U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

66–736 CC WASHINGTON : 2000

CHILD PROTECTION ISSUES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MARCH 23, 2000

Serial 106–63

Printed for the use of the Committee on Ways and Means

(

ii

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS

BILL ARCHER, Texas, Chairman

PHILIP M. CRANE, Illinois

BILL THOMAS, California

E. CLAY SHAW, JR., Florida

NANCY L. JOHNSON, Connecticut

AMO HOUGHTON, New York

WALLY HERGER, California

JIM MCCRERY, Louisiana

DAVE CAMP, Michigan

JIM RAMSTAD, Minnesota

JIM NUSSLE, Iowa

SAM JOHNSON, Texas

JENNIFER DUNN, Washington

MAC COLLINS, Georgia

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio

PHILIP S. ENGLISH, Pennsylvania

WES WATKINS, Oklahoma

J.D. HAYWORTH, Arizona

JERRY WELLER, Illinois

KENNY HULSHOF, Missouri

SCOTT MCINNIS, Colorado

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

MARK FOLEY, Florida

CHARLES B. RANGEL, New York

FORTNEY PETE STARK, California

ROBERT T. MATSUI, California

WILLIAM J. COYNE, Pennsylvania

SANDER M. LEVIN, Michigan

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland

JIM MCDERMOTT, Washington

GERALD D. KLECZKA, Wisconsin

JOHN LEWIS, Georgia

RICHARD E. NEAL, Massachusetts

MICHAEL R. MCNULTY, New York

WILLIAM J. JEFFERSON, Louisiana

JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee

XAVIER BECERRA, California

KAREN L. THURMAN, Florida

LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas

A.L. SINGLETON, Chief of Staff

JANICE MAYS, Minority Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

NANCY L. JOHNSON, Connecticut, Chairman

PHILIP S. ENGLISH, Pennsylvania

WES WATKINS, Oklahoma

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

MARK FOLEY, Florida

SCOTT MCINNIS, Colorado

JIM MCCRERY, Louisiana

DAVE CAMP, Michigan

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland

FORTNEY PETE STARK, California

ROBERT T. MATSUI, California

WILLIAM J. COYNE, Pennsylvania

WILLIAM J. JEFFERSON, Louisiana

Pursuant to clause 2(e)(4) of Rule XI of the Rules of the House, public hearing records

of the Committee on Ways and Means are also published in electronic form. The printed

hearing record remains the official version. Because electronic submissions are used to

prepare both printed and electronic versions of the hearing record, the process of converting

between various electronic formats may introduce unintentional errors or omissions. Such occurrences are inherent in the current publication process and should diminish as the process

is further refined.

iii

C O N T E N T S

Page

Advisory of March 16, 2000, announcing the hearing .......................................... 2

WITNESSES

American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law, Mark Hardin ...... 31

American Public Human Services Association, and Iowa Department of

Human Services, Mary Nelson ............................................................................ 66

Child Care Association of Illinois, Ronald H. Moorman ....................................... 38

Children and Family Futures, Nancy K. Young ................................................... 54

Conference of State Court Administrators, and Connecticut Supreme Court,

Hon. Robert C. Leuba .......................................................................................... 23

Connecticut Department of Children and Families, Hon. Kristine D. Ragaglia,

and Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services,

Thomas A. Kirk, Jr. ............................................................................................. 47

DeWine, Hon. Mike, a United States Senator from the State of Ohio ................ 10

National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, and Hamilton County

Juvenile Court, Hon. David E. Grossmann ........................................................ 17

National Court Appointed Special Advocate Association, Christine DeLay ....... 35

Pryce, Hon. Deborah, a Representative in Congress from the State of Ohio ..... 6

Rockefeller, Hon. John D., IV, a United States Senator from the State of

West Virginia ........................................................................................................ 11

Second Genesis, Inc., Gale Saler ............................................................................ 58

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Child Welfare League of America, statement ........................................................ 81

National Child Abuse Defense and Resource Center, Roanoke, VA, Barbara

Bryan, statement .................................................................................................. 82

Voice for Adoption, statement ................................................................................. 83

(1)

CHILD PROTECTION ISSUES

THURSDAY, MARCH 23, 2000

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES,

Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:00 p.m., in room

B–318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Nancy L. Johnson

(Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.

[The advisory announcing the hearing follows:]

2

ADVISORY

FROM THE COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: (202) 225–1025

March 16, 2000

No. HR–19

Johnson Announces Hearing on Child Protection

Issues

Congresswoman Nancy L. Johnson (R–CT), Chairman, Subcommittee on Human

Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means, today announced that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing on child protection issues related to the training

needs of court personnel and the extent of substance abuse in child protection. The

hearing will take place on Thursday, March 23, 2000, in room B–318 Rayburn

House Office Building, beginning at 1:00 p.m.

Oral testimony at this hearing will be from invited witnesses only. Witnesses will

include Members of Congress, representatives of juvenile and family court judges,

court administrators, court appointed special advocates, and substance abuse and

child protection experts. However, any individual or organization not scheduled for

an oral appearance may submit a written statement for consideration by the Committee and for inclusion in the printed record of the hearing.

