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Prepared by THE FOSTER CARE TASK FORCE Commissioned by GOVERNOR RUTH ANN MINNER |
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Total # of Children
Most Challenging
# Foster Homes Total - 490: Of those, -
NOTE: At any given time, there are approx. 50 approved bed spaces with families who do not feel equipped to handle the type of children for whom we need homes. ISSUES: 21st Century kids stuck in a 1970's foster care system!
CONCLUSIONS: RECOMMENDATIONS:
SUPPORTS NEEDED
6. Kinship Care provides an important part of a continuum of resources to children. Kinship caregivers need support TASK FORCE DIRECTIVE On January 11, 2001 Governor Ruth Ann Minner created a Foster Care Task Force to provide written recommendations on the following:
The Foster Care Task Force members, listed on the cover of this report, met nine times since it began its work in January. As a starting point, the Division of Family Services (DFS) and foster parents presented a status report on issues impacting recruitment and retention of foster families. The Task Force reviewed a previous foster care task force report from 1996. This was an internal task force comprised of DFS staff and foster parents to address the issues regarding a shortage of families and supports to meet the needs of the more challenging children. In addition, Cathy Hamill, as chair of the Senate Kinship Care Task Force, was asked to present a summary of its work. BACKGROUND INFORMATION Capacity - More Children, More Complex Needs Each year, approximately 1,300 Delaware children enter the state's foster care system. On any given day, approximately 700 children are in foster family placement. Of these children, approximately 75 are especially difficult to place due to severe behavioral or emotional problems. Currently there are 490 foster homes in the state: 360 foster families provide services directly with DFS and another 130 families are contracted by DFS (with a small number of those by Youth Rehabilitative Services) through private agencies. Over the last nine years the number of DFS foster homes has kept pace with the number of children in care (attachment 1 and 2). The system, however, has not kept pace with providing foster families with the level of training and support needed to care for the problems foster children are exhibiting. DFS does not have enough skilled foster families capable of keeping the high volume of difficult to place children in the system. At any given time, there are approximately 50 approved bed spaces in families who do not feel equipped to take the type of children for whom we need homes. Today, more children entering the system display violent behaviors. This can be attributed to the fact that these children have been exposed to more abusive family circumstances. Moreover, children are often the victims of neglect caused by parents who are actively addicted to drugs. Research tells us that children who do not have their basic needs met in the first three years of life tend to have difficulties in attachment. These difficulties display themselves in very trying, challenging behaviors. Often children are aggressive and families do not feel safe caring for children with these type of behavioral problems. Everyone would very much like to improve the outcomes for children in care. DFS data shows that if a child stays in care longer than one year, the likelihood of multiple family placements increase. By improving training for foster families, among other supports, the Task Force believes the number of multiple placements can be reduced. Recruitment and Retention Contrary to the national trend, DFS has been able to recruit families, increasing the number each year. However, many of the families recruited are not able or willing to care for some of the more emotionally and behaviorally disturbed children. DFS has approximately 75 children at any one time who have proven to be very difficult to place. DFS believes the system needs more capacity and more supports to better serve these children. The primary concerns regarding retention are lack of support services and inconsistent teamwork with foster families. Foster families need to know what is going on with the birth family so they can work with them, what the goal is for the child so they can support the goal, and to be valued for their knowledge and care of the child. Both DFS and foster parents agree that teamwork needs improvement. The Task Force believes the quality of life of children in foster care is directly related to adequate recruitment and retention of foster families. Sufficient numbers of well-trained and experienced foster families will increase the ability to match children with families who can meet their needs. In the course of its work, the Task Force looked at several different models of recruitment and retention from other states. In reviewing the numbers of families DFS has been able to recruit and in recognizing that satisfied foster parents are the best recruiters of new foster parents, the Task Force determined that the primary piece of work on which it needed to focus was retention. Kinship Care The Task Force considered the work of the Kinship Care Task Force in its discussion of kinship. The Foster Care Task Force supports the concept of kinship care as an additional resource to meet the needs of children at risk. Kinship caregivers report that their most pressing concerns are legal and financial issues, as well as a need for access to information. Discussion revolved around ways to support the needs of kinship providers as well as foster care providers. While the Task Force recognizes the benefits of kinship care, they also recognize the significant cost associated with full implementation of the kinship care program as outlined by the Kinship Care Task Force. CRITICAL FOSTER CARE ISSUES
Delaware Foster Care Model The Task Force liked the Delaware Foster Care Model proposed by the previous task force and decided that updating it for 2001 would be the starting point for the Task Force's work. The Delaware Foster Care Model (Attachment 3) is intended to provide a continuum of care to meet the needs of children in family foster care. The model begins with the premise that the strengths and needs of all children should be assessed at the beginning of placement so that children can be matched with foster parents who have the skills to meet those needs. The goal is to provide each child with the safety, stability, self-esteem and sense of hope that comes with a single and best foster care placement. Because we believe that even children with extremely challenging needs do best in families, the continuum needs to be expanded from traditional foster care to include levels of care to meet the levels of need that children exhibit. The model identifies skills and supports foster parents need at every level to maintain stable placements, with particular attention to the skills and supports needed by foster families for children and youth at the highest levels. Just as every foster child entering care will be assessed, the strengths and needs of every foster family will be assessed. Foster families will