Foster Care Report Urges Statewide Boss

Despite more than $2 billion spent annually on California’s foster care system, thousands of children still receive inadequate care because neither the state nor counties will take responsibility for reforms, concludes a report released Tuesday by a state watchdog agency.

The Little Hoover Commission, which detailed foster care failings in a 1999 report, said scant progress has been made in the last three years and that children continue to suffer for it.

The panel’s main recommendation is the appointment of a statewide czar to oversee foster care, which served 91,509 children in 2002.

In its account, “Still In Our Hands: A Review of Efforts to Reform Foster Care,” the group found that an estimated 25% of children in foster care have not received timely medical care and that 50% lack needed mental health services. Since 1999, according to the report, an estimated 2,800 children have left the system at age 18 only to become homeless.

The report told of one young woman who had been in 60 homes during her 12 years in foster care and at one point was sent to live in another state. She testified that she was separated from her sister and never reunited.

The commission said that in the last three years, Los Angeles County has spent more than $12 million to address lawsuits involving children who were neglected, abused or killed while in foster care. Moreover, the county’s myriad oversight committees are hampered by a lack of coordination and “squabbling.”

The disarray in Los Angeles County epitomizes bureaucratic obstacles in a system mainly funded by the federal government, overseen by the state and administered by counties, asserted the commission.

Marjorie Kelly, interim director of the county’s Department of Children and Family Services, called that assessment unfair.

“Everyone can and should identify areas where we want to make improvements, but thousands of children are kept safe every day by use of foster care, and there are thousands of foster parents who deliver excellent care to foster children.”

Kelly said that the county’s various oversight committees each focus on specific issues, such as neglect cases, and that none is charged with fixing the system.

But the state commission suggested that is part of the problem in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

“The current muddle of authority and responsibility frustrates the innovative and shields the unresponsive. The buck stops nowhere,” said chairman Michael E. Alpert.

The commission credited policymakers with recognizing the need to improve foster care and with increasing investments in programs that would help children remain with their families. For instance, there is now a state Ombudsman Office for Foster Care and a toll-free hotline to provide children and families with assistance.

But many of the reform efforts are proving futile, and with no one in charge, the foster care system “fumbles forward and often backward, and costs children and families their happiness, their prosperity and even their lives,” the report said.

The commission noted that California recently failed a federal performance review of foster programs and faces penalties of up to $18 million if it doesn’t improve.

The commission said its overwhelming concern is that there is no one person or agency at the state level with responsibility for children in foster care. It recommends that the governor and Legislature designate a statewide leader who would have broad authority over those issues and be held accountable for improvements. The group also suggests that the foster care ombudsman office be transformed into a child welfare inspector general with power to investigate complaints and evaluate foster care agencies.

To bolster its argument for a central overseer, the new report quoted Grantland Johnson, California’s secretary for health and human services, who testified at a hearing in August:

“I’m here to tell you that, yes, we agree, the system is broken and needs fixing.”

On Tuesday, a spokesman for Johnson said he thought the report was unfairly harsh in representing his views and failed to take into account his efforts to improve the system.

Moreover, other state child welfare officials said that the appointment of a statewide foster overseer would create additional bureaucracy.

“It is an intensely complex matter with children that are extremely traumatized and families that are severely dysfunctional, and those things don’t get fixed with a cookie-cutter approach,” said Department of Social Services Director Rita Saenz.

Child welfare advocates applauded the report for pressing the question of accountability.

“Everyone knows the right thing to do in the abstract, but there is no management structure or accountability to get it done,” noted Carole Shauffer, an attorney with the nonprofit California Youth Law Center, which has sued the state and Los Angeles County over foster care conditions.