BACKGROUND:

The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 P.L. 105–89) substantially changed

the nation’s child protection program. The new law requires States to initiate proceedings to terminate parental rights for children who have been in foster care for

15 of the most recent 22 months, and states that efforts to preserve or reunify a

family are not required if the court finds that a parent had subjected the child to

‘‘aggravated circumstances’’ such as abandonment, torture, chronic abuse, or sexual

abuse. These reforms focus attention on the need for judges and other court personnel to be trained in child and family development to ensure adequate implementation of the new law.

In addition to the need for training of court personnel, researchers have identified

substance abuse as a leading factor in many cases of children placed into foster

care. There is some concern that treatment for substance abuse is not readily available for many parents with children in the custody of the State. Recovery from drug

addiction can take years and parental relapses can result in the re-abuse of children

and the re-entry of children into foster care.

In announcing the hearing, Chairman Johnson stated: ‘‘Every child deserves a

safe and loving home. That’s why it’s important to have well trained and qualified

judges make crucial decisions about children involved in abuse and neglect proceedings. That’s also why I’m interested in the impact of parental substance abuse on

the placement of children into foster care. It is time to identify promising approaches to help parents overcome substance abuse problems without requiring

their children to spend indefinite periods of time in foster care.’’

FOCUS OF THE HEARING:

The hearing will focus on two issues. First, the Subcommittee will review the

quality and availability of training for judges, court personnel, volunteers who participate in court-appointed special advocate programs, and attorneys who represent

the children and the parents of children in abuse and neglect proceedings. Second,

the Subcommittee will discuss the extent of substance abuse among families inVerDate 20-JUL-2000 11:02 Nov 08, 2000 Jkt 061710 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 K:\HEARINGS\66736.TXT WAYS3 PsN: WAYS3
3

volved with the child protection system, the challenge this poses for moving children

into permanent living arrangements within the timelines required by the Adoption

and Safe Families Act, and the effectiveness of drug treatment interventions.

DETAILS FOR SUBMISSION OF WRITTEN COMMENTS:

Any person or organization wishing to submit a written statement for the printed

record of the hearing should submit six (6) single-spaced copies of their statement,

along with an IBM compatible 3.5-inch diskette in WordPerfect or MS Word format,

with their name, address, and hearing date noted on a label, by the close of business, Thursday, April 6, 2000, to A.L. Singleton, Chief of Staff, Committee on Ways

and Means, U.S. House of Representatives, 1102 Longworth House Office Building,

Washington, D.C. 20515. If those filing written statements wish to have their statements distributed to the press and interested public at the hearing, they may deliver 200 additional copies for this purpose to the Subcommittee on Human Resources office, room B–317 Rayburn House Office Building, by close of business the

day before the hearing.

FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS:

Each statement presented for printing to the Committee by a witness, any written statement

or exhibit submitted for the printed record or any written comments in response to a request

for written comments must conform to the guidelines listed below. Any statement or exhibit not

in compliance with these guidelines will not be printed, but will be maintained in the Committee

files for review and use by the Committee.

1. All statements and any accompanying exhibits for printing must be submitted on an IBM

compatible 3.5-inch diskette WordPerfect or MS Word format, typed in single space and may

not exceed a total of 10 pages including attachments. Witnesses are advised that the Committee

will rely on electronic submissions for printing the official hearing record.

2. Copies of whole documents submitted as exhibit material will not be accepted for printing.

Instead, exhibit material should be referenced and quoted or paraphrased. All exhibit material

not meeting these specifications will be maintained in the Committee files for review and use

by the Committee.

3. A witness appearing at a public hearing, or submitting a statement for the record of a public hearing, or submitting written comments in response to a published request for comments

by the Committee, must include on his statement or submission a list of all clients, persons,

or organizations on whose behalf the witness appears.

4. A supplemental sheet must accompany each statement listing the name, company, address,

telephone and fax numbers where the witness or the designated representative may be reached.

This supplemental sheet will not be included in the printed record.

The above restrictions and limitations apply only to material being submitted for printing.

Statements and exhibits or supplementary material submitted solely for distribution to the

Members, the press, and the public during the course of a public hearing may be submitted in

other forms.

Note: All Committee advisories and news releases are available on the World

Wide Web at ‘‘http://waysandmeans.house.gov.’’

The Committee seeks to make its facilities accessible to persons with disabilities.

If you are in need of special accommodations, please call 202–225–1721 or 202–226–

3411 TTD/TTY in advance of the event (four business days notice is requested).

Questions with regard to special accommodation needs in general (including availability of Committee materials in alternative formats) may be directed to the Comorder. My colleague and ranking member, Ben Cardin, is on his

mittee as noted above.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. The hearing will come to

f

way, but I am going to go ahead and start with my opening statement so we will be able to proceed promptly.

4

Today we do continue our oversight of the Nation’s child protection system. In the past, we have examined a wide variety of child

protection issues, and we have originated important legislation like

the Foster Care Independence Act, the Adoption and Safe Families

Act, and the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act.

Our goals today are more modest. We want to examine two

issues that we believe are important in improving our Nation’s

child protective programs. First, when Congress created the current structure of Federal support for child protection by enacting

Public Law 96–272 in 1980, it wisely included open-ended funding

at 75 percent Federal match for the training of caseworkers, administrators, and others employed by State and local child protection agencies. For some reason, however, court personnel were not

included in the 75 percent funding. Thus, many of the most vital

members of the team of people working on child protection cases

cannot receive training with Federal funds. Judges, guardians ad

litem, court-appointed special advocates, or CASAs, and other court

personnel play a central role in child protection. Clearly, training

is a must for these central participants in one of the most important phases of our child protection process.

