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Foster Care: How Big a Problem in Virginia?

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by

James A. Bacon
in

Source: Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission

As the General Assembly ponders how to reform Virginia’s sometimes-dysfunctional foster care system, I thought it worthwhile to present some data on the stakes involved.

The number of children in the system decreased between 2007 and 2013, then ticked up again in recent years. One reason for the increase, according to the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) report, “Improving Virginia’s Foster Care System,” was the creation of the Fostering Futures program, which raised the age at which children exit foster care from 18 to 21.

At the same time, notes JLARC, Virginia has the lowest rate of foster-care placement of any state in the country. In September 2016, the proportion of children in foster care was 2.6 per 1,000 children. States JLARC: “The precise reasons for Virginia’s low rate are unclear.”

Is that lowest-in-the-country statistic an artifact of the sad reality that Virginia’s local foster care agencies are understaffed, overworked and letting needy children fall between the cracks? Or does it reflect a more hopeful reality that the Old Dominion has a lower incidence of child abuse and neglect? Sounds like a basic question that we should know the answer to.

Here’s one clue: While Virginia has the lowest rate of foster care in the country, our neighbor West Virginia has the highest — almost 16%. A significant percentage of Virginia’s population resides in ethnically and socioeconomically similar mountain counties bordering West Virginia. In terms of foster care, do they most resemble the rest of Virginia… or West Virginia?

JLARC also notes that children have been entering foster care at younger ages, and that younger children constitute a higher percentage of the foster-care population than in the past. This trend, JLARC concludes, is tied to increasing social dysfunction:

A driving factor behind both the increase in the number of children in foster care in recent years and the shift to a younger population appears to be an increase in parental drug abuse. … The increase in foster care entries due to parental drug abuse is a nationwide trend, but Virginia’s growth rate has been faster than other states.

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8 responses to “Foster Care: How Big a Problem in Virginia?”

  1. Steve Haner Avatar
    Steve Haner

    A huge issue, a real opportunity to improve the life prospects of these young people. The JLARC report was highly critical, but key recommendations are coming in pending legislation. The dollar cost I’m told is low. Disclaimer: I’m on the board of a social service non-profit, Families Forward, very involved in serving this population and supporting this bill.

    http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?191+sum+SB1339

    Take a minute and just read the summary of the bill, and you get an idea what is going on. Note that the bill seems to have the entire State Senate membership as patrons. Don’t see that on much except memorial resolutions.

  2. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Thanks for this post, Jim. This issue probably does not have as much of a hot-button quality that some others on this blog have, but it is terribly important. The JLARC is damning. One of the problems with our system is that it is bifurcated: the state “supervises” (i.e. sets regulations) and the localities administer. The qualify of administration varies widely, to a large extent depending on fiscal ability.

    The question of why Virginia has the lowest rate of children in foster care is an intriguing one and I am surprised that JLARC did not follow up. Your suggestion of looking at West Virginia, which borders Va. and has the highest rate, seemed like a good direction to follow. However, our other neighbors, Tennessee, N.C. and Md., also have fairly low rates, below the national median. Kentucky does have a relatively higher rate, above the median. To be meaningful, a comparison would have to be made of counties adjoining each other on the borders.

  3. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Thanks for this post, Jim. This issue probably does not have as much of a hot-button quality that some others on this blog have, but it is terribly important. The JLARC is damning. One of the problems with our system is that it is bifurcated: the state “supervises” (i.e. sets regulations) and the localities administer. The qualify of administration varies widely, to a large extent depending on fiscal ability. The proposed legislation could help, but it will require that the state Commissioner be active. There will be a cost. We’ll see if the GA is willing to provide the funding.

    The question of why Virginia has the lowest rate of children in foster care is an intriguing one and I am surprised that JLARC did not follow up. Your suggestion of looking at West Virginia, which borders Va. and has the highest rate, seemed like a good direction to follow. However, our other neighbors, Tennessee, N.C. and Md., also have fairly low rates, below the national median. Kentucky does have a relatively higher rate, above the median. To be meaningful, a comparison would have to be made of counties adjoining each other on the borders.

  4. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    I may be wrong but the fact that Virginia has a lower number and lower rate makes me wary.

    What I do know is that locally in Spotsylvania, Social Services is overwhelmed to the max. I don’t know how they do it with the resources they have and I heard recently that attrition is high – the pay is low and the hours long and they get burned out. I’m told it is a very stressful and emotional job… every case is upsetting to the workers processing the clients.

    And I think there is a connection to the Medicaid issue in that social services is so overwhelmed that signing up eligible for Medicaid is not as important priority as other issues and as a result that ball gets dropped.

    But this organization: Virginia Health Care Foundation – has stepped in to sign people up for MedicAid – AND they are doing a BANG UP JOB – much to the dismay of the folks who forecast and the GA budget folks.

    Perhaps Haner or Bacon or Sizemore can do a blog post to educate folks on
    who these folks are and what they do and how they fit into the health care/Medicaid landscape in Virginia.

  5. vlherrou Avatar
    vlherrou

    The JLARC report is quite accurate on the state of foster care, without even doing an analysis into the overall landscape (of which foster care is just a part). You can learn more about the state of foster care in Virginia here: vakids.org or here: https://scholarship.richmond.edu/pilr/vol22/iss1/5/

  6. mrhobson1 Avatar
    mrhobson1

    The reason why Virginia has the lowest number of children in foster care is simple. It’s because of adoption. While most states focus on reunification Virginia’s focus is fast track adoption. 60% of all children that enter foster care in Virginia are adopted by the foster parents. What most people don’t understand is that Child Protection Services is a billion-dollar industry. And yes I wrote that correctly with a B. They have made a multi-billion dollar business from legally kidnapping children and selling them ( adoption). This industry, which includes social workers, doctors, drug testing labs, psychologists,  lawyers, judges, the police, and foster care, revolves around governmental management of children and families. It profits every time a new child is placed into the system. And its survival requires a constant supply of fresh “adoptable children”. The younger the better. The federal government gives CPS agencies money for each case that they enforce. The primary focus of CPS is to get the most federal and state tax dollars it can. Workers are rated based on how much money they bring in. So there are direct financial incentives to create as many cases as possible.

