Today’s guest blogger is Sara Campbell.
Minnesota has been proud of its success in keeping children out of foster care. It has been seen as a national leader for its relatively low population of children living in foster care. On the surface, this seems like a good thing. Unfortunately, there is a dark side. Efforts to reunite children with their families might be becoming too much of a priority to the detriment of the children in the foster care system.
The Star Tribune recently published an article about Minnesota’s eagerness to reunite families, and more importantly, why this is a problem. The Star Tribune is calling out Minnesota’s child protection policies for their failure to keep the children they are charged with protecting safe from harm. The article highlights the experiences of Thomas Stone and Javon Turner. Stone and Turner are now adults still trying to cope with the fallout from what Turner states is a “misguided” family preservation policy. Meanwhile, Minnesota is looking at a fine of $570,000 if they cannot reduce the 26% return rate of children to foster care within one year of reunification.
When children are taken out of home for protection purposes, it is the goal of the social worker to reunite the children with the parents. This is because studies have shown that children fare better when they are with their family of origin. Services offered to parents are meant to address their specific needs, e.g. chemical dependency treatment, parenting education, and individual counseling. After six months, child protection social workers must make a recommendation as to whether the family should move toward reunification or whether an alternate permanent placement for the child needs to be found.
Six months is a short period of time to get parents connected to resources, receive the services, and utilize those skills effectively enough to care for their children. Unfortunately, six months is the state mandated timeline whereby child protection workers must make the determination about the best interests of the children (Minn. §260C.204). This is far shorter than the year given by the federal government under the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (AFSC). Providing parents and workers more flexibility with timelines would give parents more time to succeed in their case plan and would give social workers more time to make informed decisions regarding their cases.
Another issue is the limited support and follow-up provided to families once they are reunified. High caseloads and constant crisis often force protection workers to make decisions about where to put their time and resources. This means that parents who are on their way to reunification will receive less attention and support than they need. Reunification adds additional stress to families who need to readjust to having children back in the home while trying to amend the issues that brought the case in to child protection. Studies show that families that receive intensive services following reunification are more likely to experience a successful reunification than those that do not (Fraser, Walton, Lewis, Pecora, 1996; Walton, 1998). Minnesota could benefit from implementing post-reunification supports.
Flexible timelines and intensive reunification support are just two ways in which Minnesota could implement changes that would improve their foster care re-entry rates. Balancing the children’s needs for stability with the parent’s need for help and support is no easy task but Minnesota has an obligation to implement policies and practices that protect the children in their care.
References:
Fraser, M. W., Walton, E., Lewis, R.E., and Pecora, P. J. (1996). An experiment in family reunification: Correlates of outcomes at one-year follow-up. Children and Youth Services Review, 18(4-5), 335-361).
Walton, E (1998). In home family-focused reunification: A six-year follow-up of a successful experiment. Social Work Research, 22(4), 11-22