Last year, our subcommittee originated and the House passed a

simple change in the Title IV–E statute that made court personnel

eligible for the Federal match. The cost of this provision was $55

million over 5 years. The provision now resides over in the Senate.

I hope today’s hearing will provide additional motivation for the

Senate to take action on this important legislation and I encourage

all of our witnesses and those in attendance to urge the Senate to

act on this provision.

I welcome my esteemed friend and colleague, Congresswoman

Deborah Pryce of Ohio, who will provide strong support for this

training and, in fact, whose experience and wisdom led to the introduction of the bill that the provision in our earlier legislation reflects.

I would also like to extend a very warm welcome to our noted

colleague from the Senate, Senator Mike DeWine, who was elected

to Congress the same year I was but has gone on to bigger and better things, so to speak. [Laughter.]

Senator DEWINE. Different.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. He has worked closely with

Congresswoman Pryce on this issue, and he will be our carrier,

along with his colleagues interested, in the Senate. So it is a pleasure to have you both here and a very great pleasure to welcome

Senator Rockefeller as well, with whom I have worked on many

issues of importance to children.

I also want to recognize Ms. Christine DeLay of Texas, who has

relatives in high places and has come to testify today. Christine

and Tom have a long history of involvement in child protection

issues as foster parents, but Christine as a CASA herself. And I am

very pleased that she is here today to testify on her experience and

on behalf of their national organization.

Our second panel will address another important child protection

issue. Based on testimony from Dr. Nancy Young that we will hear

later, it seems nearly certain that a minimum of 50 percent of child

protection cases involve a parent with an alcohol or drug abuse

5

problem, and I would have to say, since I was first elected in 1983,

the child service agencies in my district, even in the rural areas,

right across the board, rural and urban, would tell me that 80 percent of their family cases involve some kind of substance abuse. So

the 50 percent I consider to be a very conservative estimate.

Historically, there has been little coordination between State

agencies that fund drug treatment programs and State child protection agencies. Our second panel will address both the frequency

of drug addiction among child protection cases and the problems

encountered in finding drug treatment programs for these parents.

Witnesses will focus attention on recent attempts to do the impossible: to coordinate government agencies, in this case, the child protection agency and the drug treatment agency, at the State level.

And I am very pleased to say that our own Kristine Ragaglia, the

Commissioner of Child and Family Services in Connecticut, will describe a model that she has developed that is a great step in the

right direction of effective services for families with substance

abuse problems.

But I would also say that really as a member out there just asking at Head Start programs and agencies and across the board, are

there enough programs, the answer is almost always yes. Are people getting to them? The answer is almost always no.

So we have planned this hearing for a long time. I consider this

an extremely important subject, and I am very pleased to have

knowledgeable colleagues to lead us off.

[The opening statement of Mr. Cardin follows:]

Statement of Hon. Benjamin Cardin, a Representative in Congress from the

State of Maryland

Madam Chairman, I commend you for holding this hearing on two issues that

have a direct impact on the safety and well-being of millions of abused children—

the importance of the courts in making critical placement decisions and the devastating connection between substance abuse and child abuse.

These two issues have always been important, but they have become even more

so with the passage the bipartisan Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) in 1997.

This measure rightly ensures that a child’s need for protection and permanency

is the primary focus when any placement decision is made. However, in pursuing

this worthy goal, the new law places additional burdens on the child welfare courts,

and it accelerates the time-frame for the provision of services to parents with substance abuse problems.

Consider for a moment one of the central requirements of the Adoption and Safe

Families Act: States must begin to initiate court proceedings for the termination of

parental rights for children who have been in foster care for 15 months unless certain exceptions apply. This mandate will obviously increase the number of cases

going through family courts, which are sometimes already overcrowded. Therefore,

without adequate resources for the courts, the goals of the Federal law to provide

safe and stable homes for children will be undermined.

Under the leadership of the Chairwoman Johnson, this Subcommittee has begun

to respond to the challenges now confronting the courts. The Fathers Count Act,

which passed the House at the end of last year, includes a provision to provide Federal funds for the training of court personnel involved in child abuse and neglect

cases. These resources will help the courts understand and comply with the requirements imposed by ASFA, as well as appreciate more general issues regarding child

development.

In addition to this provision, I hope our Subcommittee will consider adopting

other changes proposed by Senators Dewine and Rockefeller to assist our Nation’s

family courts in making timely and wise placement decisions for at-risk children.

The same 15-month requirement in ASFA now challenging our courts also dramatically shortens the time a parent has to turn their life around to regain the custody of their children. If we believe such a time limit is necessary for the long-term

6

well-being of children, we must then also ensure that parents have every opportunity to meet this expedited time line.

In short, this means providing them with adequate access to substance

abusetreatment.

Regrettably, child welfare workers and judges are not always sufficiently trained

in how to detect and cope with substance abuse problems. And of even greater concern, when accurate assessments are made, there is often a lack of available treatment.

