Re: New GAO report on foster care and another from Urban Institute

[rbarth@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rick Barth)]

Freya Shultz's email has many interesting and valuable points.  The need to
develop and provide effective preventive services for low and medium risk and the
use of TANF to try to do that makes sense.  

This should not be based on adoption outcome research (and, especially about
concerns about those outcomes), however, as adoptions are very rare and adoption
failures are rarer, still.  I know of no longitudinal adoption data indicating
that nearly 1/3rd of adoptions disrupt (unless you restrict the age group to
children adopted when 12 or older), although there are many adoptions that have
very troubled periods.  Bob Goerge's analysis of adoptions in IL since 1980
indicates that the adoption disruption rates are going down--we seem to be getting
better at this--and are at about a 15% rate, on the whole, even when you follow
children for 10 years.  Trude Festinger's newly released study of adoptions in NYC
found no more than 5% had experienced a dissolution, over 5 years.  A lit review
on adoption disruptions and post-adoption services (short the Festinger paper) is
now available at:  http://aspe.os.dhhs.gov/hsp/PASS/lit-rev-01.htm

Rick

Richard P. Barth, Ph.D.
Frank A Daniels Professor and
Chair of the Doctoral Program
School of Social Work
301 Pittsboro Rd
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC  27599-3550
(v) 919 962 6516
(f)        962 1486

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From: "Freya Schultz" <freya@co.santa-barbara.ca.us>
Date: Wed, 03 Jul 2002 15:23:23 -0700
Subject: Re: New GAO report on foster care  and another from Urban
        Institute
To: Child Maltreatment Researchers   <CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu>
Reply-To: CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu

Thanks, Sandra.  I should have posted the link.

There is also a new report out from the Urban
Institute (link at the end of this post) on the
need to increase linkages (and I know we have a
grant opportunity with Kate Karpilow's project in
California) between TANF and CWS.  The longer
timeframes to work with an adult with parenting
barriers in TANF (up to 5 years) and the ability
to pay for services directed solely at the adult,
inherent in TANF, but very limited in CWS, along
with the 18-month "fish or cut bait" incentives
and sanctions in ASFA, make this very desirable
for reaching the less acute and low risk parents
BEFORE harm to the child accumulates.  The GAO
report referenced suggested that up to 10% of
adoptions may go wrong within the first 3 years. 
Data from Britain (I cannot remember the
reference) suggests that the long term figure may
rise as high as 1/3 of adoptions are failures. 
So, strengthening extended birth families
continues to have practical, as well as ethical
merit.

Diane Depanfilippi's work thus far (sp?) showed
that the only thing that predicted whether
lower-risk parents would have another incident of
maltreatment was whether they were receiving
services - - she came up with NO demographics
within demographics which were significant OTHER
than engagement and continuing to receiving
services.  The TANF timeframe is the only one, in
turn, which would allow this to happen, given
financial disincentives to serve Medicaid-eligible
adults with low acuteness of mental health needs
(personality disorders).  Substance abuse
disorders, for instance, apparently typically take
at least 18 months to get a relatively secure and
safe resolution, something hard to reconcile with
ASFA, especially  once you have an "acute"
situation.

I believe the issue we have discussed on this list
regarding predicting acute and catastrophic events
to overcome the onus of "doing nothing" is
important in both positive and negative ways:  

1) it is important to screen for folks with high
risk to do what can be done to mitigate risk,
rather than "doing nothing", and 

2) it is also important that one does not focus on
this issue ("acute" and possibly imminent harm) to
the extent one misses to opportunity to help those
cases which can be helped WITHOUT removing the
child from birth parents permanently (if at all). 
Too much focus misses the opportunity to do what
CAN be done to help the family.

The public expectation that whatever you DO
programmatically will totally "cure" the problem,
or completely "prevent" catastrophic harm comes
from (in my view) the overselling of program
initiatives, by politicians, to the press.  This
behooves folks who know better - - who know that
improvements can be made, but adverse events will
continue to occur and cannot be predicted to the
point of total prevention - - to continue to
educate policymakers AND the "sound-bite" press.
Economic historians like Fernand Braudel, and
others have pointed out that in history, the
children of the poor did not survive, usually, to
reproduce at all, and that the poor, as a class,
were constantly replenished by the overproduction
of children by the middle and higher classes in
each generation.  These, in turn, fell into
poverty and had their lines extinguished when
there was not enough property to sustain them.  We
are trying to stem the tide of history, and no one
should expect that that is easy.

I hope that the new Tom Cruise movie, Minority
Report, in which psychics "prevent" murders from
happening, will help to get people to understand
the absurdity in the believe that we can prevent
all adverse events, much as I do not like Tom
Cruise adventure movies.  :-)

Here is the link to the Urban Institute report

Shoring Up the Child Welfare--TANF Link; Rob Geen;
Short Takes 7; June 2002
Child Welfare agencies' reliance on TANF dollars
-- and the often
conflicting demands the two systems place on
clients -- calls for greater
coordination. Congress should encourage
collaboration between welfare and
child welfare agencies, maintain the flexibility
of TANF dollars for use in
child welfare, and IV-E to TANF eligibility.
http://www.urban.org/ViewPub.cfm?PublicationID=7761



Freya 

Freya Schultz
Staff Analyst
Santa Barbara County Social Services
234 Camino del Remedio
Santa Barbara, CA 93110
(805) 681-4626
<freya@co.santa-barbara.ca.us>

>>> Sandra.Bishop@yale.edu 07/02/02 08:10AM >>> 
In a recent post, Freya Schultz mentioned a new
GAO report. I wasn't aware 
of this report, but found it on the web at:
www.gao.gov . 
In case others are interested, the report is
entitled: Foster Care: Recent 
Legislation Helps States Focus on Finding
Permanent Homes for Children, but 
Long-Standing 
Barriers Remain. GAO-02-585 June 28, 2002 
The report discusses changes post-ASFA. 

Sandra J. Bishop, Ph.D. 
Assistant Director 
Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy

Yale University 
310 Prospect Street 
New Haven, CT 06511 
Phone: 203-432-9935 
FAX: 203-432-9945 NOTE NEW FAX # 
E-mail: sandra.bishop@yale.edu 
www.yale.edu/bushcenter 


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