Transcript NCANDS, AFCARS, CFSR, PEW, CASEY, APHSA, ETC. What Their Research Tells Us Howard Davidson, J.D. Director, ABA Center on Children and the Law 740 15th.

NCANDS, AFCARS, CFSR,
PEW, CASEY, APHSA, ETC.
What Their Research Tells Us
Howard Davidson, J.D.
Director, ABA Center on Children and the Law
740 15th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005 202/662-1740
[email protected]
National Child Abuse and
Neglect Data System
 “NCANDS”–
Latest report, “Child
Maltreatment 2003” reports 2003 data
 CPS got about 2.9 million reports BUT...
Almost a million “screened out” (state %
varied from .9% in AZ to 65.7% in NH)
Anonymous reports-- 9.1% of all reports
(11.7% subst. or indic.; 11.9% unsubt.;
16.3% found intentionally false; but note
Teachers had higher unsubst. rate, and
Parents/Relatives higher “false” rates)
“professional groups”–
medical, mental health, and child care
 Rate-- substantiated to unsubstantiated
varies widely state-to-state (from 1 out
of 6 reports subst. (MT) to more subst.
than unsubst. (VA)– typical: 1-2 to 1-4
 Less than .1% of all reports to CPS are
found to be “intentionally false”
 Most commonly reported and subst.:
Child Neglect, over 60% of all victims
(rose in 2003, other categories
declined)– in some, 90%+ (NY, NC)
 Lowest-reporting
 Removal
FAR more likely for Neglect
(60%+ of removals, some states more)
 One of smallest individual categories:
Psychological Maltreatment (some
states under 1% -- AZ, ID, IL, MD, MA,
MN, NY, NC, RI, TN, WI), but others,
30-60% (CT, ME, ND, UT) – Why?
 Most common victims: ages 0-3 ! (also,
78.7% of all maltreatment fatalities)
 Only 34 states reported number of child
victims with disabilities (ranges-- from
.5% FL to 98.7% HA, and 20-30% in AZ,
AR, ID, IN, NH, SC)
 Removal
from Home– children with
disabilities twice as likely to be placed;
0-3 group most likely to be placed;
African-American children 36% more
likely to be placed than White children
 The % of victim kids removed varies
considerably from 3%(FL) to 50.6%(ID)
 Perpetrators– some states show lots of
unmarried partner of parent perps. (FL,
MA, TX), but others small (CO, WY)
 Very small numbers of residential facility
staff perps. (13 states report 20 or less)
 Child
Victims with Court Action or
Petition– only 66,645 out of 537,026
victims on whom states reported data
 Yet, some states had very high rates of
court action (NM, 100%; NH, 56.2%;
MT, 49.1%; NB, 44.1%), others low (TX
reports under 0.0%; KY, .1%; FL, .2%)
 Since 1996, states are supposed to be
reporting the % of victims with courtappointed representatives (lawyers,
GAL, CASA)– only 25 states report this;
ranging from under 1% (FL, IN, NV, NH)
to 40% or more (AZ, HA, NB) – How
can we make this data more reliable?
AFCARS, Child Welfare
Outcomes Report, CFSRs
 Adoption
and Foster Care Analysis and
Reporting System– latest data are
estimates as of August 2004 (Rpt. 9),
but data is mostly focused on 2002
 Number of children in care coming
down (but still over 500,000), as are
children “waiting” for permanency
 But number of TPRs not rising, nor are
adoptions from foster care
 29%
of kids are in care 3 years or longer
(multiple placements still far too common)
 Quarter of placements in kinship homes
 8 states have high rate (20% or more) of
group shelter or institutional placement
 Return home most common goal/outcome
(54%), but high reunification states have
high care re-entry rates (problem: poor
post-return services and family monitoring)
 African-Americans and Hispanic kids still
widely over-represented (54% of kids in
care versus 39% White kids)
 40% entering care are 0-5 (largest group)
 61% of adoptions are to Foster Parents
 Annual
Child Welfare Outcomes Report
to Congress (2001, printed 2004)
 Incorporates information from 32 Child
and Family Services Reviews
 States have trouble preventing
maltreatment from re-occurring (poor
risk assessment and family monitoring,
services not addressing risk areas); but
states are more successful preventing
abuse in foster care
 Achieving permanency for adolescents
and kids with disabilities is a problem –
far too many kids are growing up in and
emancipating from foster care
What More Can We Learn
From the 52 CFSRs?
