, based on many solid policy
recommendations, and it includes important policy changes I
have advocated for years. Those include: increasing Federal
reimbursement rates for training child welfare workers; and
ensuring that Native American tribes have equal access to
Federal foster care funds.
Today's hearing will let us take a step back and consider
how the changes in H.R. 6307 might help prevent abuse and
neglect, quickly re-unify families, and promote adoption. As we
will hear, these issues are especially important for African
American and Native American children, who not only enter
foster care more often than other children, but tend to stay
there longer, compounding front-end concerns.
I want to welcome Daryle Conquering Bear, who will discuss
the importance of providing more equitable access to foster
care and adoption services for Native American children in
tribal areas. I have long supported legislation to do so, as
has my colleague, Dave Camp, amongst others. This provision is
included in H.R. 6307, as unanimously passed by the House. Our
first Americans should be treated as full Americans, including
in child welfare programs.
It is our hope this provision will translate into better
care and better outcomes for the approximately 10,000 young
Native Americans in foster care today. Other provisions in our
bill encourage young Americans to get more and better
education.
For the first time, staying in high school through
graduation will be a condition of receiving Federal foster
care, relative guardian, or adoption payments. This requirement
sends out a very clear message: that young people are expected
to complete at least high school. Getting a high school diploma
is the foundation for a successful and independent life. As
David Brooks described in an excellent piece in the New York
Times on July 29th, the skills gap caused by declines in high
school graduation since the late sixties and rising family
breakdown go a long way toward explaining rising concerns about
insecurity and inequality in recent decades.
Given that, high school completion and continued education
is especially important for youth in foster care, who face high
hurdles in life, and certainly do not need more.
We are also joined by Dr. Terry Solomon, executive director
of the Illinois African American Family Commission. The
commission shares my view on the paramount importance of
educational achievement to not only foster youth, but all
youth. Without better educational outcomes, the building block
of a better life for all families, we will not be able to
realize our common goal: preventing abuse and neglect for
children of all backgrounds.
I want to thank the Chairman for working with me on these
important issues. It has been a pleasure. We have more to do. I
look forward to our continued efforts to work with our
colleagues in the Senate, ultimately seeing the Fostering
Connections for Success Act signed into law before the end of
this year. It is something we can get done. I am committed to
working with the Chairman and my Senate colleagues to get it
done.
I also want to work with our friends in the advocacy
community to help us get it done as well, as we make it a
priority in the remaining items of business for the House and
Senate. I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses this
morning. Good morning, and thank you.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. All other Members will have five
legislative days to submit anything they want to put in the
record.
Our first witness is Kay Brown, who is the Director of
Education, Workforce, and Income Security from GAO.
Ms. Brown.
STATEMENT OF KAY E. BROWN, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION,
WORKFORCE, AND INCOME SECURITY, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY
OFFICE
Ms. BROWN. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee,
thank you for inviting me here to discuss our work on the
disproportionate number of African American children in foster
care. This information is from a report we issued in July 2007.
This morning I will focus on three things: the level of
disproportionality for these children in the foster care
system; the factors that contribute to this situation; and
promising strategies that may help address it.
First, regarding the level of disproportionality, national
studies have shown that children suffer from abuse and neglect
at the same rates, regardless of their race or ethnicity. Yet
we found that African American children were about three times
more likely than white children to be placed in foster care in
2006. Furthermore, African American children remained in foster
care about 9 months longer than white children. All but one
State had some level of disproportionality.
Our study focused on African American children. However,
nationally, Native American children, as evidenced by the chart
we saw earlier, are also experiencing higher rates of
representation in foster care.
Second, regarding the contributing factors, this is a
complex issue. Many of the factors we identified are inter-
related. Some are linked to poverty. While families of all
races live in poverty, African American families are more
likely to do so than white families. Families living in poverty
may find it more difficult to access supports and services,
such as affordable housing and counseling that could help them
with their problems when they arise.
However, other factors also play a role. These include bias
and cultural misunderstanding on the part of key
decisionmakers, such as mandated reporters and caseworkers, as
well as distrust of the child welfare system on the part of
African American families.
In addition, when children cannot be reunited with their
families, State officials reported difficulties in finding them
appropriate permanent homes, in part because of the challenges
in recruiting adoptive parents, such as for older African
American children.
Finally, regarding promising strategies, most States report
taking steps to address the factors I just mentioned. They are
working to increase access to support services, providing
training to help mitigate bias and cultural misunderstanding,
and broadening their search for other relatives to serve as
care givers, such as paternal kin.
State officials have also identified areas where Federal
policies can help support promising practices. For example,
these officials cited the benefits of Federal subsidies for
adoptive families. However, this has not solved their struggle
to recruit enough adoptive parents. Over the last 5 years,
African American children, as well as Native American children,
have consistently experienced lower rates of adoption than
children of other races and ethnicities.
As an alternative to adoption, legal guardianship provides
another permanency option. Some States believe subsidizing
legal guardianship can help reduce disproportionality, because
African American children are more likely than white children
to be placed with relatives for foster care. Although these
relatives, such as grandmothers, may want to permanently care
for the children, they may be less willing or able to adopt
them, in part because adoption entails terminating the parental
rights of their kin.
In States that have experimented with these subsidies,
studies have found that they reduce the number of children in
foster care without increasing costs, and provided comparable
levels of stability and emotional and physical health. With
this in mind, in our July 2007 report we suggested that
Congress consider amending current law to allow subsidies for
legal guardianships, similar to those provided for adoptions.
The subsidies in the Fostering Connections to Success Act are
very consistent with this idea.
In conclusion, the issues surrounding the
disproportionality of African American children in foster care
are complex, inter-related, and pervasive. No single strategy
can fully address them. However, the circumstances warrant a
concerted effort on the part of the Federal Government, States,
and localities.
This concludes my prepared statement. I would be happy to
answer any questions you or other Members of the Subcommittee
have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Brown follows:]
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Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you very much for your testimony.
I neglected to say that we ask you to contain your remarks to 5
minutes.
The GAO is absolutely trained. She ended just as it went to
red.
[Laughter.]
Chairman MCDERMOTT. That reminded me that I hadn't said
anything about it. So, if you try and hold your comments to 5
minutes, that will give us some time for questions.
Ms. Harris is from Washington State Racial
Disproportionality Advisory Committee, from Tacoma, Washington.
Dr. Harris.
STATEMENT OF MARIAN S. HARRIS, PH.D., CO-CHAIR, WASHINGTON
STATE RACIAL DISPROPORTIONALITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE, TACOMA,
WASHINGTON
Dr. HARRIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me here
to talk about what we are doing in the State of Washington
regarding disproportionality. I am here to report on findings
from the Washington State Racial Disproportionality Advisory
Committee.
In 2007, Substitute House Bill 1472 created the Washington
State Racial Disproportionality Advisory Committee to determine
if racial disproportionality exists in the State of Washington.
Findings from this Committee are as follows. Yes, racial
disproportionality does exist in Washington State's child
welfare system.
What points in the Washington State child welfare system
reflect the highest level of disproportionality for children of
color? Those points are the following: The initial referral to
child protective services; the decision to remove a child from
the home; and if a child is in care for two years.
Compared with white children referred to child protective
services after referrals, Indian children are 1.6 times as
likely to be removed from home, and twice as likely to remain
in foster care for over 2 years. Black children are 1.2 times
more likely to be removed from their home, and 1.5 times more
likely to remain in care for over 2 years. Hispanic children
were no more likely to be removed from home, or to remain in
care for over 2 years. Asian children were no more likely to be
removed from home, and less likely to remain in care for 2
years.
Children from low income families are more likely to be in
the Washington State child welfare system than children from
more affluent families.
Are children from single-parent families more likely to be
in the system than children from two-parent households? Our
findings were yes; children of single-parent families are more
likely to be in the Washington State child welfare system than
children from two-parent families.
How do outcomes for children of color differ from outcomes
of white children? For outcomes such as length of stay, Indian
and black children have less favorable outcomes than white
children. Asian and Hispanic children are as likely as white
children to remain in foster care.
Additionally, when statistically controlling for poverty,
family structure, and case characteristics, the patterns of
disproportionality did not change for black, Hispanic, or Asian
children. For Indian children, however, disproportionality
after referral was reduced for about 25 percent.
Now, what are we doing in Washington State? These findings
were presented to our secretary on June 25th of this year. The
next phase of this work calls for us, as a Committee, to come
up with a remediation plan to address this problem. We are
currently working on that plan. We have to have the plan in to
the secretary of the department of health and social services
by December 1st.
We are meeting on September 18th and 19th with members from
the 6 regions in the State of Washington. We want to hear what,
if anything, they are doing about this problem in their various
regions.
Then, we, as a Committee, decided because racism and racial
bias are at the root of this problem, we, as a Committee, went
through undoing racism training, and we also have demanded that
the secretary, all managers, and all regional directors go
through this training.
As I am speaking to you this morning, supervisors and
managers from the various regions are in Seattle, Washington,
actually going through the undoing racism training.
It is very important for managers to be on board with any
type of efforts that we are going to try to put in place to
eradicate the problem of disproportionality. Our goal is that
any child who comes into the Washington State system receive
equitable treatment.
This ends my testimony.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Harris follows:]
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Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you very much. Ms. Solomon is
from Illinois. Dr. Solomon is the head of the Illinois African
Commission.
You may notice that the Chairman and the Ranking Member got
their States up on the table here.
So, welcome, Dr. Solomon.
STATEMENT OF TERRY A. SOLOMON, PH.D., EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
ILLINOIS AFRICAN AMERICAN FAMILY COMMISSION, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Dr. SOLOMON. Good morning, Chairman and Ranking Member
Weller, and Members of the Subcommittee. I am Dr. Terry
Solomon, executive director of the African American family
commission for the State of Illinois.
Today I speak on behalf of the Illinois Department of
Children and Family Services, and on behalf of the National
Association of Public Child Welfare Administrators, an
affiliate of the American Public Human Services Association. I
appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today about
how Illinois has implemented reforms to reduce
disproportionality and disparity within our child welfare
system.
The term ``disproportionality'' refers to the over or
under-representation of a race or cultural group within the
system. ``Disparity'' refers to inequity in the access to and
utilization of and/or quality of services received by racial or
ethnic minority, compared to a non-minority within the system.
Illinois has an unfortunate and extensive history of
disproportionality and disparity within its child welfare
system. In 1996, national data showed that Illinois had the
highest per capita rate of children in foster care in the
nation, and that 79 percent of the children in foster care were
African American. Although the State reduced its overall number
of children in care in 2007, African American children made up
19 percent of Illinois's general population, but accounted for
59 percent of the population of children in the child welfare
system.
The data showed that Illinois African American children
were more likely to be removed from their families, remain in
substitute care for longer periods, and were more likely to
transition or age out of substitute care than children from
other racial groups.
Most troubling, African American children were more likely
to be investigated for maltreatment than others. It was clear
that the system was in need of urgent reform to address the
problem of disproportionality and disparity.
In July 2006, the Illinois Department of Children and
Family Services center region engaged key community partners,
and began planning for a permanency enhancements symposium to
examine permanency options, practices, and procedures. The
symposium provided a forum for child welfare stakeholders to
discuss systemic disproportionality.
This group is in the process of developing transformation
teams that will identify the policies and procedures that
contribute to disproportionality, recommend legislation and
policy changes, improve relations with court personnel, birth
parents, and community leaders, and improve permanency
outcomes, including reunification.
Although the initiative is still in its early stages, the
commission has already recognized quantitative outcomes of this
work.
First, the permanency enhancement symposium effectively
engaged a wide range of child welfare stakeholders in an open,
honest, and difficult dialog that allowed the group to directly
address the issue of disproportionality within the system.
Second, the symposium involved court personnel and judges
in their examination of systemic shortcomings. They have
responded with heightened awareness to the issue of
disproportionality and disparity.
This model of change relies heavily on the principles of
community engagement, and includes involving the child welfare
community, the courts, the educational community, social
workers, and other professionals that work directly with
families. The work in which Illinois is engaged in mirrors
strategies of other States, such as Texas, are employing to
ensure that African American children are not more likely to be
removed from their homes or age out of foster care.
Nationally, NAPCWA has made the issue of disproportionate
representation of children of color in the child welfare system
one of its highest priorities. In partnership with Casey Family
Programs, NAPCWA is leading a national project called
``Positioning Public Child Welfare Initiative: Strengthening
Families in the 21st century,'' which will position the field
to speak with one voice about its purpose and roles in
improving outcomes for vulnerable children, youth, and
families.
A disproportionality Subcommittee of subject matter experts
are currently concentrating on developing written guidance to
be used by the child welfare system.
In closing, I do want to offer some recommendations. First,
States are already struggling to meet existing program costs
with limited resources. Their ability to continue to develop
initiatives and implement strategies that address
disproportionality and disparity within the child welfare
system will require additional Federal support.
Also, the Federal Government could also include carefully
considered process in outcome measures in the child and family
services review. Additions to the child and family service
review should be accompanied by additional technical systems in
support to States as they work to effect change in the system.
Also, federally supported research around this issue will
further enhance the efforts of both the current and future
child welfare workforce and other systems of professionals to
reverse the trend of disproportionality.
Illinois is one of many States that are struggling to
address institutional disproportionality and disparity.
We also finally urge Congress to consider legislation that
will more fully support reunification services to children
returning to permanency with their family.
I thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I am happy
to answer any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Solomon follows:]
Statement of Terry Solomon, Ph. D., Executive Director, Illinois
African American Family Commission, Chicago, Illinois
Good morning, Chairman McDermott, Ranking Member Weller, and
members of the Subcommittee. I am Dr. Terry A. Solomon, Executive
Director of the African American Family Commission for the State of
Illinois. The African American Family Commission was created by
Governor Jim Edgar in 1994 to assist the Illinois Department of
Children and Family Services (DCFS) in developing and implementing
programs relevant to African American families. In August 2004, Public
Act 093-0867 expanded the scope of the Commission. The purpose of the
Illinois African American Family Commission is to guide the efforts of
and collaborate with various state agencies, including DCFS, to improve
and expand existing human services and educational and community
development programs for African Americans. The Commission is a
fifteen-member statewide commission whose members are appointed by the
Governor of Illinois, and include community leaders, child welfare
professionals, ministers, parents, business leaders, educators and
community activists dedicated to enhancing the welfare of children and
families.
I am also speaking on behalf of the National Association of Public
Child Welfare Administrators (NAPCWA), an affiliate of the American
Public Human Services Association (APHSA). APHSA is a nonprofit,
bipartisan organization representing state and local human service
professionals for over 76 years. NAPCWA, created as an affiliate in
1983, works to enhance and improve public policy and administration of
services for children, youth, and families. As the only organization
devoted solely to representing administrators of state and local public
child welfare agencies, NAPCWA brings an informed view of the problems
facing families today to the forefront of child welfare policy.
On behalf of APHSA, NAPCWA, and the state of Illinois, I would like
to thank the Subcommittee for recognizing the importance of addressing
the issue of disproportionate representation of children of color in
the nation's child welfare system. I appreciate the opportunity to
testify before you today about how Illinois has implemented systemic
reform measures to reduce conditions of disproportionality within our
state child welfare system.
DISPROPORTIONALITY IN THE CHILD WELFARE SYSTEM
Disproportionality permeates the entirety of our National child
welfare system--from the children who enter the system to outcome
disparities for children and youth of color throughout their time in
the system. Sadly, this systemic trend is not limited to the child
welfare system alone. Disproportionality has been a burgeoning issue in
various programs and systems, including special education services,
juvenile justice, and the criminal justice system.
When considering disproportionality within the child welfare
system, it is necessary to focus on both population differences, as
well as differences in treatment outcomes. According to the Casey-
Center for the Study of Social Policy Alliance for Racial Equity in the
Child Welfare System, both ``disproportionality'' and ``disparity''
exist within the system. The term disproportionality refers to the
over--or under-representation of a particular race or cultural group
within a system, meaning that this group populates that system at a
lower or higher rate than their percentage of the general population.
Disparity refers to unequal treatment in the need for, access to,
utilization of, and/or quality of services received by children of
color when comparing a racial or ethnic minority to a non-minority
within the system itself.
There are a number of factors that may contribute to a
disproportionate number of African American children entering the child
welfare system, including socio-economic status, departmental policies
and procedures, and the decisionmaking of departmental staff and
administrators. When more children of color are in fact entering the
system, it means that these children are more likely to be removed from
their homes upon report and investigation of abuse and neglect.
Research has shown that incidents of abuse and neglect are not more
prevalent among African American families versus those of other races,
however these families are more likely to be reported and investigated
for abuse and neglect.
Disparity can be examined throughout the system by focusing on
treatment plan development, service delivery, and resources allocation.
It can also be examined by focusing on key decision points within the
life of a case, including kin placement and exits to family permanency
through relative placement, guardianship, or adoption. Over-
representation occurs when there is racial or ethnic disparity at any
of these points of intervention, which in turn contributes to the
condition of disproportionality within the system.
ILLINOIS' STORY
Illinois has had an unfortunate and extensive history of
disproportionality within its child welfare system. A 2008 study by the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne School of Social Work's
Children and Family Research Center shows that the state's foster care
population climbed from 15,000 children in care in 1987 to 51,000
children in care in 1997, and that this growth in the overall service
population was primarily in the African American and kinship care
populations.
In 1987, 56% of the children in care were African American, and 28%
of the population was living with kin. Beginning in the early nineties,
there was an increase in the number of African American children living
with kin that came into foster care. At that time, children left by a
parent in the care of kin could be brought into state custody on a
neglect petition (neglect by a parent who may have been absent from the
home since birth). Whether the child was safe, or in need of
protection, was not the top consideration. By 1996, national data
showed that Illinois had the highest per-capita rate of children in
foster care in the nation at 17.1 per 1,000, and the majority of the
children in foster care (79%) were African American.
This trend continued beyond the 1990's. Although the state reduced
its overall number of children in care down to 16,000 children in 2007,
African American disproportionality still permeated the system. In
2007, African American children made up 19% of Illinois' general
population but accounted for 59% of the population of children in the
child welfare system. The data showed that in Illinois, African
American children were more likely to be removed from their families,
remain in substitute care for longer periods and were more likely to
transition or ``age out'' of substitute care than children from other
racial groups.
The greatest amount of disparity was in the likelihood that an
African American child would be investigated for maltreatment. African
American children were over represented in the rate at which they
entered foster care across the state, and this disparity had worsened
over the previous five years. In Cook County, African American children
were less likely to exit to permanence. It was clear that the system
was in urgent need of reform to address the perpetuation of
disproportionality and disparity.
THE PROCESS OF REFORM IN ILLINOIS
In July 2006, DCFS and the Central Region (the state region
representing over half the state's counties) in partnership with the
DCFS African American Advisory Council, Illinois State University
School of Social Work, and the Illinois African American Family
Commission began planning for a Permanency Enhancement Symposium to
examine permanency options, practices and procedures in the Central
Region.
The goal of the Permanency Enhancement Symposium was to share
information on the importance of building a partnership with birth and
foster parents, community--based organizations, private and public
child welfare professionals, and court personnel to improve permanency
outcomes, safety and stability for children in the care of the state.
The Symposium guided the development of Action Teams and Action Plans
that are charged to: 1) maintain children in the home; 2) improve
reunification outcomes; 3) improve adoption/guardianship outcomes and;
4) address the disproportionate representation of African American
children in foster care.
The Permanency Enhancement Symposium provided a forum for
discussion among key child welfare stakeholders about the uncomfortable
reality of perpetuated systemic disproportionality. Information from
the Permanency Enhancement Symposium process revealed that race acts as
a key factor in placement and permanency decisions. Moreover, the
conversation showed that race relations in the respective counties and
the role of race-based DCFS internal policy, procedures and practices
may contribute to the disproportionate representative of African
American children in out-of-home placements.
The Central Region has taken the lead in understanding and
analyzing systemic racism to address the over representation of African
Americans in the state's child welfare system, and to improve
permanency outcomes and quality assurance. Community dialogs have been
held to engage key stakeholders in the Action Team process.
Conversations regarding disproportionality are linked with
conversations of racial equity, or the lack thereof, for African
Americans and other people of color. We believe that to have productive
conversations regarding disproportionality, it is important that all
participants have a shared definition and common language concerning
racial equity. Moreover, we believe that teams of committed and
dedicated individuals are needed to guide the Department in this
effort. Therefore, Transformation Teams are being formed statewide to
help the Department.
The purpose of the Transformation Teams is to examine the role
institutional racism plays in the overrepresentation of African
American children in the child welfare system and in the practices
within the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. Racism
can be defined as ``racial prejudice coupled with the misuse of power
by systems and institutions'' (DCFS Workshop on Racism and Anti-Racism,
Crossroads Antiracism Organizing and Training, 2008).
Since the road to racial disparity and disproportionality often
begins at the point of entry into the child welfare system (e.g., calls
to child abuse hotlines, investigations), it is important that child
welfare professionals, from frontline staff to agency administrators,
are aware of how their personal and cultural biases, as well as their
power to make decisions, may contribute to the overrepresentation of
African American children in substitute care.
Throughout 2008 and 2009, Transformation Teams will work to shape
awareness of systemic racism within an institution and analysis of the
specific barriers to change; create an anti-racist multicultural
``table'' with a new understanding of the task of building an anti-
racist institution; and build new organizational structures that share
power of decision of making. The Central Region Transformation Team
will also select targeted communities in which to implement family
advocacy and support projects.
This model of change relies on heavily on the principles of
community engagement, and seeks to engage the many varied stakeholders
that comprise the child welfare community. These include parents and
families, faith-based organizations, the courts, the educational
community, and social workers and other professionals that work
directly with families.
THE OUTCOME OF REFORM IN ILLINIOS
Ultimately, the reform process in Illinois seeks to identify DCFS
policies and procedures that contribute to disproportionality;
recommend anti-racism legislative and policy changes; improve relations
with court personnel, birth parents and community leaders; and improve
permanency outcomes, including intake and reunification.
Although the initiative is still in its early stages, the
Commission has already recognized several qualitative outcomes of the
ongoing work. First, the Permanency Enhancement Symposium effectively
engaged a wide ranging group of child welfare stakeholders in an open,
honest, and difficult dialog that allowed the group to directly address
the issue of disproportionality within the system. This forum for frank
discussion enabled the group to begin to identify decision points and
institutional practices that have contributed to ongoing conditions of
disproportionality and disparity.
Second, because the Permanency Enhancement Symposium involved court
personnel and judges in the shared process of examining the systemic
shortcomings that continue and exacerbate racial disproportionality and
disparity, these key stakeholders in the system have responded with
heightened awareness to the issue. Disclosure by some judicial
professionals revealed that their intent to focus on ``families and not
their skin color or background'' may have obscured the issue of
systemic disproportionality and not allowed them to directly address
it. This important realization has enabled them to begin to take steps
to incorporate an understanding of disproportionality's causes and
costs into their work.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne School of Social Work's
Children and Family Research Center has recently published an
assessment of the conditions of disproportionality and disparity
presented by Illinois' public child welfare system, and will continue
to actively evaluate the work and outcomes of the reform process.
OTHER STATE SUCESSES
The work in which Illinois is engaged mirrors strategies other
states are employing to ensure that African-American children are not
more likely to be removed from their homes or age out of foster care
without an adoptive family or other permanent placement, or less likely
to be reunited with their families.
2005 data from Texas showed that African-American children in Texas
were almost twice as likely as Anglo or Hispanic children to be
reported as victims of child abuse or neglect. African-American
children were also more likely to be the subject of substantiated
reports of abuse and neglect, and ultimately to be removed from their
families. They were also spending significantly more time in foster
care or other substitute care, were less likely to be reunified with
their families, and waited longer for adoption than other children.
Senate Bill 6 was passed in 2005 and pushed the state toward
comprehensive reform of Child Protective Services (CPS). The state
analyzed data related to removals and other enforcement actions,
reviewed policies and procedures in each child protection region, and
developed plans to remedy disparities. CPS has enhanced training for
service delivery staff and management, developed collaborative
relationships with community partners, increased staff diversity, and
improved targeted recruitment efforts for foster and adoptive families.
In addition, Texas was one of 13 states selected to participate in
a ``Breakthrough Series Collaborative on Disproportionality'' sponsored
by Casey Family Programs and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The goal of
this initiative was to identify practices, policies, and assumptions
that contribute to disproportionality in the child welfare system, and
engage agency staff, community partners and leaders in eliminating
those problems. Illinois' collaborative approach to reform is closely
aligned to the successful model of agency action and stakeholder
involvement used in Texas.
NAPCW DISPROPORTIONALITY WORK
Nationally, NAPCWA has made the issue of disproportionate
representation of children of color in the child welfare system one of
its highest priorities. Public child welfare administrators recognize
that disproportionate representation and the disparate treatment of
certain cohorts of children exist in child welfare; furthermore, NAPCWA
acknowledges that the over-representation of these cohorts negatively
impacts child and family outcomes. As a result, NAPCWA has focused on
developing materials and tools to help members assess how their
agencies are performing under a more systematic and systemic approach.
Our most recent effort is the development of the Disproportionality
Diagnostic Tool created to help state and local jurisdictions examine
disproportionality.
The Disproportionality Diagnostic Tool helps users examine
societal, agency, and individual factors that may be contributing to
disparate treatment of certain groups of children (e.g. African
American or Native American Indian children). The tool provides a
preliminary assessment to help users identify and analyze the root
causes of disparate treatment that children of color tend to face. The
tool also contributes to the agency's understanding of baseline data
about the existence of disproportionality in child welfare.
NAPCWA will be improving the diagnostic tool by adding a section of
written guidance, including reflective questions that child welfare
agency personnel should consider as they develop a plan of change and
move to take corrective action against disproportionality and
disparities within their agencies. APHSA's Policy & Practice magazine
will also feature an article about the diagnostic tool this winter to
raise continual awareness about the issue.
As another effort to reduce disproportionality and eliminate
disparities, NAPCWA, in partnership with Casey Family Programs, is
leading a national project called the Positioning Public Child Welfare
Initiative: Strengthening Families in the 21st Century (PPCWI). PPCWI
is designed to reform child welfare by positioning the field to speak
with one voice about its purpose and roles in improving outcomes for
vulnerable children, youth and families; the principles and standards
that guide the work of the field and its professionals; and the ways in
which the field evaluates itself and continuously innovates. Because
disproportionality has been a historically pervasive issue throughout
the child welfare system, the issue of disproportionality is addressed
as an area of concentration in the PPCWI project. A Disproportionality
Subcommittee comprised of subject matter experts are currently
concentrating on developing written guidance to be used by the child
welfare field.
POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
The Commission and NAPCWA recommend several actions that Congress
should take to support states in their efforts to curtail the systemic
continuation of disproportionality and disparity.
First, states are already struggling to meet existing program costs
with limited fiscal resources. Their ability to continue to develop
initiatives and implement strategies that address disproportionality
and disparity within the child welfare system will require additional
Federal support.