then be compensated based on their skills, their training, and the services they provide. This marks a change from the current system which compensates foster parents based on the difficulty of care of the child rather than on the foster parent's skills and willingness to provide additional services. Although not a category within the model, every child's family will also be assessed on their strengths and needs. This assessment contributes to the family's case plan and the services necessary to reduce the risk to the child. The plan is outcome based and supported through a Family Court order and regular reviews. Another underlying principle of the model is to develop foster families in the communities where the children live. After the devastation of abuse and neglect and the trauma of separation from family, children need the continuity of relationships with family, peers, significant persons in their lives and familiar places. Foster Parent Cluster Support The Delaware Model of Foster Care is accompanied by a plan to organize foster homes into geographical clusters. Each cluster of 12 families would have an emergency home, as well as foster homes able to care for children at different levels along the continuum. In this manner, children would be placed in homes near their birth families where regular visits could occur. There would be minimal disruption to a child's friendships, relationships and education. The foster families within the cluster would serve as a support group to each other. The cluster would take responsibility for the children coming into families within the cluster. Cluster families would provide emergency back-up, respite, baby-sitting, use of community resources and other family supports. If a child disrupts from one family, it is hoped that another family in the cluster would take over, thus minimizing the disruption to the child. A foster home coordinator would be assigned to two clusters of 12 families making their caseload size 24. This cluster model with a foster home coordinator attached would improve communication and teamwork between staff and foster parents. There are support services that are currently limited or unavailable, but that are necessary to the success of the model. These supports could be considered part of wrap-around services to the child and foster family. The wrap around model of meeting children and family needs is one that has been utilized in other states with positive outcomes for children. Enriching the Department Continuum of Care Another area of need is the Department's current continuum of care for children needing placement outside of their homes. Over the years, internal Departmental work groups as well as several consultants have recommended that the continuum of care be enriched. In particular, there is a gap between foster care, group care, and residential treatment. What would help fill in the gap is specialized foster families to be used either from the onset for very difficult children as the model suggests or as a step down from more intensive services such as group care and residential treatment. In addition to specialized foster care, small therapeutic group homes need to be added to the continuum (attachment 4). These small therapeutic group homes would best serve children rated at Level 4 or 5 on the model but their needs are such that they need both the structure and 24 hour supervision provided by such a facility. Often these children have attachment difficulties and have experienced multiple placements. They often cannot tolerate the intimacy of family relationships. Families are often exhausted by their behaviors. These two combinations make small, structured specialized group care a better choice. RECOMMENDATIONS: The Task Force believes the best way to improve the quality of care of children in foster care is to adequately recruit and support foster families. Supporting foster families is also the best way to retain them. Because recruitment, retention and improving the quality of life of foster children are intricately connected and rely heavily on the level of support provided, most of the Task Force recommendations emphasize retention through the development and improvement of supports to foster families. RECOMMENDATION 1: Implement the Delaware Foster Care Model Specialized training for foster parents - Implementation of the model will require additional training for foster families who wish to build their skills to care for higher level children. DFS believes that most of the 360 foster families would be able to serve level 1 and 2 children. Very few of the current foster families will be able to care for the most intensive children. Workers and coordinators would need the same or complementary training on the same issues. This would also include the purchase of assessment tools for emergency foster families. Emergency Homes - The model sets out the premise that each child entering care be assessed on their strengths and needs. It is hoped that very young children will be able to be matched to a family immediately. For those children who cannot be immediately matched, the model suggests a number of families be developed to take emergency placements only. These families will be specially trained in handling emergency placements. The families will also be trained in completing screening and assessment tools that will assist DFS in making the next placement the best placement. Approximately 20 beds would be needed statewide. This level of care would be reimbursed at $35/day. Higher level of foster parent reimbursement consistent with the model levels (also under supports) Delaware Foster Care Model Levels:
Staff: Three additional foster home coordinators and one supervisor will be needed to support the model and respond to increased recruitment. Include foster home coordinators in the career ladder to become family crisis therapists to support the more intensive level foster families - This recommendation will support the plan to organize foster families in clusters of 12 making coordinators responsible for two clusters each. Coordinators will obtain additional training to better support children and foster families at the higher levels of care and respond to crisis situations. Foster parents will support each other and provide training, supports, and recreational activities under the leadership of a foster parent cluster leader and the foster home coordinator. Funding is necessary to reimburse the cluster leader for leadership and other cluster activities. Regional staff should have a small budget to arrange for small regular recognition of foster family efforts and successes as well as tokens of appreciation for those families who "retire." Supports - A number of supports that are currently only minimally available or not yet available will need to be developed. Some of these resources can be obtained at no additional costs through more intensive work with the community and our private agency partners. Others, however, will require funding to develop. The following supports are those that could be developed in the community at little to no cost if the Volunteer Coordinator is funded (see Recruitment recommendation).
