Here are Some of the other states with child welfare systems so rotten that the vast majority of foster children are never allowed to go home.
The previous post to this Blog highlighted Virginia’s dismal distinction: worst in America for allowing foster children ever to return to their own homes. In Virginia, if you’ve been taken away from your parents, odds are nearly three in four you will never be able to return to them – unless you find them again when you’re an adult.
Virginia’s rate of reunifying families is 27%. The national average is 44% - which itself is dismal. Virginia children are more likely to be torn from their parents forever and handed over, usually to total strangers, to keep through adoption than they are to go back to their own homes. And Virginia’s contempt for families runs so deep that child welfare agencies will let nearly one in five foster children “age out” with no home at all, rather than exert any real effort to reunify families.
But while Virginia wins for worst record in the nation, there were plenty of other contenders. Here are some of them:
● Virginia may not be #1 for long. North Carolina is nearly as bad – only 30% of foster children get to return home. And right now, North Carolina lawmakers are patting themselves on the back for supposedly passing a major “reform” bill. While some provisions may be marginally helpful, what may be the most significant will make it even harder to reunify families.
● Like Virginia, Michigan is triply dismal. Only 35% of foster children are reunified, while 41% are adopted. And Michigan is another state where the proportion of children who age out with no home at all is nearly double the national average.
● Much the same can be said for Ohio – except that the adoption percentage is lower.
● Connecticut did good work in past years in reducing entries into foster care. But lately, there’s been backsliding. In 2023, Connecticut was one of the few states where the number of children taken from their parents over the course of a year increased over the previous year, and it was the second-highest increase in the nation. A huge proportion of the children Connecticut took – more than two-thirds -- probably are never going home. Connecticut is another state where the proportion of children exiting to adoption, usually by strangers, is higher than the percentage reunified.
● There is a similar pattern, though not as bad, in Alabama, another state that saw great progress in past years, but now is backsliding.
● Texas has made ongoing commendable progress curbing entries. But here, too, nearly two-thirds of those taken will never go home. And in Texas, nearly as many are adopted as reunified.
Guardianship is no excuse
Some of these states, such as Connecticut, may claim their rates of reunification are low because they supposedly place a lot of children in guardianship arrangements with relatives. Yes, that’s better than adoption by strangers, but:
● It is not the
same thing as being allowed to go home to your own parents.
● The fact that many of these states use formal adoption – which usually means strangers – at a rate nearly as high or higher than reunification suggests they’re not doing enough with guardianships either.
