wexwimpy

Lack of Social Services Frustrate Judges
Thu Jul 1, 1:44 AM ET
By CONNIE CASS, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Former Judge Scott McCown, who heard Texas child abuse
cases for more than a decade, still keeps a letter he received from an
8-year-old girl living in foster care and on the verge of being
officially removed from her mother's life.

me. I want my mom to not run off anymore. NO RUNNING OFF."

McCown said that letter received five years ago vividly voices what he
learned from the cases of more than 4,000 children: "Kids want their
parents."

Nonetheless, he was obligated to terminate the mother's parental
rights. The story might have turned out differently, he believes, if
substance abuse treatment had been available for the mother right
away.

The lack of timely services for troubled parents and children was
ranked the top frustration by half of judges in a national survey of
more than 2,200 judicial officers who handle foster care cases.

More than half of the judges who specialize in such cases said court
backlogs also cause delays in finding safe, permanent homes for
children in foster cares, says a report being released Thursday by a
nonpartisan public education project called Fostering Results.

"We're swamped," said juvenile court Judge Douglas Johnson of Omaha,
Neb. "And I think it's similar in other jurisdictions across the
nation."

Half a million children and ****agers are in foster care in the United
States. About half of them spend two or more years in foster homes,
according to The Pew Commission on Children and Foster Care. They are
placed in an average of three different homes.

Many parents end up on waiting lists for drug treatment, parenting
classes or psychiatric help, while their children linger in foster
care.

In some cases, the opportunity is lost if parents don't get help
quickly, said McCowan, who retired as a district judge in 2002 and now
leads a Texas research group that advocates for policies to help
children and the poor.

"When a case begins and a child is removed, that's the moment you have
the parent's attention," he said. "If you can get them that day into
services, the chances of them turning their lives around are
significantly increased. If they simply drift back to the street and
are told, 'We'll call you when we have a bed,' chances are you're
going to lose them."

Even when parents stay motivated and eager to change, the child can be
trapped in foster care for years if treatment isn't available, said
retired Cook County, Ill., Judge Nancy Salyers, co-director of
Fostering Results.

Such a child can't be returned to an unfit home but usually can't be
adopted because the parents haven't been given a reasonable chance to
improve.

In Nebraska, Johnson said, officials are trying to consolidate the
different layers of treatment — substance abuse, psychiatric
evaluation, parenting lessons, each with their own waiting lists —
that many parents need before they are ready to get their children
back.

"When we do it piecemeal, it's a slow dance, waiting to move through
the next piece," he said. "And these kids are waiting."

The Fostering Results survey was mailed in March and April to 5,149
judges nationwide, and 2,241 of them, or 43.5 percent, responded. It
was financed by a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts to the Children
& Family Research Center at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040701/ap_on_re_us/foster_care_judges_1

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fern5827

How much KINSHIP CARE is extended by DFPS?

Does the Mom not have sibs, parents or relatives that do not do drugs?

Why cannot states set up SUBSIDIZED GUARDIANSHIPS so the harm intrinsic to
*stranger foster care* could be mitigated by placment with family with whom the
child has had a relationship?

Nationally, the stats on kinship care are abysmal.

And states could easily simply provide Medicaid insurance for all children whom
it deems *at risk* thus enabling vast savings of taxpayer dollars.

Healthy children do not need much medical care, anyway.

Seems that CPS has virtually no creative problem solving skills, nor the will,
motivation nor gumption to consider a "best practices" approach.

It's all about the same old jobs creation, payoffs to preferred contractors,
and no oversight nor accountability for the children.

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