Remarks: National Center for Adoption Law & Policy Symposium
REMARKS: NATIONAL CENTER FOR ADOPTION LAW & POLICY SYMPOSIUM
Contact: Amanda Flaig
Monday, October 18, 2004
Let me begin by thanking Judge Salyers for her remarks this morning. She, like Justice Stratton, who is also here with us today, is a perfect example of how a judge can take a leadership role and create change to the benefit of thousands of children. They are both true leaders in the field.
I would also like to thank Professor Kent Markus and the National Center for Adoption Law and Policy for inviting me to be here today to discuss an issue that is so important and so pressing in our society today-and that issue, as you know, is foster care. I've known and worked with Professor Markus for a very long time, and I truly appreciate the work he is doing. He is a very talented man, who could have a career doing just about anything. He has chosen to devote his legal career to helping countless children and families. I thank you for that and for the good work you do each and every day. All of us here today agree that every child in our Nation deserves to have the opportunity to grow up in a safe, stable, loving, and permanent home. Tragically, not all children have this chance. Such children are everywhere, but we find that they are more concentrated in certain places, like the foster care system. Right now, there are more than 21,000 Ohio children in foster care. Nationwide, a half-million children go to bed each night in homes that are not their own.
Every one of these children is "at risk"-and every single one of them-whether it's a child here in Columbus, or in Cincinnati, or in Cleveland, or anywhere else in Ohio or America-deserves to live in a home with loving and caring adults-to be a part of a real family. All children deserve this. Yet, so many-too many-children are not getting what they deserve.
While many of the children who spend time in foster care are eventually able to return to stable lives with their families, many of these children end up spending their most important, formative years in limbo-a limbo that denies them what all children should have-and that is a family and a permanent home. Every day, we get more and more compelling evidence of the need to rescue children from the limbo of the foster care system.
Far too many children move from foster home to foster home to foster home. I learned this first-hand over 30 years ago in the early 1970s when I was serving as an assistant county prosecuting attorney in Greene County. One of my duties was to represent the Greene County Children Services in cases where children were going to be removed from their parents' custody. I witnessed then that too many of these cases drag on endlessly, leaving children trapped in temporary foster care placements, which often entail multiple moves from foster home to foster home to foster home-for years and years and years.
Let me tell you about a girl named "Sarah." She is, ultimately, one of the lucky ones, because she has been rescued from a lifetime in foster care. But, until she was placed in a permanent home, this is what happened to her.
Sarah was born in August of 1993. In December of that year, she was hospitalized in critical condition, suffering from shaken baby syndrome. When she was released from the hospital, she went to her first foster home. From there, her life was a succession of foster homes. She had lived in eight foster homes by the time she was only four-years-old! Only one time during this period did she return to her mother's custody-and then, it was only for a three-month period.
As a result of injuries she suffered during her multiple stays in foster care, Sarah was physically and mentally delayed. She learned sign language to communicate. When she felt frustrated at others' inability to understand her, she would bite herself and scream.
Although she was in foster care for over three years, her biological parents made no progress in the child welfare case plan. The juvenile court had, on two occasions, denied the motion of children's services to terminate parental rights. The court's order stated the belief that her mother was immature and ordered Sarah to be placed in long-term foster care, presumably with the belief that the mother would mature with the passage of time. That didn't happen. Eventually, her parents disappeared, altogether.
As a result of the multiple moves and feelings of abandonment, Sarah would become hysterical whenever she saw a full, black garbage bag. You see, Sarah believed that a garbage bag meant she was going to be moved again. Her suitcase had always been a simple, black plastic garbage bag.
As I said already, Sarah is one of the lucky ones. Her foster care odyssey eventually ended a few years ago when her mother voluntarily relinquished parental rights. Sarah is now living with her adoptive family.
Sadly, however, Sarah's story is not isolated. And, the kind of entrenchment in the system that she experienced is its own kind of child abuse. Quite simply, Sarah and thousands of others just like her are the victims of abuse at the hands of the "system." And I, for one, see that as a major social problem.
We ask social services and social workers to try and put all the broken pieces of society back together again, but the social workers are underpaid and overworked. When I was working in the prosecutor's office in Greene County, I worked closely with these dedicated, hard-working, social welfare professionals. I have great respect for them. I admire them. They are at the front line of our efforts to save children. Yet, we expect the impossible from them. And frankly, we don't give them all the tools and resources they need to do their jobs.
