Birth Parents with Children in Out of Home Care: Silent Voices in Child Welfare Policy Development

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Birth Parents with Children in Out of Home
CareSilent Voices in Child Welfare Policy
Development
Betty Jo Barrett, M.S.S.W., PhD
(candidate) University of Wisconsin,
Madison March 31, 2005 Paper presented at the
Social Justice Empowerment Through Our Shared
Stories Conference
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Outline

• Overview of Federal Child Welfare Policy
  Development (1980-1997)
• Political, Legal, and Social Factors
• Frameworks for Analyzing Policy Changes
• Implications for Macro Level Practice
• Implications for Direct Practice with Families

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Major Federal Child Welfare Legislations
1980 - Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare
Act 1993 - Omnibus Budget Reconciliation
Act 1994 - Multiethnic Placement Act 1996 -
Adoption Promotion and Stability
Act 1997-Adoption and Safe Families Act
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Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act-Goals

• End foster care drift
• Encourage the TIMELY arrangement of permanent
  placements for children in out of home care

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Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act-Major
Components

• Mandated reasonable efforts to prevent removal
  of child
• Mandated reasonable efforts to reunify children
  with parents if placement is necessary
• Written case plans for every child outlining
  parents and social workers responsibilities
• Court reviews of cases no less than once every
  six months

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Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act-Major
Components

• Established a continuum of permanency
  options-reunification, long term foster care,
  adoption
• Adoption subsidies for special needs children
• Provided the essential framework for children in
  out of home care

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Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 Goals

• Prevent placement of children in out of home care
• Prevent child abuse and neglect
• Support and strengthen families

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Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 Major
Components

• Enacted Federal Family Preservation and Support
  Program
• Federal funding for community based prevention
  programs
• Assist families prevent crises and effectively
  cope should crises occur

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Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994-Goals

• Reduce barriers to permanency for children in out
  of home care who cannot return home
• Prevent racial discrimination in child welfare
  services

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Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994-Major
Components

• Prohibits delaying or denying a childs
  foster/adoptive placement on the basis of the
  childs or prospective parents race
• Prohibits racial discrimination in
  foster/adoptive parental applications
• Requires states to diligently recruit
  foster/adoptive parents that reflect the
  diversity of children needing placements

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Adoption Promotion and Stability Act of
1996-Goals

• Encourage adoption
• Further prevent racial discrimination in child
  welfare services

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Adoption Promotion and Stability Act of
1996-Major Components

• 5,000 federal tax credit for adoption expenses
• Interethnic Adoption Provision-classifies racial
  discrimination for children in out of home care a
  violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act

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Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997- Goals

• Improve the safety of children
• Promote adoption and other permanent homes for
  children who need them
• To support families

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Adoption and Safe Families Act-Major Components

• Shortens timeline for filing for TPR for children
  in out-of- home care
• Identifies cases for which states do not need to
  offer reasonable efforts to maintain or return
  the child to their family of origin

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Adoption and Safe Families Act- Major Components

• Decrees that mandatory permanency hearings must
  be held within 12 months after a child has been
  placed in substitute care
• Promotes adoption through
• - authorizing incentive payments for states
• - requiring states to document promotion
  efforts
• - providing technical assistance
• - reducing geographic barriers

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Adoption and Safe Families Act- Major Components

• Expands requirements of court review notification
• Renames and expands the Family Preservation and
  Support Services Program
• Extends independent living services
• Requires states to provide criminal record checks
• Requires states to evaluate performance and to
  develop an outcome-based incentive funding system

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Political, Legal, and Social Factors Influencing
the Child Welfare Policy Development

• The changing adoption market
• Failures of existing systems
• Increasing media exposure

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Changing Adoption Market

• Declining stigma of unwed motherhood
• Declining number of teens placing children for
  adoption
• Increased use of contraceptives to prevent
  unwanted pregnancies
• Decreasing numbers of white women voluntarily
  placing their babies for adoption

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Failure of Existing Systems

• Increased rates of children placed in out of
  home care
• -1982 ?262,000 children in substitute care
  (estimated)
• -1987 ?280,000
• -1990 ?363,000
• -1994 ?455,000
• -1996 ?507,000
• Increasing levels of special needs of children
  placed in foster care
• Lingering stays in care for children who were
  unable to be returned to their family of origin

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Failure of Existing Systems

• Racial differences in rates of adoption left
  certain populations of youth lingering in care
  longer than others
• Many children who could not return home were
  essentially in limbo, in that they were not yet
  free to be adopted
• Increasing legal challenges on behalf of children
  in the child welfare system reveal inadequacies
  in the current system and call the need for reform

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Media Impacts

• Highly publicized cases of child abuse and
  neglect increase public interest in child welfare
  issues
• Public awareness of barriers to permanency
  through adoption increase with heightened media
  attention to these issues (such as the case of
  abandoned baby Clay Moses in Indiana).