In addition to increased funding to support state-level work around
disproportionality, a strong Federal commitment to addressing
disproportionality and disparity may be demonstrated by including
carefully considered process and outcome measures in the Child and
Family Services Review (CFSR). This addition to the CFSR should be
accompanied by additional technical assistance and support to states as
they work to effect change in their systems.
The issue of disproportionality should also be incorporated into
training and education for future child welfare professionals, mandated
reporters, and workers within other systems. Congressional support for
this integral element of preparation and workforce development would
ensure that the next generation of professionals working with children
and families enter the workforce aware of this issue and better able to
address it. Federally supported research around this issue would
further enhance the efforts of both the current and future child
welfare workforce, and other system professionals to reverse the trend
of disproportionality and disparity.
Recent legislation developed and championed by this subcommittee
has highlighted the need for Federal support of subsidized
guardianship. We urge Congress to extend IV-E funds to relatives who
assume legal guardianship of relative children. We also urge Congress
to support relative care givers by offering them the opportunity to
benefit from Kinship Navigator Programs and other family connection
services. Finally, we urge Congress to consider legislation that will
more fully support reunification services to aid children in returning
to permanency with their family of origin.
CONCLUSION
Illinois is one of many states that are struggling to address
institutionally embedded disproportionality and disparity through
efforts grounded in ``bottom-up'' processes of practice and policy
change, as well as the principles of community engagement. We ask that
members of the subcommittee support states in this bold and important
work by taking steps to more fully support the systemic reform and
policy development that is needed to reverse the decades-old trend of
disproportionality and disparity in our country's child welfare system.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I'm happy to answer
any questions you may have.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Oronde A. Miller is the director of something called
systems improvement methodologies at Casey Foundation. If you
could take a moment to tell us what that is.
Mr. Miller.
STATEMENT OF ORONDE A. MILLER, DIRECTOR, SYSTEMS IMPROVEMENT
METHODOLOGIES, CASEY FAMILY PROGRAMS
Mr. MILLER. Thank you, and good morning, Mr. Chairman and
Members of the Subcommittee. I am Oronde Miller, senior
director of systems improvement at Casey Family Programs.
While this work is important to me professionally, it is
also important to me, personally. In 1972, my brother and I
were placed in foster care. After being separated for a period
of time and one failed adoptive placement, we were placed with
our permanent family in Detroit, Michigan, through Homes for
Black Children, an adoption agency there in Detroit, Michigan.
I and Casey Family Programs thank you for the invitation to
testify today before the Subcommittee about promising State and
community-based programs and policies to address racial
disproportionality in child welfare. I would ask that my full
written testimony be entered into the record.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Without objection.
Mr. MILLER. Casey Family Programs is the nation's largest
operating foundation focused solely on providing, improving,
and ultimately preventing the need for foster care. In 2005,
Casey called for a comprehensive change of foster care and the
child welfare system to safely reduce the number of children in
foster care by 50 percent by the year 2020, and reinvest
savings to improve the well-being of children and their
families.
As part of our strategic efforts, we are investing $2
billion of our endowment to improve outcomes for children who
are at risk, or who are already involved in the child welfare
system.
A number of States have begun to identify and address
racial disproportionality in child welfare. Texas is one State
that has been particularly comprehensive and innovative in
their scope of work.
The Texas experience illustrates six core elements for
addressing this issue. The first element is build political
will to reform the child welfare system overall, with a focus
on prevention and early intervention. In Texas, after a number
of tragic child welfare cases, the child welfare agency, State
legislature, and Governor committed to improving the entire
child protective services system. The redesign added
significant resources, which reflected a strong political
commitment to improving safety for all children, and increased
supports for relative care givers.
These additional resources and the following programmatic
initiatives have produced significant results, not the least of
which is a reduction in the number of children entering care,
with the greater reduction in those jurisdictions where the
State focus is on disproportionality efforts.
The next essential element is data analysis. The political
climate I just described created an opportunity for child
welfare agencies to talk about racial disproportionality. This
was possible, however, because the State had begun collecting
and analyzing data years before the reform efforts began. Their
research found that, even after controlling for factors such as
poverty, children of color were more likely to enter care, and
fare worse once in care.
Given the data and political support, child welfare
officials committed to make a cultural shift within the State
child protective services system. Data should be collected by
race and ethnicity, age, and gender, taking into consideration
the characteristics of the population, analyzed by region,
office, and even supervisory unit level whenever possible. This
level of data allows States to target their response and
prioritize interventions.
Casey Family Programs supported research conducted by
Chapin Hall Center for Children, which found that age is a
critical factor in racial disproportionality. They report that
both placement and disparity rates are consistently higher for
infants. They also found that these disparities at the county
level vary in relation to characteristics within population.
Texas officials were committed to operating a values-based
leadership approach. Child welfare managers and staff evaluated
how their own practices and day-to-day decisions affected
outcomes for children of color in care, as well as their
families. They also developed a culturally competent workforce,
which includes both training and skills development of current
staff, as well as efforts to create a more diverse workforce.
They also implemented the community engagement model, which
is based on the understanding that community members are best
equipped to create solutions that work for their specific
needs, which creates necessary stakeholder buy-in.
Finally, Texas employed targeted recruitment of foster and
adoptive families who can meet the needs of children and youth
who continue to wait for permanent homes.
States and communities across the country have implemented
a range of additional initiatives that I would like to
highlight, but in the interest of time, I will refer to my
written comments for a full description, and just briefly
mention a few topical areas, such as: cross systems
collaboration; performance-based contracting and accountability
on racial disparities across the continuum; the identification
and engagement of fathers, paternal relatives and members of
the extended family support network in the case planning and
decisionmaking process; and, finally, the identification of
community-based organizations and support resources available
to assist families. This is only a small snapshot of the
exciting and promising work being done at the State and local
level.
We believe that the following Federal policy
recommendations will help States take these initiatives to
scale where they do exist, and help more communities develop
them, if they are just beginning to take on this work: invest
Federal resources and prevention activities that keep children
safely out of foster care; two, improve efforts to locate
relatives and engage them in placement decisions that serve the
best interest of the child; three, grant Indian tribes and
native children and families equal access to all Federal child
welfare supports; four, allow Federal training dollars to be
used to train the full continuum of workers who work with
children and families who come to the attention of child
welfare; and five, collect data on the disproportionate
representation of children of color in all stages of child
welfare involvement at the Federal level, and require States to
have in place a plan to collect such data at the State and
regional level.
In addition, mandate the States create a plan in
collaboration with key stakeholders, including families, birth
parents, alumni of foster care, courts, and other child and
family serving agencies to address any disparities that are
revealed.
We applaud this Subcommittee and the House for passing H.R.
6307, which includes provisions that address a number of these
recommendations.
In closing, as I participate here today, I do so with a
strong belief that change is possible, and that the outcomes
that we seek can be achieved, but time is of the essence. On
average, each day in America, approximately 800 children are
removed from their homes and placed in foster care.
Approximately half of those children are children of color.
I thank you for seeking real change on their behalf, for
having the courage to address the issue of racial
disproportionality in child welfare, and for seeking to learn
about what is working at the State and local level.
Casey Family Programs is available as a resource to this
Subcommittee, or to individual Members, for more specific data,
best practices, or technical assistance, as you continue to
pursue policy solutions to this issue. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Miller follows:]
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Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you for your testimony. Mr.
Conquering Bear.
Mr. CONQUERING BEAR. Good morning.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. You are from South Dakota, is that
correct.
Mr. CONQUERING BEAR. Originally, yes.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Originally? Okay.
STATEMENT OF DARYLE CONQUERING BEAR, FOSTERCLUB, STONEHAM,
COLORADO
Mr. CONQUERING BEAR. Chairman McDermott, Ranking Member
Weller, and the Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for
inviting me to testify today. I thank the Members of the
Subcommittee for their commitment to creating a better life and
a better future for the half-a-million children who are living
in foster care today.
At the age of 13, I was removed from my family and my
Lakota Sioux tribe. I was placed in foster care in Colorado.
Five years later, at the age of eighteen, I aged out,
completely on my own. During the five years I spent in foster
care I lost touch with my siblings, became disconnected from my
tribal customs, and drifted from placement to placement.
I moved four times during the 5 years I was in foster care.
Living in two group homes and two foster homes, adjusting to
different schools and rules each time I moved, made it harder
to stay connected to both my heritage and my family. I was
separated from my grandmother, the one person that connected me
with my culture and my heritage. I missed so many important
moments: my sister's birthday, my brother's high school
graduation, and holiday celebrations.
Traditionally, Native American Indian families are very
close. Before I entered foster care, my younger sister was my
best friend. As the oldest brother, my role would be to pass
along my knowledge to my younger siblings.
In foster care, however, I was separated from my brothers
and sisters. At first, we saw each other every week, and tried
to stay in touch as much as we could. Then my brothers and
sisters were moved to another town. I didn't see them for over
a year. One brother ran away from his group home, and I was
sent to a placement far away.
Being separated from your family is unbelievably hard for
anyone. It is particularly hard for a child or a teenager, but
when you are separated from your family, and isolated from your
traditions and culture, it is even more difficult. Foster care
took both my family and my culture away.
When I was young, I looked forward to the day I could
participate in powwows and sweat lodges, rites of passage that
in my culture would mean I was becoming an adult. In foster
care, I wasn't able to take part in those cultural events that
meant so much to me. As a result, I often feel like an outsider
in my own Lakota Sioux tribe in South Dakota and in Colorado.
My experience is not, unfortunately, uncommon. Many other
American Indian children have similar stories to mine.
I am convinced one reason I lost connection to both my
culture and my family is that most tribes cannot access Federal
child welfare funding to help them serve the children and
families in their care. More than 560 federally recognized
tribes are struggling to meet the needs of their members, but
current Federal law does not allow tribes to receive the direct
title IV-E funding that would help pay for these services, only
those tribes that have developed special contracts, where their
States can be reimbursed for providing supports and services to
children and families.
This inability to directly access Federal foster care funds
limits tribes' capacity to meet the needs of children and
families in crisis. As a result, tribes are only able to
provide services to 30 to 40 percent of Native American
children in foster care, and there is little or no capacity for
tribes to engage in efforts to help children and families
remain safely together.
Tribal children often must go in the care of State
agencies, reducing the chance that they and their families will
receive services that are specifically geared to their culture
and community.
Thanks to the leadership of this Committee, especially
Chairman McDermott and Ranking Member Weller, earlier this
summer the House unanimously passed the Fostering Connections
for Success Act, H.R. 6307. Among its many important
provisions, this bill addresses one of the biggest barriers
facing tribes in their ability to serve abused and neglected
tribal youth like myself.
The bill would allow tribes to receive direct Federal
foster care funding, so that more American Indian children and
families could remain intact, and children would be able to
stay strongly connected to the two things that define them:
their family, and their culture.
Many experts agree on this policy, including the National
Non-Partisan Pew Commission on Children and Foster Care. The
Pew Commission studied the nation's foster care system, and
recommended that Indian tribes have the option to directly
access funding to title IV-E. A recent report joined by Pew and
National Indian Child Welfare Association finds that American
Indians and Alaska Native children are over-represented in
foster care, and at more than 1.6 times the expected level.
In foster care, it shows that American Indian and Alaska
Native children are less likely than other children in foster
care to have experienced abuse, but more likely to have
experienced neglect. States with the greatest over-
representation of Native American children in foster care
include Alaska, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota,
Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, and Washington. Native American
children make up one fourth to over one half of the foster care
population in South Dakota, my home State, Alaska, Montana, and
North Dakota.
My experiences in foster care have taught me how important
tradition, culture, heritage, and family are. Today, I am
voicing the hopes of American Indian and Alaskan Native young
people across the country who are currently or have formerly
been in foster care.
My name is Daryle Conquering Bear, and I am waiting to
reconnect with my grandmother, who I lost in touch with, as a
result of leaving my community of the Lakota Sioux tribe when I
was placed in foster care. We ask you very simply to make
certain that other children don't have to endure the
unnecessary losses so many of us have experienced.
Right now, as we listen to my story, there are more stories
taking shape, stories of native children being removed from
their homes and being placed with strangers, losing their
brothers and sisters. More importantly, losing who they are as
individuals, losing their culture. We hope that Congress will
change child welfare legislation to give tribes the ability to
serve their children and families with culturally appropriate
care and understanding.
American Indian and Alaskan Native kids and families have
waited long enough. The time for real lasting and meaningful
reform is now. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Conquering Bear follows:]
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Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you very much. Thank you all,
particularly Daryle for telling your own personal story.
One of the questions I have in listening to the witnesses
today, and I am interested, there are many places where you can
jump in in the system and have an impact.
The whole question of the referral to the child welfare
system, that sort of intake position. In my experience, there
were lots of policemen and social workers from other sources
who wind up making the decisions. What States have had the best
success in injecting services at the front end to prevent
children from being taken out of the family.
Is there anything you have to recommend, in terms of what's
going on, either in your own States or places that you have had
opportunities to look at, that would suggest a way to use
additional money or resources to cut off the intake? That is,
stop the number who come into the system in the first place. We
know what happens to them once they get in; they are kept
longer, and so forth.
So, it seems to me, one of the places we would like to have
an impact is how to prevent them from getting there in the
first place. Would money, for instance, kinship money, have
made it possible for Daryle to stay with his grandmother? These
kinds of questions arise in my mind.
So, I would like to hear those of you who are involved.
Tell us what you have found, what you think.
Dr. HARRIS. I would like to respond. One of the programs
that the State of Washington is looking at is a program in
Ramsey County, Minnesota. What they have done, in terms of
child protective services and referrals, is the following: they
have a very elaborate screening process in place, in terms of
hiring workers for their system. Workers are screened, they are
trained prior to hiring, so that their rates of cases coming
into child protective services have dropped by the thousands,
and it's because people are screened before becoming CPS
workers.
