The departure of a senior social-services administrator in the City of Richmond has prompted an investigation into the city’s foster care program. The number of abuse and neglect petitions filed in the city’s district court has plummeted from 284 two years ago to only 76 by mid-December this year, prompting some to question whether the child welfare system put children at risk as it aimed to reduce the number of foster care cases.
The controversy stems in part from a national reevaluation of child welfare programs. For decades, reports Robert Zullo with the Times-Dispatch, foster children were often shuffled to from home to home, aging out of the system having never established family bonds. The new thinking has been to apply social-service resources to support struggling families before removing the children. Now some social workers are concerned that the pendulum has swung too far and that children are being left in danger with their natural families.
Interestingly enough, the downward trend in foster care cases can be seen in a peer analysis with neighboring states conducted by Virginia Performs. Over the past decade, Virginia has had lower foster-care rates (measured by cases per 1,000 children) than North Carolina, Tennessee and Maryland — and half the rate of the national average.
While state and national foster care rates have declined by roughly one third over the past decade, the City of Richmond rate dove by two-thirds in just two years. Those numbers suggest that, in the city at least, the lower rate reflects departmental policy, not the underlying reality of children’s well being. In all likelihood, a large number of Richmond children are being left in domestic situations in which their lives and health are at risk while city officials pursue the latest fad in social-services theory.