State Child Welfare Policy Guide: Part of the Policy Matters Series

Introduction

A. BACKGROUND

All children deserve the opportunity to develop and grow as part of a safe and nurturing family, and research shows that caring family relationships are critical to achieving positive outcomes for children. At times, however, parents face overwhelming challenges in their lives and need help to provide adequate care for their children. If parents receive timely and quality support during these times, children are more likely to experience safety and well-being, and families are more likely to remain intact. If no such help is available, however, temporary setbacks can become major crises. Child welfare systems play a major role in providing critical assistance to families in need. While these systems face significant challenges, major opportunities exist for adopting state policies that can help improve the key factors that impact child-safety and well-being: safe and strong families, supportive communities, and effective systems.

Key Factors Affecting Children

Three primary factors are critical to achieving positive results for children involved with the child welfare system: safe and strong families, supportive communities, and effective systems. These factors serve as the organizing framework for the policy recommendations in this report.

Safe and Strong Families

Research shows that children are most likely to thrive in their own families. At the same time, children involved with child welfare systems usually experience a variety of risks, and their families often experience multiple risk factors, such as substance abuse, mental illness, inadequate housing, and domestic violence. To reduce the harm these risks and vulnerabilities pose to children, children benefit when families can develop enhanced factors that increase the health and well-being of children, and serve as buffers against stress. Research confirms that a range of supports can help families care for their children more effectively.

When out-of-home placement is necessary, children fare better if family connections are maintained. This can be accomplished through measures such as placing children in the care of willing and able relatives (including kin with whom children have close emotional relationships), keeping siblings together, and frequent parental visitation. To promote permanence and well-being, the priority is on safely reunifying children with their parents as quickly as possible. When reunification is not possible, safety and permanence with a strong kin or adoptive family becomes critical. To promote safe and strong families, this report includes numerous policy recommendations focused on building the capacities of parents and other caregivers and enhancing developmental opportunities for children involved with the child welfare system.

Supportive Communities

In this report, community is defined as not only a geographic space, but also as a network of neighbors, service providers, and advocates who help represent and serve the needs of families involved with the child welfare system. As such, supportive communities are essential to the safety and well-being of children as part of permanent families. A family's community plays a significant role in determining its access to resources. This is especially true for families in poverty, who are more reliant on immediately accessible resources in their community. To this end, this report identifies opportunities for child welfare agencies to develop partnerships within communities to help define and deliver needed services in a manner best suited for local children and their families.

Effective Systems

All children and families are affected by public systems, including education, health, and economic support systems, and the effectiveness of these systems is essential to the safety and well-being of families. Families involved with child welfare systems are especially vulnerable to other powerful public systems -- including police, courts, and child welfare agencies -- and therefore are especially vulnerable to how responsive, effective, and well-managed these systems are, and how well they work together. Similarly, child welfare systems are subject to powerful forces, including a large and complex body of state and federal requirements, major funding challenges, and extremely high public expectations for achieving positive results with a very vulnerable population.

Elements key to system performance discussed in this report include the quality of decision-making processes and the role of families in these decisions, the effectiveness of courts, the competence and stability of the child welfare workforce, and the ability to hold the system accountable for treatment of and consequences to children and families. In discussing systems outside of child welfare agencies, this report only examines system components directly relevant to key child welfare functions.

Societal and Systemic Challenges Faced by Families

The environment in which child welfare systems operate is further complicated by multiple societal and systemic challenges faced by families, and these challenges must be taken into account in order for state policy changes to positively impact children.

Poverty

Children who grow up in poverty are more likely to come to the attention of child welfare than those who do not -- in part this is due to the additional stresses that dealing with poverty places on parents and children. The hardships associated with economic deprivation present child welfare systems with the significant challenge of separating the concept of neglect from a parent’s inability to provide for their children’s material needs. As such, the policy recommendations in this report highlight the critical role of economic assistance that, if targeted appropriately, can provide parents the crucial resources needed to maintain their families intact and nurture their children.

Racial Bias

A mounting body of evidence is revealing significant racial bias inequity in the treatment of families of color by child welfare systems. For example, research shows that African American families are no more likely to abuse or neglect their children than white families, yet African American children in circumstances comparable to white children are more likely to be removed from their parents by child welfare systems and courts. Based on these findings, the policy recommendations in this report aim to assist policymakers in identifying bias in how African American, Native American, Latino and other children and families of color are treated and to hold systems accountable for treating all children and families fairly and effectively.

Interaction of Multiple Systems

Families experiencing crises in caring for their children often face multiple challenges, and are likely to need many a variety of assistance from more than one program, agency or service system. Often, children and families slip through the cracks -- systems simply do not respond to their needs, exacerbating risks and failing to strengthen the factors that help children thrive. When multiple government agencies do become involved, these vulnerable families typically experience a tangled (and sometimes counteracting) web of requirements, directives, contacts, and services. As policy makers seek to improve the lives of children and their families, the responses of these complex systems and underlying policies must be coordinated and focused on achieving results.

