Foster Care Numbers Down
(AP)-  The poster child for America’s foster care system cannot be represented by one individual youth. Every young person who has experienced involvement in this system knows that it is a journey fraught with both heartache and happy endings that are as individual as the youth themselves. Yet for some kids, they are experiencing a change in the system for the better.
 
Many states are reducing their foster care case loads by expediting the adoption process and increasing the range of preventative support to ensure that children and their families are getting assistance before the child is removed. While each state is handling this change differently, here are some encouraging numbers from a few: New York City has reduced its caseloads from 28,000 in 2002 to 16,000 this year, Tennessee numbers dropped from almost 11,000 children in 2004 to about 7,100 today.  
Photo by Susana Mariscal
 
 
The National Coalition for Child Protection Reform commends the states who are implementing positive change but also recognize that not all states are following suit. Some states are experiencing an increase in their foster care populations, among them are Arizona, Texas, Indiana, and Nevada. Many child welfare advocates view federal funding as the fundamental problem which they argue acts as a deterrent for states to reduce their foster care populations.
 
However, as promising the expansion of preventive services may be, many child welfare advocates are concerned that recent budget cuts will undermine the progress that has been made in a positive direction. States will need to become creative about how to maintain funding for their programs.  For example, Florida has obtained a statewide waiver from federal funding regulations, meaning that federal funding that is usually limited to out-of-home care can now be used for a variety of services and programs.  The biggest drop in foster care numbers reported comes from California; the state has taken a page from Florida’s book as it too requested and received a federal funding waiver. As a result the foster care population of the state has fallen from 90,692 in 2002 to under 65,000
today.
  
Courtesy of APContent.
Original article: Tennessean.Com: Foster-care numbers drop as states add preventive services, speed adoptions
LINK: http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100606/NEWS08/6060327/2067/Foster-care+numbers+drop+as+states+add+preventive+services++speed+adoptions
 
 
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Last Updated (Thursday, 03 March 2011 13:27)