The following supports would need exploration and collaboration with other systems. The cost has not been determined.
RECOMMENDATION 2: Increase recruitment efforts: Recruitment will need to focus on three areas: emergency families, intensive level families, and adoptive families. The current DFS budget for recruitment is $8,000.00. With that, DFS purchases recruitment supplies and advertising. Recruitment efforts include booths at community events/fairs, advertising in small newspapers, feature stories in newspapers, ads in program books such as the Blue Rocks, radios public service announcements and interviews, and a $100 recruitment bonus to foster parents who recruit a new family. To keep the message about the need for foster and adoptive families more visible to the public, the recruitment budget will need to be increased. This will contribute to the overall need for foster families and is necessary to purchase such items as public service announcements played during prime times, billboards, and bus side boards. To recruit families with a higher level of skill as the model recommends will require a more intensive, targeted, community-based recruitment strategy. In order for DFS to respond to increased recruitment, the recommendation regarding the increase in foster home coordinator staff must be implemented. A Volunteer Coordinator is needed to facilitate additional support resources and recruitment activities. The Coordinator would be responsible for fund raising, developing mentoring programs, enlisting the assistance of volunteers who wish to help in foster care but cannot make the commitment to be a foster parent, supporting foster parent cluster groups as appropriate and assisting the Department in implementing both a general and targeted recruitment strategy. RECOMMENDATION 3: The Department should both enhance the current residential group homes and fill in the remaining pieces of the continuum of care. This recommendation includes developing resources to fill in the gaps in the Department's current continuum of out-of- home care resources. Although the Delaware Foster Care Model is intended to serve children in least restrictive settings and develop more specialized families, some children exhibit behavior that requires a more structured and supervised setting than a specialized foster family may be able to provide. Smaller specialized group homes serving no more than 6 children will help provide better options for matching children to appropriate resources. This recommendation also allows for a small number of specialized foster care beds to be purchased for a targeted population of specialized youth such as youth reentering the community from secure settings used by Youth Rehabilitative Services, sex offenders, or emotionally disturbed children whose plan is adoption. The current group homes would be able to do a better job managing youth if they were better staffed for the kinds of children who need this level of service. There is a need for more child care staff in the group homes so that the youth can be better supervised. At least one more child care worker is needed at the busiest times when the youth are at home (3-11), one more weekend staff person, and at least one more awake staff at night who could float between cottages or programs. Although the group homes meet the licensing standard for staff to child ratios, the youth often require more attention and supervision than the standard requires. RECOMMENDATION 4: The Department should assign a small number of workers to small caseloads of intensive level children. A one case manager model should be implemented. In order for the model to be successful for both the children and the foster families, there must be a smaller worker to caseload ratio. Treatment foster care programs that DFS currently purchases uses a caseload of 1:6. This is consistent with other treatment foster care programs in other states. Senate Bill 142 standards of 19 families (intact and children in-care plus parents) will not provide sufficient support to children in the two highest levels. Most children who would be rated at the more intensive levels of care are active with more than one division within the Department. This means that the child and family have more than one case manager. By employing a one case manager model that stays with the child throughout the child's placement, the Department should be able to reallocate staff to address this recommendation. RECOMMENDATION 5: The Foster Care Task Force supports the recommendations of the Kinship Care Task Force but suggests changes in the program design. The Foster Care Task Force believes that a kinship care program would be an important part of a continuum of resources to support children. The Task Force suggests the program be phased in over a three year period. Further additional reductions in cost could be achieved by eliminating the age criteria as an eligibility factor. Rather than setting up a new 800 phone number to provide information to kinship caretakers, the Task Force recommends using the current Delaware Helpline. Due to the special circumstances that kinship providers face, training in resources and supports will be needed for Helpline staff. The Task Force further recommends that funds be appropriated to begin an emergency assistance account for one time home readiness (beds, clothes, etc.) for relative care providers. It is recommended that the Department of Health and Social Services administer this fund. The Task Force is recommending that both of the above occur in the first year at a reduced cost of $60,000 total. |
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