Half of them “age out” with no home. But the best way to prevent the problems besetting children who “age out” of foster care is to prevent them from ever aging in.
Of course we already know that the outcomes often are dismal
– the new reports help us quantify how dismal.
One finding stands out – particularly now, right after National
Child Welfare Hypocrisy Day when newspapers are running all those treacly
stories equating adoption with permanence.
(People in child welfare call it permanency
– perhaps adding an extra syllable makes them feel more important.)
For children who are age 16 or older when they leave foster
care, fully half leave the system with
neither permanence nor permanency – it’s called “aging out.” They’re on their own. And – surprise! – the numbers
are worse for children of color.
The Casey data do not say what proportion of these children
are legal orphans – that is, the process went all the way to termination of
parental rights leaving them not even a legal connection to their own
families. So we don’t know how much of
this is a function of child welfare’s 20-year mad rush to
termination-at-all-costs (discussed in more detail here and here.) But that certainly has contributed.
The data also provide useful snapshots concerning racial
disparities in child welfare.
Interpret with care
But all of these data need to be viewed with come caution –
as does Casey’s own interpretation of the data.
● For starters, the data lump together all forms of “permanency.” It is misleading, indeed offensive, to
suggest that adoption by strangers automatically is an outcome equal to
reunification. Often it’s worse – and on
rare occasions it’s better. Either way,
the forms of permanency should be broken down separately.
● No form of “permanency” is guaranteed to be permanent
(maybe that’s why they added that extra syllable.) And adoption has a disturbing record when it comes to
failure.
● Data on average length of stay can be misleading. Look at the state data sheets for Minnesota
and New Mexico for example, and it looks like they’re doing a fantastic job of
getting children to “permanency” – the average length of stay is remarkably
low.
But the real reason is that in Minnesota nearly 14 percent
of children torn from their families are sent back within a month – and more
than half of those are returned in five
days or fewer – much the worse for the experience – meaning they almost
certainly never should have been taken in the first place. In New Mexico more than 35 percent of foster
children are discharged from care within a month – so of course their average
length of stay looks even better than Minnesota’s. These
states illustrate how, sometimes, one of the worst things states do to
children, needlessly tear them away from their parents, can actually make their
numbers look better.
● Most important, there is a key error in the narrative –
one that is common but disappointing to see coming from Casey. The state reports include this statement – the
first part of which often is not true:
In addition to the trauma of abuse or neglect that resulted in being removed from their homes and placed in the foster care system, experiences while in foster care — including frequent moves — can lead to worse outcomes for youth.
That first part isn’t always false of course. But many
children in foster care were not abused
or neglected. And I don’t just mean the
many cases in which courts get it wrong because there is no real due process for
families.
Children can be placed in foster care for weeks, sometimes
months, before a court ever rules one way of the other. Odds are almost none of those
five-day-or-fewer placements in Minnesota, for example, involved children who really
were abused or neglected.
No foundation trying to reform criminal justice would refer
to everyone in jail as a criminal – because Many foster children are also
being held before any trial to determine if they actually were abused or
neglected.
The language is one more reflection of Casey’s long, steady
retreat from efforts to actually curb the needless removal of children into
foster care in the first place – something made clear years ago when they set
up a new initiative and forgot
to even mention that problem. Their
focus now is primarily on fixing foster care – by curbing institutionalization
and boosting kinship foster care and adoption.
Sadly, that is the overall message from the new report: Now that the
system has done all this harm, what are we going to do to ameliorate it with
more “services” for children who age out?
Providing such help is certainly worthwhile, indeed it
should be seen as an obligation, since the system inflicted so much of the harm
in the first place. But as a study from another Casey foundation, Casey
Family Programs, makes clear, even if you made foster care perfect, it would
improve the rotten outcomes for foster children by only 22.2 percent. (The two Caseys were created by the same
family but are run separately.)
There is a certain irony in this. Those wedded to take-the-child-and-run agenda
often accuse the Caseys of being at the center of something akin to a Vast
Family Preservation Conspiracy. Trust me, they’re not. (When we hold our secret meetings in an underground
bunker deep in Area 51, I’m the one who hands out the membership cards.)
Still, The Annie E. Casey Foundation is about
to get a new leader, Lisa Hamilton.
I hope she’ll turn Casey back toward meaningful work to reduce needless
foster care. I hope she will see that
the best way to prevent the problems besetting children who “age out” of foster
care is to prevent them from ever aging in.
And besides, if you’re going to be blamed for supposedly
using your massive resources to push family preservation anyway, you might as
well actually do it. If that happens, I’ll
be glad to send the folks at Casey an official Vast Family Preservation
Conspiracy membership card, and share the secret handshake.