In fact, HHS reports that 63 percent of mothers with drug problems do not receive

any substance abuse treatment within a year. Furthermore, only 10 percent of child

welfare agencies can find substance treatment programs for their clients within 30

days, according to the Child Welfare League of America.

I therefore hope this Subcommittee will consider expanding substance abuse

screening, prevention and treatment services for families in the child welfare system. Considering that drug and alcohol problems are a contributing factor to between half and three-fourths of all child welfare cases, such an effort may actually

save money as it saves children and families.

Congresswoman Pryce.

Thank you.

Chairmen JOHNSON of Connecticut. With that, I will recognize

f

STATEMENT OF HON. DEBORAH PRYCE, A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OHIO

Ms. PRYCE. Well, thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. It

is always an honor and a privilege to work with you and your staff

on any given issue, and it is great to be here with you today.

I come wearing several different hats. I am a former prosecutor

and judge, a Member of Congress whose district includes the Dave

Thomas Center for Adoption Law at Capital University, my alma

mater, and I am also an adoptive parent. My experience wearing

these different hats has formed my interest and perspective on

adoption and child protection issues.

There is nothing sadder to me than the thought of a child who

has been abused or neglected, and nothing happier than the

thought of a child finding the warmth and love of a permanent

adoptive family. Unfortunately, the period of time between these

two points during which a child’s case is pending before the courts

can be a period of interminable delays, bureaucratic snags, and less

than thorough and accurate review of a child’s case, all of which

can have lasting negative effects on the child.

Healing for abused and neglected children can only begin when

they are in a safe and permanent environment, but all too often

these children languish in the foster care system in a state of emotional limbo.

By and large, I know that the judges, court officials, and social

workers involved in our Nation’s abuse and neglect courts are extremely dedicated individuals who strive to do their best for the

children. However, there is widespread recognition that the system

is being stretched far beyond capacity. We all need to work together to examine ways to do this better.

Without a doubt, one of the crowning achievements of the last

Congress was the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, and I

was very proud to cosponsor that. And I don’t need to tell this committee what was in it, so I won’t. But while the act’s accelerated

timelines are essential to the achievement of its important purVerDate 20-JUL-2000 11:02 Nov 08, 2000 Jkt 061710 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 K:\HEARINGS\66736.TXT WAYS3 PsN: WAYS3
7

poses, they have resulted in increased pressure on our Nation’s already overburdened abuse and neglect courts.

Having examined and discussed this issue with many of my colleagues at the adoption center and former colleagues in the judicial

system, it is clear that the laudable goals have resulted in additional strain on the courts and court personnel. For example, according to the National Center for Juvenile Justice, between 1991

and 1997, in my own home district of Franklin County, Ohio, 38

percent of children who are awaiting permanent adoption because

parental rights have been severed have been in the system over 4

years or more, and 43 percent have been waiting between 2 to 4

years. Even in Hamilton County, Ohio, which is widely regarded as

having one of the best family and dependency court systems, 33

percent of these children have been awaiting permanent placement

4 or more years.

Nationally, according to the Department of Health and Human

Services, children who are adopted from foster care leave the system between 3.5 and 5.5 years after they enter it.

The problem persists because of the court backlogs and caseloads. According to the American Bar Association, a caseload of 40

to 50 active cases for a full-time staff attorney for a child welfare

agency is reasonable—40 to 50 cases. However, attorneys, for example, in the Cook County, Illinois, Public Defender’s Office have

an average of 650 juvenile dependency cases at any given time,

while the State’s attorneys each have about 1,000 cases on average.

In Santa Clara County, California, it is reported that 13 attorneys in the child welfare agency handle 4,000 child maltreatment

cases at any given time. These huge caseloads result in hearings

that may not be substantive and may be frequently delayed or continued, ultimately contributing to the courts’ inability to meet our

statutory deadlines.

The inability to deal effectively with this overload of cases is due

in large part to inadequate resources and inadequate training in

family law. While there are several issues that contribute to the

delays inherent in our family court system today, I believe there

are two areas that are particularly troublesome and on which further study of the issue should focus.

First, there is a nationwide lack of computerized case-tracking

systems. Such systems are necessary for the efficient identification

and elimination of existing case backlogs, moving abuse and neglect caseloads forward in a timely manner, and helping to place

children into safe and stable families. For example, in California it

is reported that the State lacks statewide standards for information

systems, and although there are information systems in place, none

are well designed to track dependency cases.

Across the country, in North Carolina, many juvenile courts completely lack automated systems. Fewer than half of the juvenile

court clerks in 40 North Carolina counties surveyed reported using

a computer for any purpose, and none reported using any court

management software. With an effective, automated case-tracking

system, courts could more reliably follow the progress of individual

cases and meet their deadlines.

Second, there is often inefficient training of court personnel in

issues of family law. According to the Department of Health and

8

Human Services and the National Center for Juvenile Justice,

judges, court personnel, agency attorneys, guardians ad litem, volunteers who participate in CASA programs, and attorneys who represent children and the parents of children often lack training specific to child welfare law, as well as to other family-related topics,

such as child development and the dynamics of child maltreatment.

Further, there is often a lack of attorney training in the crossover non-legal social service issues inherent in maltreatment cases.

