On July 13, the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources heard testimony on proposals to reform the nation’s child welfare programs. This hearing is the sixth in a series of hearings to examine the federal child welfare system. Previous hearings were held earlier this year and in November 2003 (see The Source, 6/18/04, 5/14/04, 1/30/04, 11/21/03, and 11/7/03).
Arguing that Congress can no longer maintain the status quo with regard to the child welfare system, Chair Wally Herger (R-CA) stated, “Every week, stories of children lost, abused or worse yet, killed appear in newspapers across America. We owe it to them, and to the half million children in foster care, to improve the system.” He also noted that the federal government allocates more than $7 billion for foster care and adoption assistance each year, but only provides $700 million for child abuse prevention and support services. “As a result, rather than focusing on the prevention of abuse and neglect, today’s funding structure encourages the removal of children and breakup of families. That is unacceptable.”
Rep. Herger announced his sponsorship of a bill to overhaul the financing of child welfare programs that would be based on the recommendations of the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care. He explained that the draft legislation would provide adoption and foster care assistance to all children, regardless of income; and “it would give states more flexibility and more resources to protect children and strengthen families, encourage greater accountability, and reward improved performance in protecting children.”
Ranking Member Ben Cardin (D-MD) expressed his hope that Democrats and Republicans on the subcommittee could work together to introduce bipartisan legislation to reform child welfare programs. He noted the difficulties Congress has faced in reauthorizing the 1996 welfare reform law (P.L. 104-193), lamenting that states “are suffering under short-term expansions.”
Former Rep. Bill Frenzel (R-MN), chairman of the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care, presented the commission’s report, entitled, “Fostering the Future: Safety, Permanence and Well-Being for Children in Foster Care.” He explained that the report focuses on federal financing and court oversight of child welfare programs because they “are at the root of many of the problems that frustrate child welfare administrators, case workers and judges as they seek to move children quickly from foster care to safe, permanent homes or to avoid the need to put them in foster care in the first place.” Contrary to the Herger proposal, Rep. Frenzel recommended that foster care maintenance and adoption assistance be preserved as an uncapped federal entitlement to the states with some improvements. “Specifically, we call for eliminating income requirements for Federal foster care and adoption assistance or ‘de-linking’ from the 1996 AFDC [Aid to Families with Dependent Children] income standards and for treating Indian tribes and U.S. Territories as States when it comes to administering child welfare programs.” Rep. Frenzel also proposed incentives for states to seek out safe alternatives to foster care, including “an additional route to permanency through subsidized guardianship, increased flexibility in how States can use Federal child welfare dollars to meet children’s needs, the opportunity for States that reduce their foster care use to reinvest the Federal dollars saved in services to children, and the provision of bonuses to States that increase all forms of safe permanence.”
Rep. Frenzel explained that the commission’s proposals to reform family courts “focus on ensuring that courts have what they need to fulfill their responsibilities to children and to the public trust.” He suggested that every court adopt performance measures and then use the data to improve their oversight of children in foster care, that Congress provide incentives for effective collaboration between courts and child welfare agencies, and that Congress appropriate $5 million in FY2005 to expand the Court Appointed Special Advocates program.
Robin Arnold-Williams, executive director of the Utah Department of Human Services, testified on behalf of the American Public Human Services Association. In examining the Herger proposal to place a cap on federal entitlements, she voiced the association’s concern that a state that had successfully decreased the number of children in foster care would receive less funding for reinvestment in the future. She also noted that unforeseen “crises,” such as increased methamphetamine use and “crack babies,” have increased many states’ caseloads unexpectedly. Ms. Arnold-Williams voiced her opposition to a provision in the Herger bill that would cap federal funding for caseworkers and consolidate child welfare services funding and the Promoting Safe and Stable Families program into a Safe Children, Strong Families block grant. “In light of future staffing needs, training and salary increases over time, states would have to choose between fewer trained caseworkers or funding for critical services,” she stated, adding, “Eliminating the federal financial partnership in the recruitment and training of quality workers would be a step in the wrong direction.”
Addressing the cap on federal entitlements, the Child Welfare League of America Southern Regional Office Director Patricia Wilson stated, “While the draft legislation makes a provision for potential relief for states experiencing a severe foster care crisis, it is based on what would be a phenomenal annual growth in numbers and does not take into account the needs of children in care. It is entirely possible for the number of children in care to remain static or grow minimally, yet the cost of caring for those children [to] rise significantly. In such a case, if the state has claimed its maximum maintenance funding and the growth did not meet the definition of a severe crisis, the state would be denied relief.” With regard to the Safe Children, Strong Families block grant, Ms. Wilson pointed out that the Pew Commission recommended automatically increasing the grant based on the consumer price index plus two percent, but the Herger bill does not tie annual increases to a specific factor. “While the draft legislation does include an authorization of an additional $525 million a year, we must caution that since a similar option was created in 2001 for the Title IV-B Promoting Safe and Stable Families program, the history is that these dollars have never been fully appropriated,” she stated.
Samuel Sipes, president and chief operating officer of the Lutheran Social Services of the South, Inc., focused his comments on the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC), which was “developed in the 1960s to ensure that children placed across state lines are protected by the receiving state.” Citing recent studies showing that children placed across state lines wait up to a year longer for a permanent home than children placed in state, he also noted, “I have heard numerous reports that some jurisdictions have become so frustrated with the ICPC process that they are making placements across state lines without ICPC coordination. While this may be expedient, it creates a potentially dangerous situation where a child is placed into an unmonitored and unsupported home.” Mr. Sipes voiced his support for the Orderly and Timely Interstate Placement of Foster Children Act (H.R. 4504) that would “resolve financial barriers, address confusion on which children are covered by the compact and link enforcement of the compact to money that states receive for foster children.” He also noted that the bill would encourage partnerships between states and private faith and community-based child welfare organizations.
