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Answers Elusive in Foster Care Crisis
by Lynn Anderson - Baltimore Sun
Housing of kids in DSS offices a sign of systemic problems,
observers say; Social services officials cite difficulty
finding alternative homes for children
The Baltimore City Department of Social Services office at
301 N. Gay St. was never intended to house children - but
lots of them have spent nights there.
More than 100 foster children have slept in the office since
January, when social workers began using it as a de facto
shelter, according to lawyers who represent the city's
foster children. The list includes a 16-year-old girl who
slept there 20 nights in row and a 15-year-old boy who
stayed there 11 nights. The youngest guest was an 8-year-old
girl, the lawyers say.
The illegal shelter outraged foster care advocates when it
became public last week. But city social services officials
say it's better to let children sleep in the office than
roam the streets. Many of the children have emotional and
behavioral problems and have either been rejected for
placement at treatment facilities or have refused to be
placed.
Despite protests from advocates for the children, officials
did not immediately stop the practice. Two boys spent a
night each at the office Wednesday and Thursday, said Samuel
Chambers Jr., Baltimore's DSS chief.
The issue comes at a time when social services officials say
they are having a difficult time finding alternative homes
for foster children. The number of foster families in the
state has dropped significantly in recent years, from nearly
5,500 in 2002 to about 3,900 in 2005.
Mitchell Y. Mirviss, an attorney who represents the city's
7,000 foster children as part of a long-standing consent
decree, worries that the illegal shelter will continue to
operate. Children who stayed there slept on chairs or thin
mattresses on the floor.
"A boy was sitting there in a chair for 11 nights," Mirviss
said. "That is a grave problem that should not have been
allowed to exist under any possible child welfare principle.
... That type of condition rises to the level of mental
cruelty."
Mirviss says it appears that police dropped off some of the
children at the office, which is staffed 24 hours a day.
Complex issues
DSS concedes that the children slept in the office, but has
given only scant information about how they got there.
Social services officials also confirm that some children
ran away from the office.
Chambers has been criticized for allowing the children to
stay at the office. He says the problem is more complex than
it seems, and that there is no one solution. He believes it
will take an overhaul of the city's social services system
to ensure that children have a place to stay, even in an
emergency.
"This is a failure of the system," he said. "Clearly you
can't blame one part of the system for this. It will take a
broad and diverse array of solutions. I am so afraid we are
going to look for the one solution and then we'll fix it and
everyone will think this is over."
Baltimore is not alone in its foster care dilemma.
Last month in Los Angeles, six foster children escaped from
a county office building where they were being housed
illegally. An investigation into the matter found that more
than 100 youths had been housed at the office over a
two-year period. Caseworkers there complained that they had
no place else to take the children, many of whom had serious
mental or emotional problems.
In Baltimore, Mirviss and other attorneys have vowed to
interview each of the children who stayed at the Gay Street
office to find out how they wound up there.
An investigation has also been ordered by the state
Department of Human Resources, which oversees foster care,
but child advocates worry that the review won't be thorough
enough. They have requested that a private company look into
the situation.
DHR secretary Christopher J. McCabe released Friday a list
of "action steps" to try to make sure children wouldn't end
up at the city social services office in the future. McCabe
got funding for 30 slots at treatment facilities last week
and said that he was working with group homes to come up
with a database that would provide DSS with timely
information about open slots. Plans for a 24-hour youth
shelter also are in the works.
Systemic problems
Child advocates wonder why DSS is having such a difficult
time placing difficult youths. Obstinate juveniles and
runaways are nothing new. Some believe the situation at Gay
Street could be emblematic of more disturbing problems. A
recent series in The Sun pointed out serious management
lapses at several group homes. Some say foster children are
refusing placement in group homes for similar reasons.
"These kids are making it clear that their needs are not
being met, that the system does not have enough resources,"
said Dr. Michael Bogrov, a psychiatrist who works with
foster children at an in-patient unit at Sheppard and Enoch
Pratt Hospital in Towson.
Bogrov and other advocates said the foster care system lacks
adequate treatment for many children, and that, as a result,
some end up in situations that don't meet their needs. Some
are forced into mental institutions, for example, when they
can't be placed at a group home. A greater variety of
treatment options is needed, advocates argue, including
therapeutic foster homes, which allow children to live in
private homes while receiving mental- and emotional-support
services.
State officials agree.
"We need more therapeutic foster homes," said Chambers, who
has worked with state officials to put together a statewide
campaign to encourage more people to become foster parents.
The state has lost a large number of foster families in
recent years, in part because of an aging roster of foster
parents, said Sharon Hargrove, foster care manager for DHR.
In some cases, foster families adopt children and then can't
take any more. Some foster families have left the system
because they feel they don't get enough support.
Reimbursement also is a problem, she said.
Foster families who take in infants and younger children
receive $535 a month, Hargrove said. Those who shelter older
children - age 12 and older - receive $550. Maryland ranks
about fifth in the nation in terms of compensation, she
said, but if the state wants to recruit new families,
especially those willing to take on troubled children, the
amount should increase.
Chambers, who dealt with welfare reform in some of Detroit's
poorest neighborhoods before coming to Baltimore last year,
said he knows the problem at the Gay Street office is much
more serious than he once thought. But he's resolved to fix
it.
"This is not something that blew up yesterday because we
decided we didn't want to place kids anymore," he said. "But
I think we have turned a lot of corners and people are
really trying to respond as best they know how to respond."
- from the Baltimore Sun, written by Lynn Anderson
Originally published June 20, 2005 |
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