The Approach Taken in this Report

In light of the factors affecting children and the challenges of the system intended to help them, this report aims to present both a broad framework for developing policy as well as specific policy recommendations. It focuses on state level as a critical point of influence for policymakers and advocates who are concerned with child well-being, and uses a structured set of criteria for defining policy recommendations.

Policy is defined here as statewide directives that drive critical decision-making processes, resource allocations, program implementation, and practice models related to the child welfare system. Policy is at times set by the executive branch through administrative directives, regulations and budget allocations; by the legislature through laws, appropriations, and oversight; and by the judiciary through court rules and allocation of judicial resources.

Focus on State Policy

This report focuses on opportunities for improving state policies. Although the federal government wields tremendous influence by developing directives and providing funding, and local governments in some states play a critical role in implementing child welfare policies and programs, child welfare policy is largely shaped by state policy. At the state level, policy makers define the services available for children and families, ensure that diverse systems work together in a coordinated fashion, and hold public agents accountable for achieving results within these systems. In addition, state policy makers provide incentives and resources to advance practice innovations, authorize expansion of exemplary practices, and provide safeguards to ensure the effectiveness of services for children and families is maintained.

Criteria for Selecting Recommended Policies

The policies described in this report represent a beginning set of recommendations for improving outcomes for children and families who come to the attention of the child welfare system. The recommendations are not exhaustive but attempt to define a select set of policies that research indicates will contribute to improved child safety and well-being as part of permanent families. The following criteria guided the selection of policies with the strongest potential for improving well-being for children and their families. The policies:

1. Demonstrate effectiveness in research, evaluation, or other studies;

2. Are supported by collective wisdom of practitioners from the field;

3. Address children and families with the poorest outcomes;

4. Possess sufficient scope and scale to address the outcome;

5. Are politically and administratively feasible; and

6. Are compatible with the values and assumptions of a family-strengthening perspective.

When selecting policies for this report, special consideration was given to the quality of evidence supporting their effectiveness. Significant challenges exist. First, research and evaluation typically focus on the effectiveness of programs or practice models, not the policy that governs those models. Therefore, this report generally presents evidence supporting program or practice, then aims to identify the state policies that support the adoption, expansion, or enhancement of the program or practice.

This report also recognizes that evidence exists in different forms. The evidence cited falls into three main categories.

· Rigorous statistical research consists of the most scientifically defensible evidence, which is derived from evaluations that use control groups, randomly assigned participation, and tests of statistical significance. Research of this sort is rarely available in the field of child welfare, in part because of the complex variables that affect every case and because true random assignment is often ethically prohibited. Where scientifically rigorous research is available, it is important to exercise caution when interpreting and generalizing findings to entire populations involved with child welfare systems.

· The second category of evidence cited in this report includes non-scientific, evaluative research. This category includes statistical research and studies that demonstrate success in operational programs or services, though they do not meet scientifically rigorous standards of evidence. Studies of this sort often present comparative data, information about program elements, and/or cost considerations that are relevant to existing policy and practice environments. This category of research also may also include extrapolations based on rigorous evidence gathered in related fields such as mental health or child development.

· The third category of research consists of practice-based evidence that reflects the best thinking of on-the-ground experts based on in-depth experience, field observation, and lessons learned.

The policy recommendations in this report are informed by evidence of all types, and the supporting evidence for each recommendation is explicitly and transparently identified.

For each recommendation, multiple policy options are presented to illustrate varying approaches that states may take in pursuing a policy. In some cases, individual policy options presented are discrete alternatives, and guidance is provided regarding which alternative is considered most effective. In other cases, the policy options listed are additive, meaning that more than one can be pursued simultaneously, and in these cases pursuing the greatest number of options available is considered the most effective course.

Challenges of Implementation

Effective implementation of a state policy can be as important as the policy itself. Some of the keys to implementation that must be addressed for state policies to have the intended impact include:

· Financing,

· Agency and professional workforce capacity and leadership,

· Quality service delivery (including program flexibility and local decision making),

· Public information and outreach,

· Accountability, monitoring, and data systems, and

· Interagency collaboration.

While this report does not include a thorough discussion of policy implementation, it does include selected recommendations related to each of these implementation challenges in certain, high priority areas.

