Okay, so you already know I have ZERO love for the messed up Foster Care system Utah pretends is a "National Model" for everyone to follow. Well, this article in today's Salt Lake Tribune pretty much sums it all up… and is another reason we have signed up to do short term shelter care instead long term foster parenting.
You ever heard the phrase: "The head of the fish stinks first" - This describes the head of DCFS… Read on.
Children removed from homes going to shelters because of a legal snafu
By Kirsten Stewart
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 09/04/2007 11:28:42 PM MDT
Utah's misinterpretation of a federal law meant to protect abused children may be causing them more harm.
Children who are removed from their homes by the Utah Division of Children and Family Services (DCFS) are being parked in temporary shelters - sometimes for six weeks, or longer - when they could be staying with a family member, like a grandparent, or a friend of the family.
The practice grew from the Adam Walsh Child Protection And Safety Act of 2006, which requires that all adoptive or foster parents, including a child's kin, undergo thorough criminal screenings conducted by the FBI.
Nowhere does the law say background checks must be completed before children are placed, but that's how Utah understood it. The resulting practice has caused a backlog at shelters and could have dire consequences for thousands of foster children, says a child welfare reform advocate.
"To deprive a child of a loving grandparent for seven weeks for no reason other than agency foul-ups is bureaucratic child abuse at its worst," said Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform in Alexandria, Va. "I know of no other jurisdiction in the country that interpreted the law this way."
Duane Betournay, DCFS director, acknowledged, ''In hindsight, I can say, we may have gone too far."
But there's little Betournay can do to immediately correct the mistake.
Based on legal advice from the Utah Attorney General's Office and legislative counsel, Betournay swayed legislators last year to change Utah law to comply with the agency's interpretation of the Adam Walsh Act.
Betournay said he will ask lawmakers to correct the statute during the 2008 Legislative session, which begins in January. To help shelters with their backlog in the meantime, Betournay spent about $200,000 purchasing machines that help process fingerprints to hasten criminal screenings.
"Instead of waiting six to eight weeks, we can get them back in less than 72 hours, as long as it's a clear background," said Betournay.
But a staff member at a children's shelter in Salt Lake County, who asked not to be named for fear of losing her job, said Tuesday that criminal screenings are still taking up to eight weeks.
The same staffer said some caseworkers have discouraged use of another stopgap - moving children out of the shelter to short-term foster homes until a kinship placement is approved.
Doing so would increase Utah's average number of foster placements, a measure used to gauge states' child welfare performance.
Citing the Adam Walsh act, Utah also told shelters to prohibit overnight visits with relatives, unless a court orders it, or the family member is a licensed foster parent.
Wexler calls the "forced institutionalization" of Utah's foster children an "outrage."
Youth in shelters "are being treated like inmates for whom visitation is a privilege instead of children for whom the chance to visit loved ones should be a right," he said.
Wexler, who first alerted Utah officials to the misstep five months ago, suspects Utah's rush to change the law signals a hostility toward kinship placements.
Utah acted despite a January 2007 directive from the federal Administration for Children and Families, explicitly telling states Adam Walsh does not mandate background checks prior to placement.
The administration cautioned, however, states could lose federal funding for foster placements absent a background check.
At risk are tens of millions of dollars, said Betournay. "We were going on the best information we had."
Utah has among the nation's lowest rates of kinship placements, though it outperforms other states when it comes to placing foster children for adoption.
But Betournay denies Utah is biased against kinship, and said the state is working to improve its track record. Further, he said Utah joined other states in lobbying against the Adam Walsh Act.
A decade of research has shown kinship placements are more stable and less disruptive for children than placing them with strangers. In Utah, 56 percent of kinship placements fail, an unusual result that has prodded DCFS to better train families, said Betournay.
Still, Wexler wishes there were more urgency to correct Utah law.
"For a young child, being torn from everyone they know and love, even if that removal is necessary, feels like a kidnapping, and can be just as emotionally devastating," said Wexler. "Placing a child with a loving relative is the best way to cushion that blow."
Hurt by the law
* What happened: Congress passed the Adam Walsh Child Protection And Safety Act of 2006, which requires that all adoptive or foster parents, including a child's kin, undergo a thorough background check by the FBI.
* Fallout: Utah misunderstood the law to mean background checks must be done even before temporarily placing an abused child in the home of a grandparent or other relative. Utah law was changed to reflect this.
* What's next: Child welfare officials have promised to correct state law at the next legislative session in January. Meanwhile, thousands of kids are stuck in shelters.
