January news....

Catching up on child welfare happenings.

Good morning!

Frequent readers may notice I took a bit of an extended vacation over the holidays, as we had a family trip abroad the first two weeks of January. So I’ve got a lot of work to do to catch you all up!

First up is the situation in my home state of Georgia, where the state child welfare agency is on track for a $48 million shortfall and has, since October, stopped funding for private agencies who do the necessary work of providing visitation services, behavioral aides, family assessments, and transportation. The agency has treated this situation as a nothingburger, blaming juvenile court judges who order unnecessary services and providers who aren’t doing their jobs. This column makes a strenuous effort to present child welfare news objectively, but let me depart from that for a moment. As I said in a letter that was delivered to the Governor last week, a child welfare agency that cuts off its private providers and drives some of them to close their doors its cutting off its nose to spite its face. While the legislature appears poised to reinstate and increase funding, the agency’s attitude toward its providers is, quite frankly, horrendous. In a Republican-led state that has always invited private-public partnerships, the DHS Commissioner suggested that they should be handing these services “in house.” Her testimony reminds me, unfortunately, of Hugo Chavez’ 2007 statement that the Venezuelan government could manage its oil reserves better than the private sector. If you’ve found a child welfare system that can accomplish its mission relying purely on government agencies, let me know. Otherwise, demonizing and defunding private, often nonprofit, providers is nothing less than … well, y’all, tell me.

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In other news:

• Ryan Hanlon, whom I consider to be an excellent choice, has been tapped to lead the Children’s Bureau.

• I was at a meeting this week where we discussed the recent research questioning the effectiveness of politically-popular and often-funded home visiting programs. I’ve been an fan of those programs, the research gives me pause. As one of my colleagues at the meeting said, one’s gut feeling is that these programs ensure an outside professional is “laying eyes on” a vulnerable child. But if that’s not effective in reducing child maltreatment, what is?

• Also noted in that meeting, we are spending a ton of federal dollars on adoption subsidies but have little oversight of those funds. Once a child is adopted from foster care and a family starts receiving adoption assistance, current guidance restricts the state from asking basic questions: How is the child doing? Is the child still living with you? Are you still caring for this child? It seems that in a reasonable system, we’d be asking those questions on behalf of adoptees on a regular basis.

• Tell me again why states like Texas and New York prohibiting folks from calling in a child abuse report and remaining anonymous?

• New Jersey has abolished illegitimacy.

• Averhealth, which was in the news in Georgia regarding questions about its drug testing for parents involved with DFCS, is back in the news.

• In Massachusetts, advocates don’t want a child to go live with her father in Guatemala, presumably because they believe it’s a crappy place to live.