Friday, March 26, 2004

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Foster Care - Solution or Scandal?

Family Issues Friday - part 4

Last Friday, in "Protecting children from parents", I wrote that most of us probably agree that children being abused or neglected by parents should indeed be removed from their homes, or at least quickly investigated. But... we found that in seventy-two percent of the investigated cases, no abuse or neglect was found, and I described how traumatic those investigations can be to innocent families. For almost 3/4 of the families investigated, that's a serious problem, but, again, some would say "better safe than sorry" and call it a small price to pay to protect some children.

In cases where abuse or neglect was adjudged by CPS, 57 percent suffered neglect; 2 percent suffered medical neglect; 19 percent were physically abused; 10 percent were sexually abused; and 7 percent were psychologically maltreated.

To put that in perspective, of 1,000 investigations, 280 revealed some problem... 165 showed neglect, 53 showed physical abuse, 28 showed sexual abuse, and 20 showed psychological abuse.

Do you have an idea what sort of people are the perpetrators of abuse and neglect of their own children? The facts might surprise you:

In those cases where children were forcibly removed from parents, 59 percent of perpetrators were women and 41 percent were men. The median age of female perpetrators was 31 years; the median age of male perpetrators was 34 years. 84 percent of the abusers were parents, as opposed to relatives, step-parents, etc. Forty-one percent were maltreated by just their mother, and 19 percent were maltreated by both their mother and father.

The National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) reported an estimated 1,300 child fatalities in 2001. This translates to a rate of 1.81 children per 100,000 in the general population. Youngest children were the most vulnerable. Children younger than 1 year old accounted for 41 percent of child fatalities, and 85 percent of child fatalities were younger than 6 years of age.NCANDS defines "child fatality" as the death of a child caused by an injury resulting from abuse or neglect, or where abuse and/or neglect were contributing factors.

What happens when action is taken by Child Protective Services... what happens to those children? Are they better off?

Child Protective agencies place children removed from their homes into foster care. Foster parents are paid to house and care for those children.

The number of children in Foster Care for at least a 6-month period (average 33 months)

1987 - 300,000
1988 - 340,000
1989 - 383,000
1990 - 400,000
1991 - 414,000
1992 - 427,000
1993 - 445,000
1994 - 468,000
1995 - 483,000
1996 - 507,000
1997 - 516,000
1998 - 520,000

In 1995, a total of 715,743 children received out-of-home care services for some period of time, so more than 200,000 were in foster care for less than 6 months.

It's important here to point out that state CPS agencies receive federal money for each child they have in foster care. But money for Preservation and Reunification services are "capped". Actually, Family Preservation funding was TOTALLY eliminated under the ASFA (Adoption & Safe Families Act).

The financial incentives are why so many children are in foster care for trivial matters when home visitation or preservation services would have been in the child's best interests.

If you've looked at any of the references above, you've seen the statistical mass produced on child protection. Understandable truth is there, but difficult to ferret out. At this point, I want to introduce you to an organization that does that difficult statistic research, and much more. CPS Watch is a Christian charity organized in Missouri that assists families who are being victimized by Child Protective Services, and publicizes the many problems with those agencies. Here are some of the significant facts they've gleaned from official statistics

Eleven percent of all children placed in foster care were NOT victims of abuse or neglect.

Children were abused and neglected 3 times more often by state caregivers than by Parents.

Children who received "services" from CPS died as a result of abuse 16 times more often than children in the general population.

Children died as a result of abuse in foster care 5.25 times more often than children in the general population.

All data taken from Child Maltreatment 1997: Reports From the States to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System and the 1997 AFCARS Report

As I've so often written about government programs, good intentions do not lead to good results, for so many reasons that are unique to government. Child Protective Services is not oriented to assist families, but to judge them and use force on them. Certainly it's true that children sometimes need protection, but CPS is a truly miserable means to provide it. It's a tragic example of how government, by applying force, can produce "cures" that are far worse than the "disease".

# -- Posted 3/26/04; 12:01:57 AM Edit