Federal Policy Context

State child welfare polices exist within the framework set by several federal laws that guide state requirements and funding. Throughout this report, we reference provisions contained in federal legislation recently enacted through H.R. 6893, the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 (referred to as “Fostering Connections”). This legislation provides new options for states to promote permanent homes for children in foster care and addresses some of the challenges that states have experienced while trying to achieve the federally mandated outcomes of safety, permanency and well-being. Among other things, the legislation includes federally subsidized guardianship for relatives, elimination of the Title IV-E eligibility requirements for adoption assistance, and a state option to continue providing foster care assistance to youth through age 21. The legislation builds on over a decade of state and local experiments to achieve better outcomes for children in foster care, and demonstrates that state innovation can positively influence federal policy directions.

Despite the welcome advancements contained in the legislation, there are still federal policy concerns that hinder state efforts to promote safety, permanence, and well-being for children in the child welfare system. Some of these concerns are discussed in the policy recommendations section of this report. The two most prominent concerns are described below.

• Federal funding promotes foster care and adoption over keeping children safely with their own families . The majority of federal funding for child welfare is targeted toward room and board expenses for children in foster care and congregate care [i] and , more recently, for exiting foster care through adoption and guardianship. [ii] Much smaller funding sources are available for services that prevent unnecessary removal of children from their families and for services associated with helping children return and stay home through family reunification. For example, such services include emergency funding to keep families together safely, post-adoption services, and services to treat substance abuse, domestic violence, and mental health issues. In 2006 the National Governors Association issued a policy statement calling attention to this concern and recommending that Congress expand the flexibility of Title IV-E funds while preserving this program as an open entitlement. [iii]

• Title IV-E foster care eligibility provisions disqualify children in need. Eligibility for services under Title IV-E foster care is determined by a requirement referred to as the "look back" provision, which restricts eligibility to children with parents who meet the 1996 eligibility rules of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program. This provision disqualifies many children in need by tying their eligibility to their parents' income, which may have no bearing on children's access to services once in care. Further, it uses income eligibility standards that have not been adjusted for inflation in over 10 years and therefore do not match current definitions of need. In addition, Title IV-E eligibility for members of American Indian tribes and residents of U.S. territories is subject to restrictive funding caps. The National Governors Association raised concerns regarding these provisions in their 2006 policy statement and called on Congress to expand eligibility to treat all children in the child welfare system equally and, at a minimum, to adjust eligibility levels for inflation. [iv] In 2008, Congress eliminated the “look back” standard for children who are adopted from foster care, but the linkage for children in foster care still remains. [v]

Although many federal obstacles still remain, the Fostering Connections legislation can help states make significant progress toward achieving better results for children and families in the child welfare system. As the federal legislation demonstrates, child welfare systems can make substantial progress toward better outcomes through effective state-level policy reform, and in turn, federal policy can take these reforms to a national scale. This possibility has already been demonstrated through the work in many of the states and counties that influenced the most recent changes at the federal level. For example, progress toward reducing the number of foster care placements in several jurisdictions strongly influenced the most recent round of federal changes.

These state and county experiences – and the recently enacted federal legislation -- illustrate that carefully crafted state policy reform can yield results within states, and also help to positively influence the federal policy context. As the leaders of reform, states interested in continuing to improve child welfare outcomes can build on and sustain these policy innovations for continued improvement in state and national trends. This report attempts to capture the lessons from existing state and community experiences, as well as from research conducted across the country, to make further progress on the outcomes of safety, permanency and well-being. Recently enacted federal policy options that can further this progress are also highlighted. Finally, a comprehensive set of policy recommendations are summarized in Section III.

B. A FRAMEWORK FOR STATE POLICY

Key Definitions

Definition of Policy

This report defines policy as state-wide directives that drive critical decision-making processes, resource allocations, service delivery, and practice models related to the child welfare system. Policy is at times set by the executive branch through administrative directives, regulations and budget allocations; by the legislature through laws, appropriations, and oversight; and by the judiciary through administrative rules, allocation of judicial resources, and orders.

Definition of Benchmarks

In this report, a benchmark is defined as a point of reference from which measurements may be made, and/or something that serves as a standard against which others may be measured. Benchmarks convey not only the general idea of measurement but also set an explicit standard for performance. Where indicators measure a change in a result or condition (e.g., increases in age-appropriate child immunization rates), benchmarks measure such changes against an established standard. Consequently, benchmarks make possible certain judgments about the success or failure of a measured change that indicators alone do not.

For example, some children placed in foster care with a relative may be better served if their foster parent becomes a permanent legal guardian. All states provide subsidies to foster parents, but states may set subsidies to permanent guardians at a rate lower than that applied to foster parents. This inconsistency can create a challenge when a foster parent wishes to become a permanent legal guardian, as they may face a reduction in (or, in some cases, a complete loss of) needed financial assistance. Therefore, a policy discussion must not only examine whether guardianship subsidies are available, but also whether they are offered at a rate equal to or greater than foster care payments, which represent a standard or benchmark against which guardianship subsidies can be measured.

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