This problem is increased by the frequent turnover of judges and

attorneys in these courts, resulting in the constant influx of personnel untrained in these important family law areas. Better training

for judges, attorneys, and other court personnel in these basic

issues would translate into more substantive and productive hearings, which in turn would lead to more rapid disposition of these

cases.

Thank you for the time you have given me today, Madam Chairwoman, and, Mr. Cardin, thank you. I really appreciate your efforts

to help the courts help these children move into safe and loving

arms.

[The prepared statement follows:]

Statement of Hon. Deborah Pryce, a Representative in Congress from the

State of Ohio

Thank you madam Chairwoman, and thank you to the members of the Subcommittee for giving me this opportunity to participate in today’s hearing to talk

to you about ways Congress can help children by improving the abuse and neglect

court system.

Today, I come to you wearing several different hats: I am a former prosecutor and

judge, a member of Congress whose district includes the Dave Thomas Center for

Adoption Law at Capital University Law School, on whose Board of Advisors I

serve, and an adoptive parent. My experience wearing these different hats has

formed my interest and perspective on adoption and child protection issues.

There is nothing sadder to me than the thought of a child who has been abused

or neglected, and nothing happier to me than the thought of such a child finding

the warmth and love of a permanent adoptive family. Unfortunately, the period of

time between these two points, during which a child’s case is pending before the

courts, can be a period of interminable delays, bureaucratic snags, and a less than

thorough and accurate review of the child’s case—all of which can have lasting negative effects on the child. Healing for abused and neglected children can only begin

when they are in a safe and permanent environment—but all to often these children

languish in the foster care system in a state of emotional limbo.

By and large, I know that the judges, court officials, and social workers involved

in our nation’s abuse and neglect courts are extremely dedicated individuals who

strive to do their best for the children who they are seeking to help. However, there

is widespread recognition that the system is being stretched beyond capacity. We

all need to work together to examine ways to do better.

Without a doubt, one of the crowning achievements of the last Congress was the

Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, which was introduced by Representative

Camp, a distinguished member of this subcommittee. I was a proud cosponsor of

this Act.

Briefly, this Act seeks to ensure that children, through no fault of their own, do

not linger in child welfare bureaucracies, being deprived of the loving and nurturing

adoption which they need. The Act requires expedited review of child welfare cases,

and promotes stability and permanence for abused and neglected children by requiring timely decision-making in proceedings to determine whether children can safely

return to their families or whether they should be moved into safe and stable adoptive homes. While the Act’s accelerated timelines are essential to the achievement

of its important purposes, they have resulted in increased pressure on the nation’s

already overburdened abuse and neglect courts.

Having examined and discussed this issue with my colleagues on the Dave Thomas Center for Adoption Law Board of Advisors, as well as with my friends and Ohio

Judges David Grossman and Kay Lias, it is clear to me that the laudable goals of

9

the Adoption and Safe Families Act have resulted in additional strain on the courts

and court personnel. For example, according to the National Center for Juvenile

Justice, between 1991 ¥1997, in my home district of Franklin County, Ohio, 38%

of children who are awaiting permanent adoption because parental rights have been

severed have been in the system over 4 or more years. And 43% have been waiting

between 2 to 4 years. Even in Hamilton County, Ohio, which is widely regarded as

having one of the best family and dependency court systems, 33% of these children

have been awaiting permanent placement 4 or more years. And nationally, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, children who are adopted

from foster care leave the system between 3.5 and 5.5 years after they enter. Although the Adoption and Safe Families Act has addressed this to some extent, the

problem persists.

The problem persists because of court backlogs and caseloads. According to the

American Bar Association, a caseload of 40 to 50 active cases for a full-time staff

attorney for a child welfare agency is reasonable. However, attorneys in the Cook

County, Illinois, Public Defender’s Office have an average of 650 juvenile dependency cases at any given time, while the state’s attorney’s each have about 1,000

such cases on average. In Santa Clara County, California, it is reported that 13 attorneys in the child welfare agency handle 4,000 child maltreatment cases at any

given time. These large caseloads result in hearings that may not be substantive

and may be frequently delayed or continued, ultimately contributing to the courts’

inability to meet statutory deadlines.

The inability to deal effectively with this overload of cases is due in large part

to inadequate resources and inadequate training in family law. While there are several issues that contribute to the delays inherent in our family court system today,

I believe these are the two areas that are particularly troublesome, and on which

future study of the issue should focus.

First, there is a nationwide lack of computerized case-tracking systems. Such systems are necessary for the efficient identification and elimination of existing case

backlogs, moving abuse and neglect caseloads forward in a timely matter, and helping to place children into safe and stable families. For example, in California it is

reported that the state lacks statewide standards for information systems. Although

there are information systems in place, none are well designed to track dependency

cases. Across the country, in North Carolina, many juvenile courts completely lack

automated systems. Fewer than half of the juvenile court clerks in 40 North Carolina counties surveyed reported using a computer for any purpose, and none reported using any court management software. With an effective, automated casetracking system, courts could more reliably follow the progress of individual cases

through the system and ensure that deadlines for permanency decisions are met.