 We’re
failing to enhance many families’
capacity to better provide for their kids
 We’re generally failing to quickly and
properly address kids’ physical and
especially their mental health needs
 We’re doing poorly in properly involving
children and families as partners in our
case planning and court process
 We’re mostly failing to get parents the
help they most need (e.g., for addictions)
 We’re
failing to do enough for
maltreated adolescents (who too often
simply remain in long-term foster care)
 We’re letting too many kids keep having
a goal of “family reunification” without
re-evaluating whether that’s still right
 We’re not, in far too many cases where
we should, filing for TPR (or holding
timely “Permanency Hearings”)
 We’re not doing enough to put into
practice the clear fact that increasing
frequency of caseworker visits to kids
and parents enhances children’s safety,
permanency, and well-being
 We’re
still making far too much use of
group shelters for initial placements and
for disrupted foster care situations
 We’re still not doing enough to train and
support foster parents
 We’re still not doing enough to match
individual children’s needs with the right
foster placement that can address those
 We’re still not doing enough to create
more proper placements for children
with disabilities or behavior problems
 We’re still not doing enough to involve
fathers early in the process
The Pew Report
 Pew
Commission on Children in Foster
Care, “Fostering the Future: Safety,
Permanence and Well-Being for
Children in Foster Care” (2004)
 Made suggestions for changes in child
welfare financing, but also…
 Made recommendations for improving
how the courts deal with abused and
neglected children and their families
 Just
as CPS and foster care agencies
should track case caseloads and
outcomes, so should courts (to help
enhance individual judge accountability
and overall court resources)
 There should be effective, on-going
collaboration between the agency and
the court, including leadership by the
state Chief Justice and Agency Director
 Children and parents need a stronger
voice, and representation, in court
 State judicial leaders should better train
judges and endorse practice standards
for courts, judges, and lawyers
 State
and local bar associations, law
schools, and law firms, should build a
pool of new qualified lawyers to
represent children and parents in court
 The state Chief Justice should have
clear control over all their state’s courts
hearing dependency cases, and all
these cases should be heard in
specialized “dependency courts”, rather
than in courts where judges hear all
sorts of cases, and judges should be
able to “build a career” on the
dependency bench
Casey Family Programs’
Foster Care Alumni Study
2005 report: “Improving Family Foster
Care- Findings from the Northwest
Foster Care Alumni Study” looked at
outcomes for 659 “alumni” age 20-33
 This research suggests we need to do
far more for abused/neglected kids as
soon as they come into the system
 More than half had significant mental
health problems (depression, social
phobia, PTSD, drug dependency, etc.)
 PTSD
rates much higher than for
general population, up to twice as high
as for war vets
 More than one in five alumni
experienced homelessness after leaving
foster care
 Maintaining placement stability (i.e.,few
changes, no reunification failures, no
running away) had a 22% decrease in
negative mental health outcomes
 Providing access to supplemental
education services/tutoring & few school
changes had a 13% decrease in
negative mental health outcomes
APHSA’s 2004 Child Welfare
Workforce Survey
 American
Public Human Services
Association report of state agencies
(February 2005)
 42 state agencies participated in study
 Only 1 state agency was “accredited”
 16 out of 34 states asked about class
action suits said they were involved in a
child welfare court decree or settlement!
 Only 6 states reported that they had
statutory caseload limits
 Only
9 states reported contracting with
the private sector for CPS/child welfare
services to families (“privatization”)
 Average CPS salaries: $35,553 (lower
than nurses, public school teachers,
police officers, and firefighters)
 During 3+ study years, CPS worker
salaries rose 6.3% but federal cost of
living rose 9.7%
 CPS supervisor/worker ratio: 1 to 6
 Average tenure before leaving: 5 years
 15 states had caseload size or workload
(based on case complexity) standards –
CPS worker caseload range: 11-51 kids
National Study of CPS
Systems and Reform Efforts
 Published
by U.S. Children’s Bureau in
2003, study by Walter McDonald &
Associates & American Humane Assn.
 Studied both State CPS Policies and
Local CPS Practices (2 volumes)
 Some state policy findings: only 14 state
policies require reporters be notified
when cases are “screened in” (only 16
of investigation’s outcome); 20 states
had some “alternative response”
mechanism to reported cases
 Some
local practice findings: 70% of
agencies reported an excessive
workload problem for CPS investigators;
only 7% reported a priority status
arrangement with mental health
providers or substance abuse
treatment; only 13% had non-English
speakers on staff to handle reports; only
32% said they always do criminal
background checks on alleged
perpetrators as part of investigations;
use of formal safety/risk assessment
instrument in investigation (37%/44%)
 47%
reported using the “structured
decisionmaking model” which includes
both safety and risk assessment
measurements (National Council on
Crime and Delinquency, Children’s
Research Center)
http://www.nccd-crc.org/crc/c_sdm_about.html
 Finally
(and of special interest to this
group) 95% of respondents said they
sometimes or always involve a Citizen
CPS Review Team in the case
investigation itself (94% involved them in
their alternative response process)