What happens in a lot of States, we have people who are
working in child protective services who are not ``professional
social workers,'' they don't have the background to adequately
assess these cases. Consequently, we have inappropriate
referrals coming in. Some children who are in CPS could
actually be served in their own homes.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Mr. Miller.
Mr. MILLER. I would like to share some of our observations
and experiences working with three jurisdictions in particular.
One is Ramsey County in Minnesota, one is Guilford County, in
North Carolina, and the other is the State of Connecticut,
particularly in Waterbury. Each of those jurisdictions----
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Are these rural counties? Ramsey? I
don't know the----
Mr. MILLER. Ramsey County is, yes, the St. Paul/Minneapolis
area.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Okay.
Mr. MILLER. Guilford County is the Greensboro area in North
Carolina.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Okay.
Mr. MILLER. In Connecticut, it is in Waterbury.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Okay.
Mr. MILLER. Each of those jurisdictions, and this really
speaks to some of what was presented in the written testimony,
but process with partnerships. Particularly, we are working
with the school systems, because they found that their highest
referrals were coming from the schools.
So, they developed really close working relationships, and
it involved retraining the staff at the school, both
counselors, administrators, and teachers on mandatory reporting
requirements. What they also did was develop a pretty elaborate
process of identifying community-based organizations that
provided services to children and families, because the schools
were familiar with those organizations.
When they observed whether it had to do with cleanliness,
hygiene, clothing, parent supervision, but it wasn't
necessarily inappropriate to refer it to the child welfare
agency if they didn't know of any other resources, but if they
knew of other resources, they could go to those resources to
try to identify services and supports for those families.
So, in each of those jurisdictions, they went through a
pretty comprehensive process of identifying what existed in the
community, and developing resource summaries for the schools
and for other entities in the community.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Did they have similar results as Ramsey
County? Did Guilford and Danbury [sic] reduce the number of
kids referred.
Mr. MILLER. They did. They reduced the number of referrals,
which were their highest, from the schools, and diverted those
families to community-based resources.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Okay. Ms. Solomon.
Dr. SOLOMON. In Illinois, our child protection workers are
able to screen calls that are inappropriate for coming into
care, particularly related to poverty. We can refer them to our
TANF agency and refer them to community-based organizations to
get care.
The other part of this is that the state of child welfare
is that many child protection workers are reluctant to screen
children out, because all it takes is a headline in the State
agency, it's under scrutiny and lawsuits.
I think the other part of it is that there exists racial
bias in the reporters. We know some health professionals are
more likely to report children of color to child protection
services, as opposed to non-children of color.
I think it is important for us to look at how we can train
all mandated reporters to be sensitive to the cultural needs
and cultural foundations of other ethnic groups. So, I think we
have to look at how we train social workers, and how we train
mandated reporters. So, money coming into the child protection
system to help deflect children, that's important, but also
training.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you. I remember, myself, I have
seen the whole panoply, from the days when we didn't have
mandatory reporting, and passed the laws in the State
legislature, and then watch it go into effect. So, you are
right, there are real biases that exist.
Mr. Weller will inquire.
Mr. WELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and again, thank you
to our panelists for your testimony. Mr. Chairman, it is
particularly helpful when we have those who bring life
experiences to this issue, which both Mr. Miller and Mr.
Conquering Bear have shared with us.
Daryle, I particularly want to thank you for your
compelling testimony, and personally sharing the experiences
you have had. I would like to ask you a few additional
questions, based on your testimony.
For you personally, what difference would it have made for
you, as an individual, if you had been able to be placed in
foster care with another member of your tribe, or within your
tribal community, rather than with the State.
Mr. CONQUERING BEAR. Being placed with another Native
American family, or even with my grandmother, I would probably
not even be at the place that I am right now. Right now, I am
struggling for independence. I am independent right now, and
being part of my culture, relearning every aspect of it is
pretty hard, because my cousins who are my age, they are
already at sun dances, they're at sun lodges right now. The
Sioux nation is going on a powwow that is part of my culture,
where I'm supposed to be at. I am here. I am outside. I go in
and watch.
So, if I was placed with my grandmother, there would be a
whole lot of changes. I would be proud, and I would be more
appealing to the Lakota Sioux tribe than I am right now. Being
placed in foster care, I have become an outsider. Every time I
go back on the reservation, it takes many steps for me to even
get my tribal ID, as an example.
They see being placed in a foster care as kind of a
disgrace to the family. If I was placed with my grandmother,
the transition to my adulthood, and manhood would be smoother
than it is right now, being placed in foster care.
Mr. WELLER. What steps have you had to take to reconnect.
Mr. CONQUERING BEAR. To reconnect? Well, at first, when I
was placed in Colorado, I didn't even know that, in the Indian
Child Welfare Act, that they're supposed to ask me if there
were other family or relatives who could take me in.
Seeing that Native Americans have substance abuse, all my
family was on the reservation. That was one place I guess they
didn't want to place me with, but my grandmother lived in
Colorado at the time, and I did not know that until I was at
the age of 17, getting ready to age out.
So, we finally had contact, with the help of my foster
parents, who are now my adoptive parents. There was that step,
knowing where she was, and then finally getting my tribal ID.
They asked for my birth certificate, my Social Security card.
If they all had that in my file, I wouldn't have bypassed those
steps, instead of going back on the tribe. They're like, ``We
can't help you.'' What can you do? I am stuck, as a foster kid
at the age of 17. What am I supposed to do.
Mr. WELLER. In your testimony, you stated that you had
moved five times during the 5 years you were in foster care,
that you lived in two different group homes and two different
foster homes, and that you made the point it was difficult to
adjust to different environments, different families, different
situations, different schools. That particularly made it
difficult to stay connected with your heritage.
From the standpoint of being able to do well in school, how
did that affect your ability to progress, along with your
peers, in the classroom in school.
Mr. CONQUERING BEAR. Well, when I was first placed in
foster care, I was moved to a group home. Then, for that time,
they said, ``Two weeks, you're going home,'' and I was like,
okay. Then 2 weeks turned into 3 months, 3 months turned into a
year. Then I was placed into a foster home. That didn't work
out. I went back to the group home. Then, at the age of 14, I
moved into a foster home where I then stayed until I aged out.
I went from an urban high school to a high school in the
middle of nowhere where I graduated with a class of 10. So,
being able to have my education at one high school was very
great, and also having foster parents that were really, ``Hey,
this is my child,'' and that were there for me, and really
helped me, but still, that cultural aspect was still missing.
During my senior year, I had my brothers and sisters in the
State of Colorado. I finally spoke up and was like, ``Can I
have my brothers and sisters move with me?'' I had to go in
front of the court. I don't know about the system, but that was
one step taken that I was passing down the knowledge of my
customs to them. Hopefully they can learn.
I picked up some of my culture while I was in care, but not
all of it. It was a struggle, still.
Mr. WELLER. It grows from your testimony you are a strong
advocate of allowing tribal governments to directly access
tribal IV-E funds, something I have personally been a strong
advocate of, so I welcome your support for that provision, and
appreciate the Chairman agreeing that should be a priority in
the bipartisan bill that we passed, with unanimous support from
our colleagues.
Besides allowing tribal governments to have direct access
to these Federal funds, what other recommendations would you
share with us regarding tribal youth and foster care, things,
initiatives, that we should consider.
Mr. CONQUERING BEAR. Well, one thing that, I don't know if
this still falls under the title IV-E, but there was just a
recent article in the ESPN magazine. If we can connect
something with the youth that will provide them a stable foster
home with a native family, because I know on the reservation
they have kinship care, but they don't report it to the State.
My cousin, who was featured in that story, had something to
look forward to something, to have a goal with them. I know
with that, they have an opportunity to go play college ball if
they stayed in high school, on the reservation, and they got
picked up by an Indian school.
So, saying that having some kind of leadership based on
Native American--I know that in Colorado we have the Denver
Indian Health and Child Center. One of the members is really
promoting the culture, headmaster, head dancer. If we could
have somebody go down or be connected with foster care like
that and have them look up to you, big brother or big sister
thing, being native, being the same culture where you come
from, that would have really been helpful, or would be helpful
for my other brothers and sisters.
Mr. WELLER. Thank you. Thank you, Daryle. You are very well
spoken. We appreciate your testimony this morning.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Ms. Berkley will inquire.
Ms. BERKLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you
holding this hearing. I think it's very important. Daryle, I am
sure that your grandmother is very, very proud of you. I think
all of us are very impressed with not only what you have gone
through, but what you have become. So thank you for being here.
I represent the State of Nevada. And 7 percent of the
children in our population are African American, but 21 percent
of those that are in foster care are African American. So,
consequently, this is an issue that we feel profoundly in the
State of Nevada.
I know what the research suggests about the
disproportionality, and all of the many reasons for it,
including poverty, and single parent homes, and limited access
to services. We certainly have all of that and more in the
State of Nevada.
One area that the people that run these programs in my
district and in the State tell me would be of help in reducing
the disproportional share of African American children in
foster care is the expansion of benefits to kinship caregivers,
which is a huge issue. I have met with many grandparents,
aunts, and uncles who have taken in children with no help
whatsoever, and how challenging this is, to add additional
people into your family, when you're struggling to keep your
head above water as it is, with the responsibilities that you
already have.
I think many of us are cosponsors of the Kinship caregivers
Support Act, and the ``Fostering Connections for Success Act,''
which would expand assistance to relatives in the form of
subsidized guardianship payments. I think that's very
important, and I would like to see us move forward on that.
I have introduced legislation, and I believe it is very
similar to the Chairman's legislation on child welfare. My
legislation is called ``The Partnership for Children and
Families Act.'' Now, in Nevada, to give you some idea of how
much stress and strain is on the foster care program in our
State, in two short years, between 2004 and 2006, the number of
foster children that we have in the system has increased by 30
percent. I suspect that when the statistics are in from 2006 to
2008, we will see a similar, if not higher, percentage of
increase.
Consequently, the legislation that I introduced, and is
very similar to the Chairman's, is very important for my State,
and for the children that are in foster care. Among other
things, my legislation would allow States to set up a baseline
for projected child welfare expenditures. If the States were
able to spend less than the baseline by safely reducing the
number of removals of children from their homes, or expediting
placement to a safe, permanent setting, then the difference
could be reinvested back into the system in the form of support
services or training for child welfare workers.
I wanted to ask Mr. Miller and then Dr. Solomon. Mr.
Miller, in your testimony, you mentioned the six core elements
of addressing disproportionality, including reforming the child
welfare system to increase the focus on prevention and early
intervention, investing those resources up front, and keeping
our kids out of the foster care system is not only better for
the kids, but it's also cost effective.
Can you give me some idea of how this additional funding
for preventative services would impact disproportionality.
Mr. MILLER. On a number of levels. This certainly is the
case in Texas, where the more detailed description comes from,
and certainly from the other jurisdictions that we have had the
opportunity to support and work with.
The largest thing for the jurisdictions is for the
jurisdictions, but also for community-based organizations to
have access to resources to provide services to families. That
includes substance abuse treatment services, it includes child
care and other resources for families who work particularly
awkward hours and very challenging hours, families that work at
night, families that work evening shifts, and what have you,
what people might consider non-traditional hours.
Some of it is basic support, whether it is items for the
home, like beds and other kinds of items, upkeep and
maintenance for homes, some of those things that can, in a
relative sense, easily remedy some of the challenges that
families are facing.
So, just jurisdictions having access to resources that they
can use to make some of those changes, it would prevent
families from having to lose their children.
Ms. BERKLEY. It seems like a no-brainer, doesn't it? Yes, I
know.
Mr. Chairman, I have one more quick question of Dr.
Solomon, if I may. Okay.
Dr. Solomon, in your testimony you mention the need for
increased Federal support to States to help them provide
prevention services to at-risk children and families. Do you
think that legislation such as the reinvestment portion of my
pending legislation could have a beneficial effect on the
disproportionality in foster care.
Dr. SOLOMON. Yes, I do. I think allowing States to be
creative in identifying and creating State-specific solutions
is definitely helpful. As we look at how to address racial
disproportionality, as I stated in my testimony, States are
using their own resources. I think legislation such as yours
will allow them to apply, again, specific programs, services,
and create programs that are unique, not only to the State, but
also to the different counties within the State. So, I see your
legislation as being helpful.
Ms. BERKLEY. Well, I want to thank you all again for being
here. I appreciate it. I know in a State like mine, that has so
many needs and has three shifts, so you've got a lot of non-
traditional families and work situations, that I have met so
many truly wonderful families and relatives that want to take
care of these kids, and they just can't afford it. A little
help from the State or the feds would make such an
extraordinary difference, it would give them an opportunity to
take care of their loved ones, and that's what they want to do.
Thank you.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Mr. Weller will inquire. Or Mr. Herger,
excuse me. They look exactly alike; I don't know what's the
matter with me.
[Laughter.]
Mr. HERGER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
join in thanking each of our witnesses for your testimony
today. It is great to have you, Daryle, to hear your story,
even with all the incredible challenges that you have been
through in your life.
I can tell you, sitting up here, to think of someone when I
was your age, testifying before a Subcommittee of Congress, to
say it would be terrifying to me would be an understatement. To
see how well you handle yourself, how well you are doing
certainly speaks to you, and the great example you can be, and
role model you can be to those who need help.
Certainly, Mr. Miller, to see you doing so well, coming
through the system, what you are doing is so very important.
The fact that there are disproportionate numbers of kids
abused and neglected, or even killed, is a terrible tragedy. It
is a tragedy for any child to be abused or neglected. During my
6 years as Chairman of this Subcommittee, we spent a great deal
of time focusing on abuse and neglect in our child welfare
system, and we heard some incredibly tragic stories.
