| Report: Michigan child welfare reforms fall short Michigan's Department of Human Services put on 30-day watch to get problems resolved Catherine Jun / The Detroit News Detroit -- Michigan is still missing key targets in ensuring the safety and well-being of children a year into court-ordered reform, according to a report released Tuesday. As a result, the Department of Human Services, which runs Michigan 's child welfare programs, will be put on a 30-day watch to get reforms back on track; otherwise the state could face possible court action. A 159-page progress report was submitted Tuesday to federal court in Detroit . It found the state failed to sufficiently reduce the number of children aging out of foster care and those waiting too long for adoption. And in what the report called "deeply troubling," state officials could not show how it responded to or resolved instances of allegations of abuse or neglect against children in the state's care. "There's no doubt in my mind that the state has worked hard," said U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Edmunds. "The only doubt in my mind is if the state has worked in a hard, efficient way." The report was prepared by court-appointed monitor Kevin Ryan of New Jersey-based Public Catalyst Group, and documents progress over a six-month period -- April 1 to Sept. 30, 2009. It is the second in a series of updates since the settlement of a lawsuit in July 2008 filed by Children's Rights, a New York-based advocacy group that charged the state's system endangered the lives of children. The reported deficiencies indicate Michigan is not in compliance with the settlement, Children's Rights said Tuesday. The agency said Tuesday it will send a letter this week to the state, asking officials to devise a plan in the next 30 days to get reforms back on track. If no plan is established, Children's Rights said it will request a federal judge intervene and force the state to comply with their legal agreement. "This is about pressing forward and keeping promises to these kids," said Sara Bartosz, senior staff attorney at Children's Rights and lead attorney on the lawsuit. The report found the Department of Human Services missed the mark in the following ways: • Only 60 percent of abuse investigators had caseloads of 16 or less, short of the requirement to increase that to 95 percent. • 2,551 children or 66 percent of those in the system are still waiting for permanent homes, compared to a target of 50 percent. • Too many adoption workers are still burdened with caseloads of more than 30 children, in part resulting in fewer adoptions than needed. The report says the state is 6 percent under that goal with adoption workers.The state did succeed in several areas, including reuniting 2,620 children with their families after waiting for more than a year. That was out of 5,000 children in the same predicament, the report said. State officials dispute several figures in the report, arguing that another method of counting shows they are in compliance.
Opinion main: Editorials | Letters to the editor | Mike Thompson | Editorial blog | Endorsements Posted: March 10, 2010 EDITORIAL Improvements in foster care are far from good enough · · The great hope of foster care is that it can be a triumph of government intervention. When natural parents fail to protect their children, through death or neglect, the state steps in to provide the basics: safety, shelter, health care and education. But the tragedy of foster care in Michigan , for years, has been how often the state's intervention falls short of that ideal. Story after story describes children whose abandonment, neglect or abuse at the hands of their natural parents only began their horrors. That's why Michigan is under court order to make massive changes to its foster care system. And although the state is making progress, things are not universally better for some of Michigan 's most vulnerable citizens. Numerous problems still unaddressed A court monitor's report released Tuesday suggests that Michigan 's foster system is still failing its charges in many critical areas. There remains too little coordination in the Department of Human Services to address the mistreatment of children in foster care, and caseloads for investigative staff at the state Department of Human Services remain too high. Court monitor Kevin Ryan said DHS hasn't complied with its pledge to hire 200 more permanency workers, and that too many children remain housed in unlicensed facilities. He also faulted the agency for failing to act swiftly against foster care providers who neglected to report incidents in which children were mistreated. Just as troubling is the state's failure to provide foster kids with the raw materials for a productive life before they age out of the system. Many reach their 18th birthdays without a diploma, employment prospects or basic health care. Taking care of vulnerable children is charter work for government, the kind of stuff that should never be allowed to fall to such a lowly state. And Michigan , after years of not fulfilling its responsibilities to foster children, stands at the foot of a powerful opportunity for improvement. Encourage spirit of cooperation The state set aside $4 million to enhance its efforts to help kids who age out, to help more foster children find permanent placements with families, and to do more to prevent children from entering foster care in the first place. The federal court order and consent decree are the structure for spending that money. And as the court monitor points out in the most recent report as well as previous ones, there is a welcome spirit of cooperation among government officials, contractors and other service providers to get foster care right. In part, that makes the shortcomings in this week's report all the more regrettable. But it also points the way forward. The state, led by Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Ismael Ahmed, director of the Department of Human Services, has got to focus more intently on harnessing the good will and effort to fix foster care. Even a state government as strapped as Michigan 's owes its most vulnerable citizens that much. |
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Detroit News: Failures of Foster care
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