    The Iron Rule of Bureaucracies
    Was covering up thousands of cases of abuse on children by the hands of foster parents, and while in state care an act of evil? It was evil in the banal, bureaucratic manner that occurs when lives become nothing more than numbers on a page and money in the their pockets.

    The Iron Rule of Bureaucracy states that:

    In any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people:

     Those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. And those dedicated to the organization itself.

    The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization.

    That is what has happened to CPS.

    The people who are dedicated to helping children are being controlled by those dedicated to helping CPS itself. And those people – don’t care about children, they care about numbers.

    CPS workers are evaluated based on the number of dollars they collect. Budget is determined by the number of kids they protect. In order to grow, CPS must feed the system a steady diet of children.

    But how can you ensure a constant supply?

    You can’t make people abuse children. But what you can do is reclassify things to make them seem like abuse. Things like asking for a second opinion from doctors. Or questioning a vaccination. And not wanting your child to take certain prescription drugs. Even for having a messy house, playing in the park or walking home alone.
    And, that is exactly what CPS has done.
    CPS has created a system in which children can be removed from loving homes for almost any reason. So, if you want to keep your child safe, make sure that you love them in the government prescribed fashion. Because child protective agencies are watching, and they have $24.9 billion reasons to take your child away.

    The federal Children’s Bureau was first introduced in 1912, it didn’t receive mandatory funding until an amendment was made in 1958 which required the state to begin funding the agency.
    In 1974, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) was introduced to provide “financial assistance for a demonstration program for the prevention, identification, and treatment of child abuse and neglect.”

    The Social Security Act of 1935 was amended in 1962 to “provide money to expand child welfare services.”  However, in 1973 U.S. Senator Walter Mondale wrote, “Nowhere in the Federal Government could we find one official assigned full time to the prevention, identification and treatment of child abuse and neglect. It was Mondale’s interest and persuasion in the matter that influenced Congress to “assume a role with the commencement of” CAPTA.
    Mondale stated after the bill passed that it would turn “child protection into a child-snatching business. It didn’t take long for the legislation operation turn into a $12 billion a year business.

    In 1997, President Clinton passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act which was intended to “promote the adoption of children in foster care.” foster children are then being perscribed various kinds of prescription drugs that they are given under the state’s care. Regardless if the child truly needs the medication or not. Then the state can declare the child disabled and then they receive double sometimes even triple the money for that child. So not only are they drugging healthy children, they are also committing Medicaid fraud, endangering the life safety and well-being of a child which is the definition of child abuse. As if that’s not bad enough these corrupt social workers then go to court and say that the parents neglected the child so severely and neglected all the child’s medical needs, that now the child has to be on all this medication and has to be in therapy and is extremely delayed. And they will be taken at their word and never have to show a bit of evidence. Not even medical records to back their claims. And then the parents will be denied the right to show their medical records for the child before they went into state care if it would disprove all their false accusations.

    Instead of finding a solution to prevent this future for children, it was publicized the need for more state funding and further promoted the myth that children are institutionalized because of the abundance of bad parents.

    Legislation that was originally created for the purpose of helping children, has transformed into a financial operation aimed at kidnapping children for the financial benefit of the state.

    The more children removed, the more money that’s made. The children while under the state’s care are prescribed an average of seven medications in an attempt to keep them chained to the system for a lifetime.

    The business is so lucrative that advocates like Nancy Schaefer, who aggressively took action against CPS exposing their crimes, were subsequently removed.   The media reported that Nancy Schaefer’s husband, troubled by financial problems, shot his wife to death while she slept before turning the gun on himself in 2010. A report by Infowars.com speculated on the circumstances surrounding the couple’s death, finding it odd that a suicide victim would shoot them self in the chest. And quincidentally this happens right before the release of her documentary that Nancy Schaefer had been working on in which she had compiled very damaging evidence that would expose CPS committing unimaginable acts of every type of abuse, as well as the corruption within the agency. She would of brought down the entire organization. But the States would take a huge financial loss. After her death five different people attempted to pick up where she left off and to continue what she couldn’t and all five of them died under suspicious circumstances as well.

    The report read, “Even before a GBI investigation could be initiated, media outlets began pronouncing that their death was a ‘murder-suicide’ and shut off most public comment posting on their web sites.”

    Most disturbing is that, not unlike many other evil government programs, the atrocities are directly funded by the taxpayer. So citizen/ parents are paying for programs that could potentially remove their own children.

    1. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      This is a fascinating take on adoption. I’ve gotten so cynical that it would not surprise me in the slightest if adoption has become a racket. But your claims are so extraordinary that I’d like to see more documentation. Does your analysis lead you to believe that Virginia’s fast-track adoption policy makes Virginia a prime offender for the kinds of abuses you describe?

  7. Reed Fawell 3rd Avatar
    Reed Fawell 3rd

    mrhobson1’s comment has nearly universal application to bureaucracies of all sorts. This is also a wonderful reason to fear passage of the current nearly $billion plan to rescue disadvantaged kids from sick school systems where the players getting all the taxpayer’s money have a miserable track record of performance from start to finish, while others are actively solving the problems for far less money. It’s a scam giving ever more money to those who caused the problem in the first place, and have not a clue how to fix it, only how to further enrich themselves at other peoples’ expense.

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