What we focused on then, and what I would like to focus my
question on today and this question has been brought up by
several other members on the panel, is what we can be doing in
Congress to prevent this abuse and neglect from occurring in
the first place.
In 2004, I introduced legislation that would have reformed
the Federal child welfare system. Right now, as the Federal
funding system is structured, the financial incentive is there
to place and keep kids in foster care. To me, that's the wrong
incentive. It contributes to excess numbers of children in
foster care, as we are discussing today.
My 2004 bill would have given States more flexibility in
spending Federal money up front for prevention activities and
other services to prevent abuse and neglect in the first place.
Mr. Miller, again, you have referred to this some, but do
you think that these reforms, giving States flexibility to
spend current Federal dollars on prevention activities would
help, and what more can we do to see that this type of front-
end prevention-based approach is promoted.
I might add this. As you are undoubtedly aware, we are
tight with funds here. We are spending more than what's coming
in. So, particularly, I would be interested in what you see
perhaps we can redirect to spend in a wiser way. Again, if we
can spend it up front to help prevent this before we get into
the cycle of what you have been through, where we go from
family to family, I would be very interested.
I also want to State that I want to thank the Casey
Foundation, which has been so instrumental in working in this
area in the work that you are doing. Again, I would like to
further hear your comments.
Mr. MILLER. What I would say is that I think that the
efforts to increase the flexibility that public child welfare
agencies have to draw on resources for prevention activity, I
think that's the right direction.
What I would also say is that I think that there are
examples around the country of jurisdictions who have been very
creative. I think one of our challenges really is to better
understand what those jurisdictions have done, and how
effective they have been. I think that could really guide our
efforts, moving forward. Particularly, I look at jurisdictions
like Los Angeles, and some of the creative work that they have
done.
I think that there is more that we can learn from
jurisdictions that have been successful. So, I don't mean this
necessarily in a disrespectful way for anybody who is involved
in this work, but sometimes I think that we get into a space
where we think that there are new answers that we just haven't
discovered. I really think that we have strong success stories
around the country, and I think part of our challenge is better
understanding what has worked.
Mr. HERGER. I thank you. Anyone else have a comment, and
would like to respond? Ms. Brown.
Ms. BROWN. I would just like to add that in our survey with
State child welfare directors across the country, we did hear a
lot of the same kinds of things, as far as the fact that they
would like to see more flexibility and a greater emphasis on
prevention in the front end, before children do run into
trouble and enter the system.
The other thing that I heard consistently in these stories
was the fact that data helped people understand where the
problems began, and what the sources were. To the extent that
we can continue to collect meaningful data that sheds light
both on what other kinds of prevention services are needed, as
well as what works, I think it would be very helpful. We
actually suggested that HHS do more of this in our report.
Mr. HERGER. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you. Mr. Stark will inquire.
Mr. STARK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have some good news
for those States who choose to do the right thing. I will tell
you, Dr. Harris, Dr. Solomon; Ms. Brown knows this, but Mr.
Miller is going to find out, that for 40,000 African American
children in foster care, we suspect that they are eligible for
survivor or disability benefits, and they're not getting them.
That's $400 a month, $5,000 a year.
There are 30,000 foster care children now receiving those
benefits. The trouble is that some States, who I choose not to
identify here for fear of embarrassing the highest ranking
member of this Subcommittee, some States take that money and
just dump it in the general fund. It belongs to the kids, by
law. Although we had a little fight, up to the Supreme Court,
but the States put it in their general fund pocket, and they
can pave roads with it, or pay for cops, or build prisons,
whatever they want to do, and they don't give it to these
children.
Think a minute. Most of the children qualify because of a
disability. Some qualify because they are orphans, and they get
a survivor benefit. I am going to submit to you that, in either
case, those almost 100,000 kids out of the 500,000 are the most
severely hurt, because they have a disability of either being
an orphan or a disability that is a physical disability.
So, if we did what I think is the right thing, and I am
hoping that I can get certain States to change their mind, and
other States to come along. California, by the way, Mr. Herger,
does the right thing. That money, by law, belongs to the child.
The State gets a hold of it because they become the guardian.
Most guardians have to report to Social Security each year
what they do with that money, either spend it on the child's
behalf which, in the case of a disabled child, would mean maybe
getting them treatment, extra help at school, tutoring, perhaps
medical help that they might need. If, in fact, they get it as
a survivor, it could be saved.
I am going to ask Daryle what he would have done if he had
had 4 years and put $5,000 a year. If he matured out of being
in foster care, wouldn't it have been nice to have $20,000 set
aside in a savings account, which you could have used for
education, or to buy a car, or to move out.
Now, what I think we're doing is the wrong thing. I didn't
go to law school, so I can't define shyster, but it comes
pretty close. There are companies who go to States and they
say, ``Let us go through your list. We will find the kids that
are eligible for these benefits, and then we will turn it over
to the States, and we will take something off the top, a
commission for finding them.'' So, not only do the States not
get the full tilt, they have to give some to these highbinders
who go through it.
I guess what I am going to ask you all is that shouldn't
we, in a matter of fairness, take this money, which goes to the
most severely challenged children in our system, and act as
good guardians for them, and do what the law intended, either
spend it on their behalf, or save it for their adulthood, which
is what the law would require for, say, children of regular
parents.
Is there anybody, I won't embarrass Dr. Harris, Ms. Brown I
am going to ask to do more research on this, to certify my
numbers, but Mr. Miller, Dr. Solomon, what do you think? Would
you support that law? The States won't like it who get it now,
because it goes to pay salaries.
Dr. SOLOMON. I think you have more wisdom on this topic
than I do.
Mr. STARK. Yes.
Dr. SOLOMON. It's a complicated issue. So, as a scholar, I
need to see more research, and I am looking for a report----
Mr. STARK. Okay, I get you----
Dr. SOLOMON [continuing]. From GAO on this.
Mr. STARK. You gave me some of the information, didn't you,
Ms. Brown.
Mr. Miller, can we get Casey Foundation to help us raise
some money for these poor kids.
Mr. MILLER. I would just like to reiterate that I think
that both are very important, just in terms of the prior
discussion about flexibility, but also increased resources, and
jurisdictions really using those resources to support children
and families.
Mr. STARK. Yes, but there is no guarantee that they do.
That's the problem. The States can just pop this money into the
general fund and use it for whatever they want.
I would stipulate with you if they used it for the kids,
they would make a difference, but in most cases, they don't.
The States' answer is, ``Well, we have a burden of supporting
the foster care system,'' which is true.
I am talking about the most critically damaged children
because, in addition to the problems of foster care, they have
a problem of a disability. I am hoping that I am going to get
some sympathetic help here from the States other than
California, which do the right thing, as we change the laws a
little bit to require the States to handle this money properly.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for letting me trash the State of
Washington.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. I will remember that.
[Laughter.]
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Mr. Davis will inquire.
Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me, if I can, ask
the panel about something that has been of interest to me for a
while, and it is the persistent problem in recruiting African
American families, particularly African American families who
are reasonably upper income, who have the means to adopt.
I was looking at the briefing material that the Committee
prepared, and I think that HHS did a review in the first part
of this decade, and found that something like less than half,
21 of 50 States, were actually deigned to be sufficient or
successful in recruiting minority families.
So, I wanted to ask two questions. What States are doing a
good job? Empirically, what are they doing.
[No response.]
Mr. DAVIS. Don't want to ask everyone to respond at the
same time, but who is doing a good job of recruiting minority
families to adopt.
Dr. SOLOMON. Well, I think one issue that we have always
said and looked at is that African American families adopt
equally to non-African American families. So that's one part.
As for the adoption of Safe Family Act, there was no moneys
or any penalty attached to non-recruitment, but State agencies
are required to recruit based on the racial composition of
children coming into care, but I don't think there was any
moneys there to support recruitment, and also any, and I don't
like using the word ``penalties,'' but there were no penalties
or any accountability around recruitment.
So, I think the first step is to start there. What's the
accountability, and are we putting moneys there to support more
recruitment.
Mr. DAVIS. Let me maybe come at it this way, because
obviously, financial incentives are a part of it; making sure
that families get the benefits that they need.
Let's take, hypothetically, a black lawyer at a firm in
Atlanta who is making $200,000 a year, his wife is a doctor at
the hospital, she is making $170,000 a year. Whether or not
they adopt, I suspect, is not based on a set of financial
incentives, particularly if they have a reason they can't
conceive, don't have children of their own, or just want an
expanded family, and see a social need to do this.
I know we're a Subcommittee, I know we're a Government
Committee, and we have resources, but put the resource question
aside for a moment. What is it that we can do, in terms of
affecting cultural mindsets? What is it that we can do, in
terms of encouraging more African American families of means to
adopt? What cultural social message do we need to carry.
Mr. MILLER. I would like to say I think that there are----
Dr. HARRIS. I think that we need to get the message out
there, that there are African American children who need homes.
We have, in my community, there are middle class African
American families who do have the resources to adopt children.
They don't know that these children are out there, waiting for
families.
I volunteer for the Children's Home Society of Washington,
to actually go out and recruit families. I am not getting paid
to do this, but it is something I am doing on my own, because
there are infants, there are young children, who need homes. I
am going around to churches, particularly targeting churches
with middle-class families, to try and find families for these
children.
I think that we need to educate middle class and upper
class families about the adoption process. Some families have
very negative messages that they have received regarding social
service agencies and the adoption process.
Mr. DAVIS. Well, my time is running out, but I would just
make this observation. There have been times when we have
managed to change mindsets. We reduced smoking in this country,
as we have educated people about the dangers around it, for
example, and we changed our notions about welfare in the mid-
nineties.
I think it would be very interesting for the Committee and
for the congress to look at the question of what kind of
advertising, what kind of message we could engage in at the
State level with the agencies to try to let African American
families know, because I would only disagree with one thing you
said, Dr. Harris.
I can't imagine that anyone well educated and well heeled
doesn't understand there are a lot of black kids who don't have
families who are in foster homes. I suspect it's not that they
don't know about the problem, but I think that, for whatever
reason, they are not motivated or instigated to engage
themselves by going out and adopting.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Mr. Miller, you were going to say
something earlier.
Mr. MILLER. Yes, and I will be brief. What I wanted to say,
a couple of things. One is that I think there are very
effective programs that are out there. One that I think most
people, or a lot of people, are familiar with is One Church,
One Child. So, that motto has been adopted around the country.
I don't know that jurisdiction----
Mr. DAVIS. What do they do, exactly? What does One Church,
One Child do.
Mr. MILLER. One Church, One Child started in Virginia, but
it really is a model for recruiting, targeted recruitment
efforts of families to adopt. The program really started with a
focus on recruitment of families to adopt black children. So a
lot of jurisdictions have adopted that motto and approach.
There are a lot of programs and private agencies who have been
very effective at doing it.
I think one of the problems that I have experienced is that
public child welfare agencies don't always have the dedicated
staff to follow up with families, and so there are, in fact,
many families that come in, and since you're raising the
question, African American families that come to the child
welfare agency and inquire, but the child welfare agency isn't
always as timely in responding. A lot of that is just because
of resources, physical human resources, to respond to the
inquiries that come in, and to keep those families engaged.
Psychologically, it takes about a year for families to
really make the commitment after they have started to think
about it. So, somehow, agencies being able to stay connected to
those families after they express an initial inquiry, until
they start the licensing process, is challenging for agencies
to really dedicate the staff to really reach out and stay
connected, and keep those families engaged.
If agencies had more staff time or dedicated resources to
really make those connections, keep them coming to the interest
meetings and what have you, then they would probably increase
the rate of adoption of children, and particularly African
American and other cultural families staying engaged through
the licensing process.
Mr. DAVIS. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.
Mr. WELLER. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Yes.
Mr. WELLER. As Dr. Solomon knows, actually, the One Church,
One Child program was actually started at Holy Angels on the
south side of Chicago in Illinois. So, we take the pride of
ownership of that as a program which HHS and so many others----
Mr. DAVIS. They make good presidential candidates from the
south side of Chicago, too.
[Laughter.]
Chairman MCDERMOTT. You get a rebuttal.
Mr. WELLER. I am going to refrain from getting into common
politics and presidential politics here, but I do want to note
that that One Church, One Child program is a program that is
successful. It has received national recognition. Minority
children have been the primary beneficiaries of this program.
I would ask unanimous consent if we could put some
additional information at this point in the record this
program, because it's a program where churches agreed to share
information, and encourage someone in the parish or within the
church to provide an adoptive home.
So, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Without objection.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Also, if there are questions that
members want to put to any of the witnesses, they want to send
them in writing, there is no objection to doing that, as well.
Dr. Solomon, you have been held up here, so you get your
say, too.
Dr. SOLOMON. Well, thank you. I do support what Mr. Miller
stated, in terms of having more--looking at how child welfare
agencies respond to families who are interested in adopting.
Also, I do want to state that the NAPCWA is in support of
the adoption incentive program that is currently before the
Senate that will focus on recruitment.
So, I think, as child welfare agencies look at how they
respond to families, and particularly African American
families, because many families are reluctant to come forward,
there is a lot of the information you want to know, background
information that's important when you're placing children, but
how you help families agree to open up and to share information
not only about the parents, but children in the home as well.
So, it is a difficult process that requires some more
sensitivity training by the child welfare staff when they start
going into the homes and into communities. This is not just a
family for your upper-class families, but it's for families who
are concerned about the well-being of children. Thank you.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. I am going to take the prerogative of
starting a second round of questions here for a second, if
other Members want to ask other questions.
