From: petel@sequent.com (Pete Lancashire)
Subject: Re: Neglected or Abused Children, CPS, Foster Care and Prison
Organization: Sequent Computer Systems, Inc.
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 92 18:59:57 GMT

sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:

>In article <1992Dec15.080819.7725@cbnewsk.cb.att.com>, noraa@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (aaron.l.hoffmeyer) writes:
[deleted costs..]
>> back on.  And now, we are seeing the results of such a "slash and burn,
>> remove the children and brutally condemn the parents, at least we got
>> our piece of the pie" approach.
>> 

[deleted costs..]
>[runs CSD/CSP..] Last time I talked to her she was feeling very harrassed.
>She said she was getting innodated with phone calls from people wanting
>CS to TAKE their kids.

>> Placement of children in foster homes can be harmful
>> 
>> 	COLUMBUS, Ohio (UPI) -- Officials of children services agencies say
>> placement of children in foster homes can be harmful to the youngsters
>> and sometimes affect them for years afterward.
>> 
>> 	``We are damaging these children, sometimes for life,'' said Dan
>> Schneider, director of the Public Children Services Association of Ohio,
>> which represents the 88 county agencies statewide. ``No matter how bad
>> the situation at home, the attachment to the birth parents is very
>> strong.''

Yes very strong, simple human ethology, not much of a 'brainer' here.

>> 
>> 	Schneider said the goal of children services agencies is to protect
>> children, and that means there always will be a need for removing
>> children from obviously dangerous situations. But currently it is done
>> far too often, he said.
>> 
>> 	Karen Boyd Bell of the Public Children Services Association of Ohio
>> said a study conducted by Urban Systems Research and Engineering in
>> Washington, D.C., showed more than half of the inmates in Ohio prisons
>> were once in the foster care system.

So ? And if these inmates had not been put into foster homes, but had
remained at home or had become runaways, they would not have been
inmates ?

>> 
>> 	``Sixty percent of the people in prison were in foster care as
>> children,'' Bell said. ``Everyone in this business knows that. But we're
>> only starting to wake up to it. We haven't been listening to the
>> children.''

Yep, we have not been listening to the children, still don't in many
cases. Oregon is going for the record this year on deathes form abuse.

>> 
>> 	Foster care also is costly.
>> 
>> 	Ohio children service agencies spent about $224 million in local,
>> state and federal money on foster care in 1991, Schneider said.
>> 
>> 	Some people who work in the system want to see changes in how the
>> money is spent.
>> 
>> 	But, national funding priorities work against helping fix families
>> and in favor of taking children. There is relatively little money for
>> helping families with the mental health problems, drug problems or
>> poverty issues that lead to chlid dependency, neglect or abuse. But
>> there is plenty of federal money for placing children in foster care.
>> 

Let's see the numbers, we don't have 'plenty of money' here in Oregon.

>> 	The federal government guarantees states partial reimbursement for
>> expenditures for children in foster homes, group homes and other
>> institutions.

Sould provide more. 

>> 	``If we do all the right things, we can be reimbursed for up to 60
>> percent of placement cost and administrative costs,'' said Don Friend,
>> associate director of Franklin County Children Services in Columbus.
>> 
>> 	``There's nothing that comes in for helping us buy services,'' Friend
>> said. ``The state is not dumping any money on us, but plenty of
>> regulations to comply with.''
>> 
>> 	Bell noted that some children, after surviving abuse and neglect at
>> home, also survive the foster care system and go on to become successful
>> adults.

Again from above, if these childern were not either not placed in foster
care, or were returned to their bio-parents where would they be today ?

>> 
>> Aaron L. Hoffmeyer
>> TR@CBNEA.ATT.COM 

>In our area there are almost no foster care providers who take teens.  The
>teens end up in group homes or back home with abusive parents.  Often the
>kids end up bouncing back and forth between the foster homes and the parents.

>Counciling is provided free for distressed families but the problems in many
>families is so bad that no amount of counciling would help.  

Or in cases where the family does not admit there is a problem.

>Most of the kids I see in our area are not from extremely poor families, but
>from working class or middle class families that are extremely dysfunctional.
>Sad to say, abuse is not tied to poverty or lack of money.

>Sue

This fall I called my state CPS/CSD and tried to get them to help with
a kid that is not yet physically abused, but is in danger of being beat to
shit (he was when younger), has to sleep at times in the tool shed to
keep away from his step-father, etc. and then tell them the parents
have a combined income of over $50K. About the only thing they didn't
do was hang up on me.

I find it interesting that 'Dan Schneider, director of the Public Children
Services Association of Ohio' should come to the 'scientific' conclusion
about (via Karen Boyd Bell) that foster care==criminals.
Newsgroups: misc.kids