Second, there is often insufficient training of court personnel in issues of family

law. According to the Department of Health and Human Services and the National

Center for Juvenile Justice, judges, court personnel, agency attorneys, guardians ad

litem, volunteers who participate in court-appointed special advocate (CASA) programs, and attorneys who represent children and the parents of children in abuse

and neglect proceedings often lack training specific to child welfare law, as well as

to other family-related topics, such as child development and the dynamics of child

maltreatment. Further, there is often a lack of attorney training in the crossover

non-legal social service issues inherent in child maltreatment cases. This problem

is increased by the frequent turnover of judges and attorneys in these courts, resulting in the consistent influx of personnel untrained in these important family law

areas. Better training for judges, attorneys, and other court personnel in these basic

issues would translate into more substantive and productive hearings, which in turn

would lead to more rapid disposition of cases.

I look forward to working with you, Madame Chairwoman, and the other members of the Subcommittee, to address these and other areas so that we can help our

your work with us last year on this provision and your continued

courts help our children move into safe and loving arms.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Thank you very much for

f

interest in it and your own experience in this area.

Senator DeWine?

10

STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE DEWINE, A UNITED STATES

SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF OHIO

Senator DEWINE. Madam Chairwoman, thank you very much for

holding this hearing. Congressman Cardin, thank you. You both

have been real leaders in this whole area. Your committee has

taken on an awesome responsibility. You have had a very vigorous

hearing schedule, and I just want to congratulate you for that.

You were involved, as were all three members of this panel, in

1997 in the passage of really a landmark bill, the Adoption and

Safe Families Act. That is a bill I think we all can be very proud

of. It is a bill that attempted to change the culture in this country.

I am beginning to see its effects in Ohio, and I think we are beginning to see its effects across the country.

We tried in that bill, as I said, to change the culture. We tried

to make it very clear that the safety of the child must always be

paramount in any of these decisions that are made at the local

level. And we also tried in that bill to speed up the process so that,

as Congresswoman Pryce said, young children in foster care would

not languish in foster care, that they would move on, that they

would move through the system, if they couldn’t go back to their

natural parents, that they would be eligible for adoption so that

they could be adopted at a reasonable age so that they could get

on with their life and that they would have a shot at life as other

children have, and they would have the opportunity to have what

every child should have, and that is, parents who love that child

and who will care for that child and raise that child.

We did that, and we knew, though, at the time that we had other

work to do. And we knew that it was not going to be easy for the

local jurisdictions to get this job done. Madam Chairman, you have

a bill which you have sent to the Senate which is a very good bill,

and we are going to do what we can to move it over there.

I have another bill that I have introduced, along with Senator

Rockefeller, which aims to do many of the same things, and that

is, to complete the work that we began several years ago. We knew

at the time that courts were overburdened. We knew that the

timelines that we set for them were going to be very difficult for

them to achieve. We also knew from the testimony we received and

from our own checking in our home States that many times these

courts did not have really the technical help to keep their dockets

moving and to get these cases in front of them.

And, frankly, some of the tragedies that we have read about in

the paper recently, as this committee is so very familiar with, occurred because judges, good-faith judges, people who were trying to

do their job, didn’t have information in front of them, didn’t have

the proper information in front of them.

What the different bills that Senator Rockefeller and I have introduced, the bill that you have referenced, what they will do is to

give some assistance to the local courts, either in the form of training for judges, which is very, very important, or in the need of technical assistance.

I look at this hearing today as a very important hearing, and I

look at the different pieces of legislation that have been introduced

as very important. And I look at them as being really a follow-up

to the work that we began together in 1997. We knew it was not

11

going to be easy. We knew we had a long ways to go. We have

made progress, but we have a lot further to go. And so I just thank

you for having this hearing today on a topic that I consider just to

be paramount to the future of our families and the future of our

children.

I do have a written statement. I will submit it for the record.

Thank you very much.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Thank you very much, Senator DeWine.

Senator Rockefeller?

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, A UNITED

STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I love

listening to Mike DeWine talk because he knows whereof he talks

so well. I think you were, what, 29 when you started out? [Laughter].

Senator DEWINE. Twenty-five. Back a long time ago.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Well, be that as it may, that is experience

plus more wisdom. The point is he was in the trenches, and it is

just something that I enormously admire. And he and I just worked

together on a lot of things, and John Chafee, when he was living,

would do these same things. We are both worried about the

500,000 foster care kids. Three thousand of those are in my State.

That is not very large, but as far as I am concerned, it is very

large. And Senator DeWine has talked about the 1997 act and the

need to put children’s health and permanency, homes, et cetera, as

the first priority of public policy, and Mike DeWine is my expert

on the role of the courts. I say this, so I won’t even get into that.

I want to mention one other thing, though, and that is what you

referred to, Madam Chairwoman, and that is the role of alcohol

and drug abuse which I think is ferocious. What did we hear yesterday that we in America consume 90 percent of what Colombia

produces. You know, it is just staggering. Then you try to put that

down to people who are battered and lost in society, and it is a terrible thing.

So the problem is huge. We know that 67 percent of parents in

the child welfare system have problems with alcohol and drugs, but

only one-third get help. And my math tells me that means that

two-thirds don’t get help. That is a prescription for disaster. So

that is why I am working with Senator DeWine, Senator Snowe,

Senator Dodd, and many others in legislation which is instantly becoming easier to pass, I think, in both the House and the Senate

as a sense of the next generation increases. It has been quite interesting to watch that over the last several years, and I credit John

Chafee and Mike DeWine with a lot of that.