My question to you, Dr. Solomon, it wasn't a throw-away
line exactly, but it was a line you just stuck in your
testimony, and didn't follow up on. I wonder, it's been nagging
at me as I have listened to all this, and that's the business
about how much is the fear of the newspaper headline driving
the intake of youngsters into the system.
That is, I know that's kind of an amorphous question, but I
would like to hear you talk about it. If others want to respond
to that whole issue, every State has a child welfare law based
on some horrible example of what has happened in that State. I
do recognize it and I would like to hear you talk about that.
Dr. SOLOMON. Well, as you know, we have had some serious
cases in Illinois, where there were about six or seven children
living in poor conditions. When that hit the headline, the
child worker, the child welfare investigator, several
supervisors, their careers were put at jeopardy.
When that happens, the message to the other child welfare
investigators and workers is that it's better to bring children
in, to protect your career, if you will, than to err and leave
the children at home, and for something to happen two or 3
months later, because you never, as a professional, you never
recover from that.
So, it's best to bring children in, and to have someone
monitor the case, to provide resources to support the family,
than to say, ``Well, maybe this family, they don't need to come
in, but if something happened to that family, I don't want to
risk the chance.'' It's really just that simple.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Does the level of experience, or the
level of training make any difference? That is, somebody was
talking about Ramsey County in Minneapolis or St. Paul. If you
screen and you train very carefully those folks that you give
this responsibility to, does that make a difference in terms of
their ability to take the risk that is inherent in letting a
kid stay in a home setting.
Dr. SOLOMON. Well, let me answer you this way. First, yes,
it makes a difference.
If there is one child in your State or your district----
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Jurisdiction.
Dr. SOLOMON. Right, is injured or severely maimed, that's
an issue. So, all it takes is one child. I can be a perfect
caseworker and make good decisions on 99 of my cases, but that
one case, that's all it takes.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Okay. Mr. Weller, have you got any
further questions? If not----
Mr. WELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If we have any further
questions, we will submit them to the witnesses for the record
in writing.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the panel.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you to all the witnesses. The
meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:33 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[Submissions for the Record follow:]
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Statement of Darlene King
My name is Darlene King and I am providing my testimony for the
Members of this Committee to hear the silent voices of families who
have improperly lost their children to the child welfare system. The
issue of Disproportionality in Foster Care is only a part of the
problem.
I am community advocate who sits on the Building Community Partners
Committee with Michigan Department of Human Services Family to Family
Initiative in Grand Rapids Michigan Kent County and Our minority
community is targeted by zip codes 49507, 49506, 49504, for removal of
our children. Falsified documents are generated to keep the children in
the system longer and Termination of Parental Rights are massive. The
limited services offered to families are only between 9 to 5 and makes
it an obstacle to get the children back also extended family are never
included.
These Contracting Agencies have no oversight or accountability
therefore children remain in the system for years if they are not
adopted The State of Michigan has a budget of $16,000 dollars for each
adoption finalization that is given to the contracting agency which is
why children remain in foster care it is profitable for the agency to
intentionally keep the children in foster care, and for each foster
care license for relative caregivers the agency receives $2,300 for
each facilitated licensure.
The Office of Children's Obudsman, can only make policy
recommendation that go nowhere and The Bureau of Adult and Children
Licensing, give 6 month provisional licensures to the contracting
agencies when a violation is substantiated and the contracting agency
only are required to send in a correction action plan which is never
implemented. Targeted Case Management Fund directs them to target
populations which are minorities because they will qualify for special
needs funds. There is no other way for these families to access
services.
MCI Michigan Children's Institute is headed by one man
Superintendent William J Johnson who is the guardian over the State of
Michigan's State Wards and he is neither elected nor appointed as he is
a civil servant yet he is the final decisionmaker in adoption he knows
nothing about the culture of families in minority communities because
he does not meet with them. Relative placement is not implemented as it
should be and Family Preservation is non existent
If you want to reduce the disproportionality in foster care stop
taking the children, all you have to do is provide the services.
Statement of Elizabeth Bartholet
My name is Elizabeth Bartholet. I am a Professor of Law at Harvard
Law School, and Faculty Director here of the Child Advocacy Program. I
have taught and written about child welfare issues generally, and child
maltreatment and foster care issues specifically, for more than two
decades. I am the author of two books and many articles addressing
these issues, including Nobody's Children: Abuse and Neglect, Foster
Drift, and the Adoption Alternative (Beacon 1999). I have focused
significant attention during this time on issues of race in the child
welfare system, and have authored many articles on such issues,
including a leading article on race matching and transracial adoption
entitled Where Do Black Children Belong: The Politics of Race Matching
in Adoption, 139 U. Penn. L. Rev. 1163 (1991). Selected publications
are listed on my website at www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/bartholet.
I am now at work on a major article addressing the issue of Racial
Disproportionality in the child welfare system, the topic of your
hearing. I am troubled by the nature of the Advisory for this Hearing,
as it appears to buy into ideas about the nature of Racial
Disproportionality that I think are fundamentally flawed. I hope that
the Subcommittee will take into account a full range of views on the
issues.
There is no question but that African American children enter and
remain in the foster care system in disproportionate numbers as
compared to their percentage of the general population and as compared
to children of some other races and ethnic backgrounds. I will refer to
this as Racial Disproportionality. I share the Subcommittee's view that
this represents some kind of problem. But the question is, what kind of
problem.
There is a large and powerful group of advocates promoting the idea
that Racial Disproportionality results from racially discriminatory
decisionmaking in the child welfare system, and that the solution is to
stop removing as many black children from their parents, and to do more
to reunify those removed with their parents. I'll refer to this as the
Racial Disproportionality Movement. This Movement bases its assumption
about discrimination on the claim that black and white rates of child
maltreatment are the same, and relies as the Subcommittee Advisory does
on the National Incidence Studies for support of this claim. The
problem is that this aspect of the NIS studies has been persuasively
debunked by respected scholars, and there are many reasons to conclude
that blacks have higher child maltreatment rates because as a group
they are disproportionately associated with characteristics that have
been generally agreed to be valid predictors for child maltreatment,
including poverty, single parent status, and serious substance abuse.
Assuming that black children are being removed to foster care
because of actual serious maltreatment rather than discriminatory
decisionmaking, it would be dangerous for black children to pursue the
Movement's goal of keeping more black children at home--it would put
more children at risk of ongoing serious abuse and neglect.
This does not mean we should do nothing. Racial Disproportionality
is a problem even if it is better for black children at risk of
maltreatment at home to be removed to foster care. Black children
should not be maltreated in the first place, and although foster care
serves as a protective institution for those who are at risk at home,
it is still true that children maltreated and then removed to foster
care, will as a group not do especially well in the future.
But the solutions for this problem are very different than those
proposed by the Racial Disproportionality Movement. The appropriate
solutions are to focus more efforts and resources on up front child
maltreatment prevention programs--programs such as Intensive Early Home
Visitation which reach first-time pregnant women and give them the kind
of supportive services that can prevent them from falling into the
patterns that generate child maltreatment.
I hope that the Subcommittee will look into the Racial
Disproportionality issue in depth, and not accept the simplistic
analysis and related prescriptions for ``reform'' that will be pressed
upon it at this Hearing, and that were uncritically adopted in the GAO
July 2007 report addressing Racial Disproportionality.
I have attached hereto as requested my testimony on a related
matter, in which I responded to the Donaldson Institute Report calling
for amending the Multiethnic Placement Act. In this testimony I rebut
the Donaldson Report's various claims, and I urge Congress to reject
the call to amend MEPA.
__________
Response to
Donaldson Institute Call for amendment of the Multiethnic Placement
Act (MEPA) to Reinstate use of Race as a Placement Factor
CCAI Briefing
6/10/2008
Dirksen Senate Office Building
by Elizabeth Bartholet
Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Child Advocacy Program,
Harvard Law School
I am here speaking on my own behalf, but I am also authorized to
speak on behalf of the National Council on Adoption, the American
Academy of Adoption Attorneys, the Center on Adoption Policy, and
Harvard Law School's Child Advocacy Program, for which I serve as
Faculty Director. We all join in urging you to resist any attempt to
amend the Multiethnic Placement Act, an Act that took a hugely
important step forward to protect black children from delay and denial
of adoptive placement, an Act which the Department of Health and Human
Services has only recently begun to vigorously enforce, an Act which
has begun to make an important difference for children.
I have devoted a good deal of my professional life for more than
two decades to studying issues of transracial adoption. I wrote what is
generally considered the leading law review article, in which I dealt
extensively with the social science related to transracial adoption,
and also with the evidence as to the impact on black children of pre-
MEPA race-matching policies, policies which resulted in holding
children in foster care for months, years, and often their entire
childhood, rather than placing them in other-race homes.\1\ I have
written many articles and book chapters since, bringing that research
up to date.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ ``Where do Black Children Belong? The Politics of Race Matching
in Adoption,'' 139 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1163 (1991).
\2\ ``Commentary: Cultural Stereotypes Can and Do Die: It's Time to
Move on With Transracial Adoption,'' 34 J. Am. Acad. Psychiatry Law
315(2006); ``The Challenge of Children's Rights Advocacy: Problems and
Progress in the Area of Child Abuse and Neglect,'' 3 Whittier J. Child
& Fam. Advoc. 3 (2004); NOBODY'S CHILDREN: ABUSE AND NEGLECT, FOSTER
DRIFT, AND THE ADOPTION ALTERNATIVE (Beacon Press, 1999); ``Private
Race Preferences in Family Formation,'' 107 Yale L.J. 2351 (1998);
FAMILY BONDS: ADOPTION, INFERTILITY, AND THE NEW WORLD OF CHILD
PRODUCTION (Beacon Press, 1999), originally published as FAMILY BONDS:
ADOPTION & THE POLITICS OF PARENTING (Houghton Mifflin 1993).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is that research, and that evidence, which I have followed over
the years to date, that led me to the position that we needed MEPA in
exactly the form we have
it today, in order to protect black children from the devastating
damage that delay in adoptive placement causes.
As a result I worked closely with Senator Metzenbaum and those in
Congress supporting him in the struggle to get MEPA passed in its
current form. I'm very familiar with the goals of the MEPA legislation,
both the 1994 version, which is the legal regime that the Donaldson
Institute wants us to return to, and the reasons that Sen Metzenbaum
and others felt it essential in 1996 to amend MEPA to give us the law
that we have today.
I have also testified at the Congressional hearing held to
investigate problems with MEPA enforcement in the early years. And this
past fall I testified at the hearing held by the U.S. Civil Rights
Commission on the very same topic raised by the Donaldson Inst.
Report--whether there is any need to amend MEPA. Notably the CRC has
not called to date for any legislation amending MEPA, and I think,
based on the tone of that hearing, it is exceedingly unlikely it will.
I urge you if interested in the CRC's views to consult with the Chair
at that hearing, Abigail Thernstrom.
The Donaldson Institute Report at issue in today's briefing (5/27/
08) calls for a change in MEPA so that it would again allow what MEPA
was designed to prohibit the use of race to delay or deny adoptive
placement. Congress should ignore this Report, and I assume it will
have the sense to do so. The requested amendment to MEPA would return
us to a regime in which social workers try to ``match'' foster children
waiting for homes with same-race parents, delaying and denying adoptive
placement as occurred pre-MEPA.
By authorizing state officials to use race to decide important
issues regarding family formation, this amendment would fly in the face
of our Nation's body of civil rights law, and almost surely be found
unconstitutional by the courts. Federal and state civil rights laws
uniformly forbid any use of race as a factor in official
decisionmaking. MEPA in its current form is consistent with that great
body of law. MEPA regulations make clear that race can only be used in
truly exceptional cases and consistent with what is known in
constitutional law as the ``strict scrutiny'' standard. This is exactly
what is called for to satisfy the U.S. Constitution, which forbids the
use of race by official decisionmakers except in an extraordinarily
small category of cases.
A great deal of work and thought went into the development of MEPA,
and into the regulations and guidelines issued by the Department of
Health and Human Services interpreting and applying MEPA. Similar work
and thought has gone into implementing MEPA throughout the land, with
the first major enforcement decisions issued in 2003 and 2005.\3\ We
now finally have civil rights law governing foster care and adoption
that is consistent with the rest of the nation's civil rights law and
with the Federal Constitution. The burden of proof is on anyone who at
this stage, when we are finally beginning to reap the rewards of this
process, wants to roll the law back. The Donaldson Report has done
nothing to meet that burden.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ These decisions appear on my website at http://
www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/bartholet/ under Adoption Resources, MEPA
Decisions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Donaldson Report consists of little more than a series of false
and misleading claims. First is that the Report is a ``research-based''
publication, and that the Institute is ``the pre-eminent research''
organization in the field. The Donaldson Institute is well-known in the
adoption area as an advocacy organization committed to the idea that
birth and racial heritage are of central importance, and this Report is
an advocacy document, endorsed by organizations with well-known
hostility to MEPA. There is nothing wrong with advocacy. But nobody
should be deceived that this Report contains a fair-minded, unbiased
assessment of the facts or the social science research.
