Only two percent of foster children get routine visits from their parents
Krista Zuccheri plays "peek a boo" with one year old Elizabeth and her mother Lou, during a supervised visit at Family Connections in 2008. In 2009, only two percent of foster children routinely visited their parents in meetings like this, an essential step to reuniting families.
NEWARK &mdash The vast majority of foster children received more medical care in the last half of 2009, but only two percent routinely visited their parents - an essential step in the process of reuniting them with their families, according to the latest report card for New Jersey's court-supervised child welfare system.
Federal District Court Judge Stanley R. Chesler in Newark is expected to discuss the report's findings at noon today with court monitor Judith Meltzer, and representatives from the national advocacy group Children's Rights and the state Department of Children and Families.
Children's Rights sued the state in 1999 on behalf of New Jersey's 9,000 foster children, claiming they were harmed by the poorly financed and managed child welfare system, the Division of Youth and Family Services. The state agreed to invest hundreds of millions of dollars a year and undergo judicial oversight when it settled the case in 2003.
"On the whole, during this monitoring period, the state has made solid progress, but the deficiencies ... need heightened and continued attention,'' Meltzer wrote.In her seventh and latest report evaluating the child welfare system July 1, 2009 through December 31, 2009, Meltzer found the department had met many of its goals ensuring children under state supervision were safe, getting proper care, and entered a foster home with many if not all of their siblings. But DYFS fell short in several ways working with parents accused of mistreating their kids, by failing to keep regular appointments and formally plan how they will be reunited with their children.
The monitor expressed "extreme concern" that only 2 percent foster children "had documented visits with their parents every week as required, and an additional nine percent of children had two or three contacts with their parents during the month,'' according to the 178-page report. The monitor had expected 40 percent of foster children to see their parents every week, and 50 percent to see their parents every other week. The state fared far better on this front in its last report measuring progress from January to June 2009, when 17 percent of children saw their parents every week.
"The monitor is extremely concerned about this level of performance as parent-child visitation is essential to successfully maintaining family connections and assisting reunification efforts,'' the report said.
Most children in foster care, about 80 percent, return home to their families.
The monitor also had expected more DYFS employees to conduct "family team meetings,'' a new technique that periodically brings together parents accused of mistreating their kids with relatives and other people close to the family, such as clergy, counselors and neighbors, to discuss how to stabilize the family and protect the child.
Yet DYFS held no meetings with 86 percent of families. Meltzer interviewed workers to see why they were struggling and attributed the problem to "the time it takes to build the skills necessary'' to handle these potentially volatile sessions.
The state met or exceeded expectations in other areas, according to the report. Fewer abused children who remained in their parents' care were abused again within a year, the report said. The monitor expected no more than about 7 percent of abused children would get abused anew within a year, but just 183 children, or 3.5 percent of 5,189 children mistreated last year, were re-victimized.
The monitor also praised DYFS for ensuring 80 percent of New Jersey's 7,900 foster children saw a dentist and 90 percent of children got their required immunizations. Nearly all of them, about 94 percent, got comprehensive medical exams within a month of entering foster care.
DYFS also kept more brothers and sisters together in foster care - another problem Children's Rights cited in its lawsuit against the state. From July through December, DYFS placed 74 percent of sibling groups - made up of two or three brothers and sisters - in the same foster home, exceeding the goal of a 65 percent success rate. For four or more siblings, DYFS found a home able to accommodate 31 percent of these children, slightly surpassing the goal of 30 percent.
Meltzer called attention to the ongoing problems caused by the private administrator for the children's mental health division. Since PerformCare took over screening, authorizing and tracking children's mental health treatment in September 2009, families are waiting longer to get approvals for care, and and some treatment agencies have had to call every day to check on a child's status in the system.
"These problems are reported to be slowly improving but require focused attention,'' according to the report.
Meltzer, associate director of the Center for the Study of Social Policy, a policy and research not-for-profit agency in Washington D.C., is the monitor until at least 2012, or when Children's Rights is satisfied the child welfare system has been rehabilitated. Meltzer and her staff analyzed the state's data, reviewed case files and interviewed caseworkers, older children, parents and community agencies working for the state to determine New Jersey's progress.
Acting Commissioner Allison Blake said the report "shows that the reform of New Jersey's child welfare system remains on track. While there is still much more to do to improve the outcomes for the children and families this Department serves, I believe (the state) is on the right path."
Susan Lambiase, associate director of Children’s Rights, gave the state credit for making vast improvements since 2006, noting that adoptions from foster care are moving faster, and rate of abuse in foster care is about the lowest in the nation. But in too many areas involving DYFS interaction with families, the state made "dismal progress," according to a statement from Children's Rights.
"At this stage of the reform, the state needs to focus on deficiencies in key practice areas to better demonstrate that the lives of kids and families are in fact improving,” Lambiase said.
The report is available at www.childrensrights.org.