So I think we need a new approach. I think we need a new system that can address the very special concerns of this very fragile

population, that is, parents with alcohol problems, and as a result

of that they neglect their children. Their children get into trouble.

The prevention program that serves a single male with drug problems is not going to work for a mother and a child, probably, so

we have to differentiate and be sophisticated in what we do.

12

I think we have to link child protection workers to these families

in ways which we have not done up until this point specifically related to alcohol and drug treatment. And forging these kinds of relationships is very easy to talk about. It takes an awfully long time

to do. You know, people are slow to change, and we all know that.

So we are introducing next week a bill which costs a lot of

money, and that will be the first reaction to it, $1.9 billion over 5

years, $200 million the first year, ending up with $550 million, I

think, in the fifth year, and it is specifically to combat drug and

alcohol abuse in families in child welfare. Yes, it is a large sum,

but it is a huge problem. And the cost of doing nothing is, I think,

apparent to all of us. Kids are just going to be in foster care for

much longer.

So we try to promote innovative approaches for both parents and

for children. We will cover screening. We will cover assessment to

help prevention. We will fund outreach. We will fund retention programs. Actually, I don’t know if ‘‘recidivism’’ is the right word,

Mike, on this, but it is a pretty good track record on this. You

know, one-third come out of it well, one-third come out of it a little

less easily but come out of it, and one-third don’t and probably end

up in horrible trouble. But the point is that two-thirds are helped.

We need to support outpatient services, residential treatment,

after-care, all of these things.

So let me just conclude, Madam Chairman and Congressman

Cardin, by saying that I really have two goals: one is for families

to have successful treatment, and, secondly, that kids can return

to a safe home. I think those are pretty fundamental.

I think we have to offer treatment first. If it doesn’t work, then

we can move towards finding a new safe, permanent home for that

child. Under the Adoption and Safe Families Act, courts could not

move forward on adoption until appropriate services have been provided to a family. That is the law. Our bill, therefore, solves that

problem. We have a very strict accountability part in there, and I

think that is very important to say. Congress is required to get reports on how the program is progressing, and that happens on an

annual basis, and I hope that we can work together.

[The prepared statement follows:]

Statement of Hon. John D. Rockefeller IV, a United States Senator from the

State of West Virginia

Congresswoman Johnson, Congressman Cardin, thank you for welcoming me, and

my good friend, Mike DeWine today. Your leadership in holding an oversight hearing on child welfare and the role of the courts, as well as the importance of substance abuse is crucial.

We are here because we care deeply about the vulnerable children in our child

welfare system, especially the 500,000 children in foster care—3000 of those are

West Virginia children.

In 1997, together we passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act. It was a historic

law that said a child’s health and safety must be paramount. It clearly stated that

every child deserves a safe, permanent home and the law imposed strict deadlines

to ensure that happens, and children don’t get ‘‘lost’’ in the foster care system.

These are crucial goals, but if we really want states to achieve them, we must

build on the foundation of the Adoption Act.

In order to move a child into a safe, permanent home, often through adoption, the

courts are vital. A judge approves when a child is removed. A judge decides when

a child returns home, or when adoption is best for a child. Critical decisions that

change a child’s life.

13

Senator DeWine is ‘‘my expert’’ on the role of the courts. He’s an experienced prosecutor and tireless advocate so I am proud to work with him on the issue of improving our courts. I agree with his remarks, but don’t think I need to echo them again.

Let me merely say thank you for previously voting for a provision to train judges

and court personnel. Let’s work together find the funding required to enact this

vital legislation this year

Therefore, I want to talk about the next issue on the Subcommittee’s agenda—

the role of alcohol and drug abuse among families in the child protection system.

Let’s begin the discussion about the enormous program of alcohol and drug abuse

for families within the child welfare system. Statistics vary, but all suggest that alcohol and drug abuse is a major factor aggravating child abuse and neglect. One

survey estimates that 67% of the families in the child welfare system have problems

with alcohol and drugs, but only one-third get help. That means that two-thirds do

not get help. Until we address this tragic problem, there will be a gaping hole in

our child protection system.

This is why I am working with Senators Snowe, DeWine, Dodd and others to develop a bipartisan bill to invest in alcohol and drug abuse prevention and treatment

for this unique population. I want to build on our previous work.

I believe a new program and a new approach are essential. A new system is needed to address the special concerns of this unique population—parents with alcohol

and drug problem who neglect their children. A program designed to serve a single

male with drug problems doesn’t respond to the needs of a mother and her child.

To be effective, we must link child protection workers with those involved in alcohol and drug treatment programs. Forging new partnerships takes time—and it

takes money. That is why we will introduce legislation next week to invest $1.9 billion over 5 years to combat the problems of drugs and alcohol abuse in families in

child welfare.

I understand this is large sum, but alcohol and drug abuse is a huge problem.

But before reacting to the cost of the bill, consider what the costs are, if we doing

nothing.

If we do not invest in alcohol and drug abuse prevention and treatment for such

families, children will be neglected or abused. More children will be placed in foster

care, and perhaps linger there too long. In 1997, this subcommittee received testimony from Professor Richard Barth. Professor Barth, at the time, worked in California. He noted that many newborns in substance abuse cases already had siblings

placed in foster care. Barth estimated that if only one-third of the mothers with substance abuse problems got successful, early treatment upon the birth of their first

child, instead of waiting until later, many years of foster care placements could be

prevented and millions of dollars could be saved.