A second Donaldson claim is that MEPA is not working to enable
increased numbers of black children to find adoptive homes, as it was
supposed to. The fact is that transracial adoptions have increased
post-MEPA, although not yet as much as we might hope. But it takes time
for laws to have an impact, and it is only recently that the Federal
Government began serious implementation efforts, issuing its first
enforcement decision in 2003, with that decision not upheld on
administrative appeal until 2006.\4\ In any event, there is certainly
no reason to think that recreating a barrier to transracial adoption as
the Donaldson Report calls for will do anything other than make it
harder to find homes for waiting children. The fact is that more than
half the kids in foster care are kids of color, and the overwhelming
majority of the population of prospective parents is not color-matched
for these kids. Recreating race as a reason to disqualify prospective
parents, and deter them from even applying, is not the way to find more
homes for the waiting children.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A third claim is that MEPA harms black children by preventing
social workers from adequately preparing transracial adoptive parents
to raise black children. However MEPA allows such preparation as any
fair reading of the law and the HHS Guidelines makes clear. Many many
agencies throughout the land are currently engaged in educating and
socializing prospective parents regarding racial issues pursuant to
this law and these Guidelines. Nothing in the current law requires that
social workers operate on a race-blind or color-blind basis in helping
prospective parents understand the challenges involved in transracial
parenting, or in preparing prospective parents to meet those
challenges, or in enabling prospective parents to decide if they are
capable of appropriately parenting other-race children. Nobody that I
know in the large group of those who support the current MEPA regime do
this because they believe in an entirely ``race-blind'' system or
because they don't think race matters. Of course race matters, and of
course social workers should be free to talk about racial issues as
they educate and prepare prospective parents.
What MEPA forbids is segregating the transracial from other
prospective adopters, and subjecting transracial prospective parents to
a pass-fail racial attitude test, a test in which they can be
disqualified if they don't give the state-determined ``right'' answer
to complex issues about how to address children's racial heritage. It
also forbids otherwise using race as the basis for eliminating
prospective parents. History tells us what would happen if social
workers were again empowered to use race in making adoptive decisions,
even if they were to be authorized only to use race as ``a factor,'' as
the Report argues.
I'll mention just two pieces of that history. First, the fact is
that from the seventies until MEPA's passage the Federal Constitutional
rule was that race could be ``a factor'' but not the determinative
factor in adoptive decisionmaking, the same rule the Donaldson Report
calls for, and in the name of that rule state agencies engaged in rigid
race-matching, often locking black children into foster care for their
entire childhood rather than placing them across racial lines. The 1994
version of MEPA forbid the use race to delay or deny placement, but
permitted the use of race as ``a factor.'' Senator Metzenbaum came out
of retirement to help pass the 1996 amendments to MEPA because he and
others had concluded based on seeing how the 1994 MEPA was working,
that it was not working, that allowing social workers to use race as
``a factor'' meant that they were continuing to use it systematically
to delay and deny placement, and accordingly the 1996 amendment changed
the law to forbid social workers from any use of race as a basis for
decisionmaking.
The second bit of history I'll mention are the cases in Ohio and
South Carolina that triggered the Dept. of HHS's first two MEPA
enforcement decisions. I urge all who might even contemplate the idea
of following the Donaldson recommendation to amend MEPA to read these
decisions for themselves. These decisions show in horrifying detail how
social workers who thought they had the power to use race as ``a
factor'' in screening prospective transracial parents used that power.
The decisions describe case after case in which black foster care
children with serious disabilities were denied homes with eager
transracial adoptive parents based on decisions that the parents had
the wrong friends, or the wrong paintings on their walls, or went to
the wrong church, or lived in the wrong neighborhood, with the children
then relegated to waiting in foster care yet longer for that needed
permanent home.
A fourth Donaldson claim is that there is new research
demonstrating, in contrast to prior research, that transracial adoptees
have ``problems.'' The fact is that the entire body of good social
science still provides no evidence that children suffer in any way by
being placed in a transracial rather than a same-race home, and it
provides lots of evidence that children suffer by being delayed in
finding permanent homes, as they are when we reduce the number of
eligible homes by using race as a placement factor. The alleged ``new
and different'' research relied on in the Report shows only that
different parents may have different parenting styles, and that
different parenting styles may have an impact on children's attitudes
including some of their ideas about racial matters. This is hardly
surprising or new, and it says nothing about whether children are
better or worse off by virtue of transracial as compared to same-race
parenting. Indeed despite misleading claims in the Report's Executive
Summary, the relevant section in the body of the Report concedes that
the research does ``not provide sufficient basis for reaching
conclusions about the level of problems experienced by Black children
in foster care who are adopted transracially compared to those adopted
by Black families.'' (P. 29)
The Donaldson Report also expresses concern that there has not been
enough recruitment of prospective parents of color so that their
numbers would match the kids of color in the foster care system. The
fact is that such recruitment has gone on for decades, with the result
that black Americans adopt at the same or higher rates as whites, which
is surprising given the socio-economics of race and the fact that it is
usually the relatively more privileged who feel capable of stepping
forward to do the volunteer parenting that adoption represents. In any
event, MEPA in its current form already provides for the kind of
recruitment that the Report calls for, so there is no need to amend
MEPA in order to enable such recruitment.
The reality is that most of the children needing permanent homes in
this country and in the larger world are children of color, while most
of the people in a position to step forward to adopt are white. The
additional reality revealed by the research on transracial adoptive
families is that love works across color lines. If we want children to
have the permanent homes they desperately need, we must recognize these
realities. I urge the CCAI and Congress to reject these calls to move
backward in time, and instead to embrace MEPA in its current form.
__________
ELIZABETH BARTHOLET
Education:
J.D. magna cum laude, Harvard Law School,1965; Harvard Law Review,
1963-65
B.A. cum laude in English Literature, Radcliffe College,1962
Employment:
Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA, Professor of Law, 1983-present
Morris Wasserstein Public Interest Professor of Law, 1996-present
Faculty Director, Child Advocacy Program, 2004-present
Assistant Professor of Law, 1977-83
Founding Director and President, Legal Action Center, New York, NY,
1973-77
Counsel, Vera Institute of Justice, New York, NY, 1972-73
Staff Attorney, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., New
York, NY, 1968-72
Staff Counsel, President's Comm'n on Law Enforcement & Admin. of
Justice, Washington, DC, 1966-67
Selected Committee and Board Memberships:
Harvard Embryonic Stem Cell Research Oversight (ESCRO) Committee,
2007-present
Legal Action Center: Board of Directors, 1977-present; Vice-Chair
of the Board, 1998-present
American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, Honorary Membership, 1992-
present
Boston Fertility & Gynecology Association, IVF Ethics Committee,
1991-present
U.S. State Department Advisory Committee on Intercountry Adoption,
1990-2000
Brigham and Women's Hospital, Assisted Reproductive Technology
Ethics Committee, 1990-present
NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc., New England
Committee, 1994-98
Selection Committee for Harvard University Nieman Fellowship
Program, 1996-97
American Association of University Professors, Committee A on
Academic Freedom and Tenure, 1990-93
Society of American Law Teachers, Board of Directors, 1977-89
Civil Rights Reviewing Authority of the United States Department of
Education, 1979-81
Board of Overseers of Harvard College, 1973-77
Executive Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of
New York, 1973-77
Overseers' Committee to Visit Harvard Law School, 1971-77
Bar Memberships:
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1978-present
United States Supreme Court, 1969-present
District of Columbia, 1967-99
State of New York, 1965-98
Arbitration and Mediation Associations and Panels:
American Arbitration Association (AAA)
Labor Panel, 1980-present
Commercial Panel, 1995-present
Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, Roster of
Mediators, 1998-2002
American Postal Workers Union and U.S. Postal Service, Regular
Arbitration Panels, 1988-1999
Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, Roster of Arbitrators,
1991-present
Mediation Research & Education Project, Inc., Mediation Panel,
1995-present
JAMS, Alternative Dispute Resolution Panel, 1997-2004
Selected Publications:
``International Adoption: The Human Rights Issues,'' forthcoming
chapter in Michelle Goodwin, ed., BABY MARKETS, (Cambridge Univ. Press
2008)
``International Adoption: The Child's Story,'' 24 Ga. St. U. L.
Rev. 333 (2008)
``International Adoption: Thoughts on the Human Rights Issues,'' 13
Buff. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 151 (2007)
``Commentary: Cultural Stereotypes Can and Do Die: It's Time to
Move on With Transracial Adoption,'' 34 J. Am. Acad. Psychiatry Law 315
(2006)
``International Adoption,'' chapter in CHILDREN AND YOUTH IN
ADOPTION, ORPHANAGES, AND FOSTER CARE, ed., Lori Askeland, (Greenwood
Publishing Group, Inc. 2005)
``Guiding Principles for Picking Parents,'' 27 Harv. Women's L. J.
323 (2004); also published in a slightly revised form as chapter in
GENETIC TIES AND THE FAMILY, Rothstein et al, ed. (Johns Hopkins
Unviersity Press 2005).
``The Challenge of Children's Rights Advocacy: Problems and
Progress in the Area of Child Abuse and Neglect,'' 3 Whittier J. Child
& Fam. Advoc. 3 (2004)
Book Review of Rachel F. Moran's ``Interracial Intimacy: The
Regulation of Race and Romance,'' 33 Journal of Interdisciplinary
History 320 (2002)
Reply, ``Whose Children? A Response to Professor Guggenheim,'' 113
Harv. L. Rev.1999 (2000)
``Taking Adoption Seriously: Radical Revolution or Modest
Revisionism?,'' 28 Cap. U.L. Rev. 77 (1999)
NOBODY'S CHILDREN: ABUSE AND NEGLECT, FOSTER DRIFT, AND THE
ADOPTION ALTERNATIVE (Beacon Press, 1999)
FAMILY BONDS: ADOPTION, INFERTILITY, AND THE NEW WORLD OF CHILD
PRODUCTION (Beacon Press, 1999), originally published as FAMILY BONDS:
ADOPTION & THE POLITICS OF PARENTING (Houghton Mifflin 1993)
``Reporting on Child Welfare and Adoption Policies,'' 53 Nieman
Reports 74 (1999)
``Private Race Preferences in Family Formation,'' 107 Yale L.J.
2351 (1998)
``International Adoption: Propriety, Prospects and Pragmatics,'' 13
J. Am. Acad. Matrim. Law
181 (1996)
``What's Wrong with Adoption Law?,'' 4 The International Journal of
Children's Rights 263 (1996)
``Debate: Best Interests of the Child?,'' with Nerys Patterson,
Prospect, no. 11, 18-20 (Aug./Sept. 1996)
``Beyond Biology: The Politics of Adoption & Reproduction,'' 2 Duke
J. Gender L. & Pol'y 5 (1995)
``Race Separatism in the Family: More on the Transracial Adoption
Debate,'' 2 Duke J. Gender L. & Pol'y 99 (1995), reprinted as ``Debate
15: Should Transracial Adoptions Be Allowed?,'' Controversial Issues in
Social Policy, Howard J. Karger et al, 2nd Ed., 220-27 (Pearson
Education, 2003)
``Adoption Rights and Reproductive Wrongs,'' in POWER & DECISION:
THE SOCIAL CONTROL OF REPRODUCTION 177-203 (Harvard Press, 1994)
Articles based in part on FAMILY BONDS: ``Blood Knots,'' American
Prospect 48-57 (Fall 1993);
``Family Matters,'' Vogue 102-06 (Nov. 1993); ``What's Wrong with
Adoption Law,'' Trial 18-23 (Winter 1994)
``In Vitro Fertilization: The Construction of Infertility and of
Parenting,'' in ISSUES IN REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY I, 253-60, Holmes,
ed. (Garland Press, 1992, paperback ed. New York Univ. Press, 1994).
``International Adoption: Current Status and Future Prospects,'' in
3 The Future of Children No.1, 89-103 (Center for the Future of
Children, Spring 1993
``Parenting Options For The Infertile,'' in Frug, WOMEN AND THE LAW
523-30 (Foundation Press, 1992)
Book Review of Cheri Register's ARE THOSE KIDS YOURS?, 33 Harv.
Int'l. L. J. 649-53 (Spring 1992)
``Where Do Black Children Belong? The Politics of Race Matching in
Adoption,'' 139 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1163 (1991)
International Adoption: Overview,`` chapter 10 in ADOPTION LAW AND
PRACTICE (Matthew Bender 1988, Supp. 1997)
``Proof of Discriminatory Intent Under Title VII,'' 70 Cal. L. Rev.
5 (1982)
``Application of Title VII to Jobs in High Places,'' 95 Harv. L.
Rev. 945 (1982)
Consulting and Advisory Arrangements:
Project Consultant to The Hastings Center, Reprogenetics Project,
resulting in related report entitled ``Reprogenetics and Public Policy:
Reflections and Recommendations,'' by Parens and Knowles, Hastings
Center Report Special Supplement (July-August, 2003).
Selected Honors and Awards:
Henry J. Miller Distinguished Lecture Series at Georgia State
University, 2007
Sullivan Lecture at Capital University Law School, 1999
Massachusetts Appleseed Center, Award for Advocacy on Behalf of
Foster Children, 1998
Radcliffe College Alumnae Recognition Award, 1997
Morris Wasserstein Public Interest Chair at Harvard Law School,
1996
Open Door Society, Friends of Adoption Award, 1994
Catholic Adoptive Parents Association, Media Achievement Award,
1994
Adoptive Parents Committee, Friends of Adoption Award for Adoption
Literature, 1993
Statement of Joe Salmonese
Written Statement of Joe Solmonese President Human Rights Campaign
to the Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support
On behalf of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), America's largest
civil rights organization working to achieve gay, lesbian, bisexual and
transgender (GLBT) equality and our over 700,000 members and supporters
nationwide, I submit this statement about the barriers which often
prevent prospective gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals
or families from becoming foster or adoptive parents.
In an effort to increase the number of permanent families for
children in foster care and to maximize efforts to identify relatives
who can become the legal guardian for children in the foster care
system, we must ensure the removal of barriers faced by prospective
gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender foster/adoptive parents and
guardians. We know from a recent study published by the Williams
Institute at UCLA that two million GLB adults report an interest in
adopting a child or children in the future. This sample includes people
from all racial and ethnic categories, and suggests that there is a
potential pool of African-American and Latino GLBT parents, both single
and couples, who would strongly consider adopting from foster care if
they were encouraged to do so.
