Study finds foster-care finance key in abuses
Article Published: Monday, May 17, 2004 - 7:12:51 PM PST 
By Troy Anderson
Staff Writer, LA Daily News

The nation's troubled foster-care programs could be improved by reforming how child-welfare systems are financed and how they are overseen by the courts, a study released today says. 

The groundbreaking study by the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care recommends stronger accountability for how taxpayer money is used to protect and support abused and neglected children. 

The recommendations, which Congress is expected to consider this summer, would give states the freedom to decide whether foster care is the right choice for a child, or whether there are other options that might keep a child safe and secure. 

"Every state has now failed the federal foster-care reviews and we've seen far too many news stories of children missing from the system or injured while in care. We must act now on behalf of the half-million children currently in foster care," said commission Vice Chairman William H. Gray, former majority whip and chairman of the House Budget Committee. 

After a year of intensive analysis, the commission, a national, nonpartisan panel funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and composed of leading child welfare experts, found: 

A federal financing structure that encourages an over-reliance on placement of children in foster care at the expense of other services that might keep families safely together. 

A court system that lacks sufficient tools, information, and accountability necessary to move children swiftly out of foster care. 

The Daily News has reported recently that Los Angeles County officials are currently pursuing a federal waiver -- a reform similar to those recommended in the Pew report -- that would allow the Department of Children and Family Services to use more than $250 million of its $1.4 billion budget to provide services to help keep families together. 

Last year, DCFS admitted that half of the children in the system had been unnecessarily taken from their families and placed in more dangerous environments because of financial incentives in state and federal laws. 

These laws, according to state documents, encourage counties and their private contractors to earn money by placing and keeping children in foster care. 

Troy Anderson, (213) 974-8985 troy.anderson@dailynews.com