Foster Care Requires New Vision

The scenes they saw were Dickensian: children neglected, over-medicated and sometimes beaten, bounced from one place to another after being taken away from parents who had abused or abandoned them. The members of the Los Angeles County Grand Jury were looking not at some historical horror but at children in the county’s 476 group foster homes.

Some of the homes described in a jury report released last week provided model care. But at many others, the children wore threadbare clothing and faraway stares amid conditions far below those to be expected at facilities receiving monthly government payments of $1,200 to $5,000 per child.

Part of the problem is obvious: The county’s Department of Children and Family Services lacks the staff and resources to adequately oversee the group homes, which collectively house nearly 5,000 youngsters. The department has asked for 107 more employees, including inspectors, but the problem won’t be cured with better oversight alone. What it requires is a better vision.

Department director Peter Digre has pioneered impressive programs that include Independent Living, which helps older foster kids look to the future, learning how to rent apartments, order telephones and handle job interviews. But the county lacks thorough quality-of-care standards and mandates only certain bottom-rung criteria, like those related to basic safety. The department, now negotiating new contracts with group homes, has the opportunity to demand far more, from tutoring to counseling.

The most fundamental problem with foster care here is the way it is funded. An emotionally disturbed girl, for instance, might be forced to live in a large group home staffed by social workers and psychologists in order for her treatment to be reimbursed. For this kind of care, the county pays the home operator top dollar. The girl, however, might do better in a single-family foster home with regular visits from social workers and psychologists. The lesson is that funds should be geared to the child’s needs instead of the home’s facilities.

With more than 10,000 children entering it each year, the county’s foster care system is the nation’s biggest. But however large, the problems it faces are not unsolvable.

Take MacLaren Children’s Center, the linchpin of the county’s foster care system. As the only facility legally required to accept all children, from infants to sometimes violent adolescents, MacLaren has its fair share of problems. But thanks in part to its 17-year partnership with the United Friends of the Children, MacLaren has been able to develop programs like Cottage Parents, in which volunteers make monthly visits to bungalows at MacLaren. They listen and offer emotional support. They also keep an independent eye on the system.

Yes, the county’s foster care system is troubled. But with some tough governmental reforms and more citizen involvement like that of United Friends, abused or abandoned children will be far more likely to find a place that could reasonably be called a home.