Recently, the issue of whether same-sex couples should be able to
adopt was again in the headlines. A presidential candidate stated that
he believed that only traditional ``two parent'' families should adopt,
even in light of the thousands of children and youth still waiting for
what they deserve--a permanent family. Such a position is nothing more
than an opinion based on personal beliefs, and does not reflect the
myriad of facts and findings from over 30 years of peer-reviewed
research concluding that children raised by gay and lesbian parents do
just fine compared to those raised by heterosexual parents, nor is it
the opinion held by the leading national child health and welfare
organizations, including the Child Welfare League of America, the
American Academy of Pediatrics, North American Council on Adoptable
Children, and the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, all of which
have favorable positions on adoption by gays and lesbians. A personal
opinion should never stand in the way of placing children in a loving
family, and it is irresponsible to put up barriers when there are
thousands of GLBT individuals who are ready, willing, and qualified to
provide love and support to these children.
Even though most recent attempts at the state level to ban or
restrict foster and adoptive parenting by gay and lesbian parents have
failed, GLBT people continue to experience discrimination in the
adoption process. The discrimination may be blatant, such as laws or
policies that restrict or prohibit adoption by lesbian and gay people
(Florida, Utah, Mississippi laws and religiously affiliated agencies
that have written policies which forbid placement of children with GLBT
adults), or a more subtle form of rejection by agencies that will
accept applications from GLBT individuals and same-sex couples but has
no intention of placing ``certain children'' with this population and
often treats them as a family of ``last resort.'' These negative
experiences keep many loving, qualified adults from taking their first
step toward foster/adoptive parenting. Research shows that ``word of
mouth'' is the most effective recruitment tool, and in the GLBT
community the ``word of mouth'' all too often is that we will be held
to higher standards, more closely scrutinized, and will wait longer for
placement of a child. For GLBT people of color, the dual stigma of
being gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender AND a person of color often
generates more anxiety about whether and if one can expect to be
treated with respect, dignity and viewed as a viable resource for a
child in need of a permanent family.
In addition to the potential pool of foster/adoptive parents who
are GLBT people of color, there are missed opportunities within the
``relative pool'' of some children in foster care. When social workers
engage in exploring all options for keeping a child in their family of
origin, there may be relatives who are GLBT, and because of that are
not considered as viable resource, either by the social worker or by
other family members who do not approve of or believe in placing
children with GLBT parents. When a social worker is doing this ``case
mining,'' it is imperative to ask about all relatives, including those
who might be GLBT, regardless of what opinion a family member might
have about their ability to be a parent/guardian, or the perceived
``closeness'' to the family of origin.
Our recommendations for increasing the number of potential families
for children in foster care include: non-discrimination categories be
expanded to include sexual orientation/gender identity; training and
education for recruiters and other agency staff include information
about working with the GLBT community; recruitment efforts that target
communities of color be adapted/expanded to specifically reach GLBT-
identified individuals/couples within those communities.
On behalf of the Human Rights Campaign, I thank you for holding
this important hearing and for providing the opportunity to submit
testimony demonstrating how removing barriers to qualified potential
GLBT parents can help address the challenges facing our Nation's foster
care system.July 31, 2008, Statement for the Record, Washington Health
Policy Coalition, Statement
Statement of Washington Health Policy Coalition
Cover
The leadership of the National African American Drug Policy
Coalition and its affiliate Washington Healthcare Empowerment Coalition
(WHEC) hereby respectfully submit as testimony in support of the
evidence-based practice of the Kinship Care Placement Option and
further suggest to mainstream into the Child and Family Services Agency
placement protocols. Our primary concern is the lack of practice and no
attempt to place legacy CFSA wards with kin therefore remaining in
foster care and ``aging-out'' to the streets of the United States of
America.
Introduction
Washington Healthcare Empowerment Coalition (WHEC) is an affiliate
of the National African American Drug Policy Coalition (NAAPDC)
organized exclusively for charitable, scientific and educational
purposes; more specifically to advocate, identify and secure resources
to ensure access to healthcare, mental health, substance abuse
treatment and supportive services to the residents and community of the
District of Columbia. Inasmuch, the District of Columbia like other
cities throughout the United States is challenged with keeping our
children safe and in the least restrictive family environment. These
service systems struggle daily to ensure that our children's families
are secure and services are appropriate and effective in meeting their
needs. It is reported that while some children become safer and their
families grow stronger in the child welfare system, others receive
inadequate treatment, resulting in outcomes for children that fall
short of the desired goals of safety, permanence, and well-being
(Robert Hill, 2005). The Child Welfare system/services was initiated to
ensure the safety of our children and to provide services and advocacy
to ensure that these young folks will grow up to be productive citizens
of our communities. Casey-CSSP Alliance for Racial Equity in the Child
Welfare System: Synthesis of Research on Disproportionality in Child
Welfare (2006) espouse that 60 percent of our nation's children who
live in foster care are children of color; that while under state
mandated care they suffer far worse outcomes in terms of physical and
mental health, educational performance, and access to basic services
and resources despite evidence that parents of color are no more likely
than white parents to abuse or neglect their children. Albeit, the
literature of disproportionate representation of children of color in
the child welfare system has been documented for decades; that is, the
number of minority children served versus the number of children
occurring in the population show marked differences and disparities in
treatment and services. ``Hill (2005) further notes that more than half
of the 500,000 children in foster care on any day in America come from
ethnic minority families even though children from minority communities
make up far less than half of the children in this Country's child
welfare system.''
Literature Review
The words used to describe differences among children and families
of different races are ``disproportionality'' and ``disparity''. Hill
(2007) gives the following definitions: Disproportionality refers to
the differences in the percentage of children of a certain racial or
ethnic group in the country as compared to the percentage of the
children of the same group in the same group in the child welfare
system. For example, in 2000 black children made up 15.1 percent of the
children in this country but 36.6 percent of the children in the child
welfare system Disparity means unequal treatment when comparing a
racial or ethnic minority to a non-minority. This can be observed in
many forms including decision points (e.g. reporting, investigation,
substantiation, foster care placement, and exit), treatment, services,
or resources. Research shows that children of color in foster care and
their families are treated differently from and often not as well as,
white children and their families in the system. For example, fewer
African American children receive mental health services even though
the identified need for this type of service may be as great (or
greater) for African Americans as for other racial or ethnic groups. It
should be noted that when children and their families are met by the
child welfare system they are confronted with the advent of decisions
made by professionals including but not limited to caseworkers,
supervisors, agency administrators, legal professionals, school
personnel, and policy makers. At placement from the home many previous
decisions are made by these professionals to ensure that the child is
being placed in a secure environment but also their track through the
child welfare system. Paxson, (2000) indicated that the decisions that
researchers examine include: The decision to make a report of potential
child abuse or neglect to a hotline call; The decision to accept or not
a report made to the hotline for investigation (accepted report); The
decision to indicate/initiate a report following investigation
(indication of substantiation); The decision of placement in foster
care; The decision of exiting from care; and The decision of return to
care (i.e. reentry). Paxson (2000) notes that many studies have looked
at whether a child's or family's race influences the decisions
professionals make at these stages; while some earlier studies have
shown conflicting results that may have been due to study design, most
of the larger, national level studies and more recent research show
that race is related to professional's decisionmaking at almost every
stage of the process. As a child move through the system decisions made
by ``professionals'' regarding care in a wide range of services become
paramount in the child becoming a productive citizen in our society.
Hill (2007) notes that ``Numerous studies have found racial disparities
in services to people of color in a wide range of fields (Institute of
Medicine, 2002; Krieger 2003; U.S. Children's Bureau, 1997; U.S.
Surgeon General, 2001; Van Ryn & Fu, 2003; Williams, Neighbors, &
Jackson, 2003). Research studies in child welfare have revealed racial
disparities regarding the following: fewer and lower quality services,
less access to drug treatment services, and higher placement in
detention or correctional facilities (Courtney, Barth, Berrick, et.
al., 1996; Everett, Chipunga, & Leashore, 1991; Fein, Maluccio, &
Kluger, 1990; Stenho, 1990). As a result these individuals often are
lost in an ineffective system. Concomitant to which these individuals
find themselves entrenched in situations that include but not limited
to homelessness, chronic medical conditions such as HIV/AIDS, poverty,
lack of employability, non-medical care, profound feelings of despair
and hopelessness and related criminal activity. Saunders, Nelson, and
Landsmen (1993) found that child welfare system was less responsive to
the needs of black families than white families in (a) delaying
intervention until their problems were perceived as chronic and (b)
failing to address the most processing problems, such as poverty, ill
health, inadequate housing and unsafe neighborhoods. The notion of
maintaining the family intactness and reunification has remained an
important ingredient in foster care services; these intervention
techniques are not utilizing a means to reunite the family. The notion
of Kinship Care has been a part of the African American family for
decades. Services to kin families have been another example of racial
disparities in service delivery in child welfare (Berrick, Barth, &
Needell, 1994). While ``informal adoption'' or the rearing of children
by extended family members has been a cultural trait of blacks for
generations, it was not until the late 1980's that the term ``kinship
care'' was coined to denote families in which relatives raised their
kin within the child welfare system (Geen, 2003; Hill 1977). Black and
Hispanic children are about twice a likely as white children to be
placed with kin (U.S. Children's Bureau, 1997). With the advent of
crack cocaine and HIV/AIDS in the inner cities in the 1980's the number
of children placed with relatives steadily rose. Between 1986 and 2003,
for example, the proportion of foster children living with kin went
from 18 percent to 23 percent (HIll, 2007). In many large cities today,
most foster children are living with kin (Barbell & Freundlich, 2001).
Research has revealed that despite their disadvantaged economic status,
kin caregivers receive fewer services and benefits and lower financial
assistance than non-related caregivers receive fewer services and
benefits, and lower financial assistance than non-related caregivers
(Alstein & McRoy, 2000; Chipungu, Everett, Verdick, & Jones, 1998;
Gennaro, York, & Dunphy, 1998). Many kinship care families do not
receive important government benefits: 72 percent receive no welfare
benefits, about half (47 percent) receive no Medicaid support, and 40
percent receive no food stamps (Ehrie, Geen, & Clark, 2001). While some
kinship care families do receive full foster care payments, many do not
and instead rely on lower TANF (formerly AFDC) payments, while non--
relative foster families receive higher boarder home stipends; (Hill,
2007). In addition, research studies have also found that kin
caregivers are less likely than non--kin foster parents to receive
foster parent training, respite care, educational or mental health
assessment, individual or group counseling, or tutoring for their
children; this may be due in part to societal expectations that family
members should not be paid or should be paid less for caring for their
family members because of ``filial obligations'' (Schorr, 1980). It is
noted that Kin placements may contribute to longer stays for children
for children in their care (Courtney, 1994; Iglehart, 1994; Scannapico,
Hegar, & McAlpine, 1997; Wulczyn & George, 1992); also children placed
with non-relatives are three times more likely to be moved to different
homes than children in kinship care (Geen, 2003). Kinship care is also
an important cultural strength for family preservation and continuity
until biological parents are able to resume primary responsibility for
their children; moreover extended family networks have served as a
protective factor in mediating child abuse and neglect among black
families (Cazenave & Straus, 1979; Gould, 1991; Hill, 1999; McPhatter,
1997). It is further inferred that children when placed with extended
families are less likely to be involved with criminal behavior, and
less likely to be in and out of treatment. Hill (2007) notes that a
comprehensive review of child welfare research concludes that there is
``a pattern of inequity, if not discrimination, based on race and
ethnicity in the provision of child welfare services''. This is seen
when extended family members are denied custody of family members due
to economic circumstances and the children are sent to ``stay'' in
foster homes. Services to low income children and families in related
fields can make more and important contributions to reducing the
disproportionate representation of minorities in child welfare.
Increasing funding to Kinship Care is an important catalyst in the
longevity of children and family cohesiveness to ensure a sense of
family, unity, and the advent of reunification with the biological
family members. Inasmuch the following service needs and
recommendations are being made:
Service Needs & Recommendations
Child Welfare Agencies to ensure equal opportunity for Kinship Care
across all cultures if the extended family demonstrates a desire to
accept children family members in their care; 2. Child Welfare Agencies
work with other local government agencies, i.e. housing agencies to
secure funds and/or subsidies to afford housing for Kinship Care; 3.
Child Welfare Agencies work with local government agencies and/or
community based or faith based organizations to assist in Kinship Care
in providing counseling and other adjunct supportive services to ensure
the longevity of child stay with extended family members; 4. Child
Welfare Agencies work with public welfare as a means of additional
funding; i.e. Medicaid, TANF, and other financial sources to ensure a
financial solvency for Kinship Care; 5. Child Welfare Agencies begin to
develop a system that embraces, enhances and promotes parent
engagement/enhancement opportunities for our youth; Conclusion Thus, we
recommend increase funding and increase services to Kinship Caretakers
to reduce the number of African American children being placed in
Foster Care and support efforts to move in this direction aggressively
to accomplish this objective. Respectfully, Judge Arthur L. Burnett,
Sr., National Executive Director National African American Drug Policy
Coalition (NAADPC) Author: Dr. Irvin R. Barnes, WHEC Editor: Katrina A.
Wilkins, WHEC REFERENCES Bardell, K. & Freundlich, M. (2001) Foster
Care today. Washington, DC: Case Family. Programs. Barth, R. (1997).
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foster homes and foster family homes. Children and Youth Service
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and network embeddedness and family violence. Journal of Comparative
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NJ: Rutgers University Press Hill, R.B. (2005) Overrepresentation of
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