That is what led me to seek passage of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which became law in 1997. Because of this law, we succeeded in changing a prior federal statute that was forcing many children to go back into homes where they were abused and tortured. Because of this law, we've seen an over 60 percent increase in the number of adoptions from foster care. Because of this law-kids are safer today.
The Adoption and Safe Families Act represented a significant change in child welfare laws. Perhaps more important, we helped change the way judges and child advocates looked at child welfare cases. This represented a change in the culture of child welfare, as we know it. At the same time, we all knew this law was not a quick, nor a complete fix. More work would be necessary to implement a new way of thinking about child welfare-a way of thinking that says that it is no longer acceptable to place a child in long-term foster care without a plan for permanent placement.
We knew that a law that simply tells judges that the health and safety of children must be paramount would not necessarily mean that they would adopt that philosophy in their decisions. To get there, training needed to be available so the law effectively becomes a part of a judge's decision making process. We also knew that the 1997 law's imposition of reduced timelines would create additional pressure on an already overburdened court system. These timelines, however, are very important to the welfare of the children involved. Foster care, after all, was meant to be a temporary solution-not a way of life.
To better achieve the goals of the Adoption and Safe Families Act and continue to get more kids into safe, permanent homes, it is imperative that we improve the courts and child welfare agencies responsible for these children. As you know, in May of this year, the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care came forward with their recommendations to improve the lives of children in foster care. These recommendations include proposals for improving court oversight of child welfare cases-proposals very similar to the "Strengthening Abuse and Neglect Courts Act," which is the law that I wrote several years ago with Senator Jay Rockefeller. This law, known as SANCA, provides funding for technology that can help courts better track cases and ultimately make better and timelier decisions for children.
Judge Grossmann, the former presiding judge of the Hamilton County, Ohio, Juvenile Court, is a pioneer in this effort to use technology and has sold me on the importance of information technology in dependency courts. His advocacy, along with that of Justice Stratton, Judge Salyers, and others, led to the drafting of SANCA. As they will attest, knowing what your caseload looks like, in terms of size, length of stay in care, age of the child, and so on, is necessary for evaluating how a court will respond to its caseload and in each individual case.
In fact, Judge Grossmann identified to the Pew Commission several advantages of collecting data. One advantage is that the data can be used to "hold the court accountable.... The other advantage is that once you have the data...getting the necessary funding from both county and state officials is a much easier task.... Suddenly it's pretty hard to argue that...you're not entitled to the necessary resources to resolve those problems."
Of course, having the data, both as a collective matter and for each individual case, is not enough. Judges also have to provide leadership and resolve to make these cases a priority. Judges and court personnel are making tough, life-changing decisions for all parties involved. And so, we have a responsibility to make sure they are trained properly and feel confident about those decisions. We also have a responsibility to make sure that we give the courts the tools they need to be successful and that they have a manageable case load, so an appropriate decision can be made in every case after all the facts have been gathered. We cannot rush decision-making in these cases-a child's life is at risk.
I intend to pursue legislatively many of the suggestions that the Pew Commission made with respect to court improvement. However, this may prove difficult. State courts typically do not fall within the jurisdiction of the federal government, and the Congress has been hesitant to provide funding. It is clear, though, that a well functioning dependency court is an essential piece of the puzzle for moving children expeditiously through the child welfare system.
The Congress also needs to look at the Pew Commission's recommendations on foster care financing. You get what you pay for. The fact is that if federal dollars are targeted primarily at foster care, children will end up in foster care. But, if those same dollars and those same efforts are targeted at permanency, more children will end up in permanent homes.
That being said, however, we must recognize that federal laws are not a panacea. We cannot solve all of the problems facing social services and social workers with strokes of a pen. We need community involvement. The problem of finding permanent and loving homes for children is not insurmountable. Government, private industry, and non-profit agencies-working together-can create incentives to adopt and find these children the permanency and the love they so deserve.
Let me conclude by reaffirming the goal of the Adoption and Safe Families Act. And, that goal is to move children from abusive parents and foster care into permanent homes-safe, stable, loving, permanent homes. I believe all of us here today share that goal, and I look forward to working with you as I continue to formulate legislation to implement the Pew Commission's recommendations.
Again, thank you, and I would be happy to open it up now for any questions.