From: sbishop@desire.wright.edu
Newsgroups: misc.kids,alt.dads-rights,alt.child-support,soc.men,soc.women
Subject: Re: Neglected or Abused Children, CPS, Foster Care and Prison
Date: 17 Dec 92 06:26:41 EST
Organization:  Wright State University 

In article <1992Dec15.185957.11581@sequent.com>, petel@sequent.com (Pete Lancashire) writes:
> 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 ?

I agree with this.  The kids I see at the local Juvenile Home are kids that
have been removed from their home due to either lack of parential control
(the kid has been getting in increasing amounts of juvenile trouble, has
been in court several times and is escalating in the type of trouble) or
else a kid that has run away from home several times due to parental neglect
or abuse.  These kids are either on the track of getting sent away to a
juvenile prison or else ending up as a statistic somewhere when they get
killed.  The Juvenile Home does intensive counciling, close supervision
and works heavily on behavior correction.
They would have been much worse off if they had been left at home (if they
would have stayed, one girl said she was sleeping on the ground under 
abandoned cars rather than go home).

> 
>>> 
>>> 	``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 ?

I've seen some abusive foster parents.  But most of the ones I've met are
genuinely caring people, they're not in it to get rich, you can't on the
stipend that's paid.  One woman in our community has six or seven foster
kids at a time.  She does wonders with the kids, loves them, raises them,
makes good citizens out of them.

> 
>>> 
>>> 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.

This is true.  And, for what it's worth, the majority of cases where parents 
refuse to admit there's a problem, it's the father.  Maybe it's a macho
thing?

> 
>>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.

I wonder if Ms. Bell gave a true interpretation of what he said.  I've been
misquoted in this group by people who have their own agenda.  Why doesn't
she suggest some viable alternative to foster care?  Leaving the kid in
the home works even worse.

Sue
Xref: sparky misc.kids:30524 alt.dads-rights:2955 alt.child-support:3973 soc.men:21191 soc.women:21485