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Frameworks for understanding policy development
(Thomas Dye)

• Elite Model
• Group Theory

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Elite Model

• Policy development is controlled by ruling
  elites
• Policies reflect values of this dominant group
• Policies serve to reinforce power and status of
  the dominant group

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Elite Model-Permanency

• Policy development represents fundamental shift
  from permanency to permanency through adoption
• Emphasis on traditional, nuclear family
  arrangements (through formal adoptions) contrast
  with the realities of many cross cultural family
  arrangements
• -Familism in Latino families
• -Role of fictive kin and practices such as
  compadrazgo (godparenting)

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Elite Model-Individualism

• Emphasis on individualism blames parents
  inadequacies. This viewpoint results in
  individual solutions versus social change
  efforts.
• Emphasis on individualism verses collectivism
  reflects white, middle/upper class values that
  contrast with those of some other ethnic groups

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Elite Model-Ethnicity

• Policies that appear race blind on the surface
  may subtly exclude families of color as potential
  foster or adoptive parents
• Mandatory criminal background checks will
  disproportionately impact African Americans
• Foster parent licensure criteria may have
  disparate impact on families of color

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Elite Model-Trans Racial Policies

• Increase potential for trans-racial adoptions as
  permanency options under recent policies are
  concerning to communities of color
• Acknowledgement of important role of culture for
  Native American children has been reflected in
  law (Indian Child Welfare Act), but this
  recognition has not been as forthcoming for other
  cultural groups

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Elite Model-Trans Racial Policies

• National Association of Black Social Workers
  denounced trans-racial adoptions as a form of
  cultural genocide in 1972
• North American Council of Adoptable Children
  formally supported race matching policies. They
  have since altered their policies to reflect the
  mandates of the Multiethnic Placement Act but
  still affirm the important role of culture in the
  lives of children.

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Group Theory

• Policy development occurs as a result of
  interactions between multiple groups who have a
  stake in the outcome
• Groups who have more power and resources will
  have their agendas reflected in policy to a
  greater extent than less powerful and resourceful
  groups

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Group Theory

• Groups who support adoption have been more
  successful in lobbying for change than groups who
  favor other child welfare reform options
• Recent increases in adoption oriented media
  exposure have been instrumental in the promotion
  of adoption
• Similar organizations exist for birth families in
  voluntary adoptions but no organizations exist to
  defend the rights of biological parents
  involuntarily in the child welfare system.

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Implications for Macro Level Practice

• Shift in underlying values of policy to more
  strongly privilege adoption verses other options
  for permanency may disproportionately impact
  families of color
• Practitioners need to play a vital role in
  educating policy makers and public about these
  consequences of legislation
• Encourage professional groups and organizations
  to issue statements in response to policy and
  testify in policy hearings
• Conduct research and produce knowledge to more
  effectively guide child welfare policy
  development

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Implications for Macro Level Practice

• Respond to media coverage of child welfare events
  in a way that serves to promote the framing of
  child welfare issues as public issues as opposed
  to individual troubles (i.e. letters to the
  editor, response pieces, etc.)
• Support groups and organizations that advocate
  for racial justice in child welfare practice
  (such as the National Association of Black Social
  Workers)
• Work closely with communities of color to develop
  a range of permanency options that are
  culturally sensitive and reflect a range of cross
  cultural familial arrangements and work to
  educate policy makers about these options

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Implications for Micro Level Practice

• Promote Family Conferencing as a strategy for
  preventing out of home care and maintaining a
  child in their extended family when appropriate
• Encourage clients to participate in parenting
  support groups with other parents with children
  in out of home care for mutual support and
  potential grass roots organizing on their own
  behave (Prevent Child Abuse Wisconsin has a
  comprehensive list of all such groups in
  Wisconsin)

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Conclusions

• Child welfare policy has evolved in a way that
  minimizes the rights of birth parents while
  simultaneously promoting adoption as the
  preferred permanency option
• Policy development occurred in a context of
  social and political factors that dramatically
  changed environment of child welfare services
• Policy changes disproportionately impact families
  of color
• The Elite Model and Group Theory help us explain
  how policy evolution occurred and point to
  recommendations for both macro and micro level
  practice