Our bill is designed to promote innovative approaches that serve both parents and

children. It will offer funding for screening and assessment to enhance prevention.

It will support outreach to families and retention so that parents stay in treatment.

It can support joint training, and educate alcohol and drug counselors about the special needs of children and the importance of a safe, permanent home. It can support

out-patient services or residential treatment. It allows investments in after-care to

keep families and children safe.

If we do invest in such specialized alcohol and drug treatment programs for families, we can achieve two things. For many families, I hope, treatment will be successful and children will return to a safe and stable home. But for others, we will

have tried, and learned the important lesson that some children need an alternate

place—some children need adoption. Under the Adoption and Safe Families Act,

courts should not move forward on adoption, until appropriate services have been

provided to families. That is the law, and we must follow it, and move some children

towards adoption.

We want a responsible approach that will include accountability. It requires annual reports to assess how much progress is made each and every year. Reports

should measure success in treating parents, but, equally important will be measures

of children’s safety and family stability.

Over the years, we have worked on child welfare issues in a positive, bipartisan

manner and I hope that will continue as we grapple with such tough controversial

issues as alcohol and drug abuse.

is a subtle irony in the discussion that has gone forward to this

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Thank you very much. There

f

point. I asked my staff while you were talking what money we had

14

put into computer systems for the courts, either us or the judiciary

system. And when you look at all the money we have put into the

child protection agencies to help computerize them to track their

cases and didn’t include the courts, I mean, what does that tell you

about our ability to do agency interrelationship or committee cooperation and to look systemwide?

So agency divisions and lines are part of the problem, and it is

interesting that it is part of the problem at the Federal level, too,

because if we had done for the court case-tracking system what we

did for the agency case-tracking system in what we did—what was

the year we did that? Anyway, back there when we started that

project, which has taken many years to complete, and we still have

some States that really aren’t yet up and running, think how much

further we would be along and how much more we would have

been able to accomplish the goals of the Adoption and Safe Families Act if we had been able to think across agency lines as well.

So it is a very thoughtful piece of legislation that you Senators

have brought forward, and I am sorry we didn’t distribute summaries of it. But as you listen to the testimony, anyone here is certainly welcome to make comment because this issue of interagency

cooperation is to me a very interesting one. We have had some very

serious studies done of how welfare reform has in many States and

has not in other States been able to stimulate interagency cooperation. And I myself have reservations about whether grants should

do that or whether we should require that as a condition of getting

any money for child protective services.

So how we need to provoke this and where we need to put our

money is really the two issues that your legislation does challenge

us to answer, and we really look forward to working with you on

that. We simply must do a better job. There are some contradictions as you go around. The families have substance abuse problems, and they don’t want to admit it, and neither does the agency

want to because they are very afraid that their children will be

taken from them. So there are certain ways that we have to accommodate the law in order to allow the very coordination and integration that we can see would be useful.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Madam Chairwoman?

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Yes.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Could I make one additional comment?

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Absolutely.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. I spent 4 really interesting years in the

early 1990s chairing something called the National Commission on

Children and Families, and we produced actually a unanimous report, which is unusual in this town. But I will never forget—and

I talked about alcohol and drug abuse, and the other two witnesses

talked about the court system and the need to train judges. But I

will never forget going into the Los Angeles juvenile court and

going up in a very large caged elevator with children on one side,

criminals on the other, and then they got off. The children went to

the left to their family courts and the criminals went to the right

to whatever their fate was.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. How frightening.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. I sat there with the commission members,

and the chief judge came over and sat beside me and whispered in

15

my ear, sort of doing a translation, like a UN translator or something, trying to explain to this non-lawyer what in heaven’s name

was going on. There were kids incourt whose mother hadn’t shown

up, the lawyer hadn’t shown up, they didn’t speak English and

they didn’t have the documentation. The chief judge said—this is

back, you know, almost 10 years ago or 8 years ago. He said, ‘‘We

can spend about 5 or 6 minutes per case, and that is if we have

all the information.’’ And things have gotten worse since then.

That is sort of the searing experience that I always think back

to.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. One worthy of sharing.

Mr. Cardin, welcome.

Mr. CARDIN. Thank you, Madam Chair, and let me apologize for

being a few minutes late. Actually, I was on the Senate side. I got

a little lost over there. [Laughter.]

I should have gotten my directions straight.

Let me first compliment my three colleagues. This is really a

good way to start our hearings. It shows a commitment that this

is an ongoing struggle, that no one bill is going to solve the problems, that we have to continue to pay attention to our most vulnerable children. And I do applaud the three of you for your leadership

in this area in coming forward with constructive suggestions and

proposals in order to deal with this.

You have pointed out, all three of you, the concerns within our

court system, training personnel and backlogs, and I agree with

that. I just want to spend a moment on substance abuse, because

I think substance abuse is a critical problem within our welfare

system. Many of the mothers have substance abuse problems, and

it is causing serious safety issues for our children and, as Senator

Rockefeller pointed out, keeping children in foster care longer.

One of our witnesses later will point out that most of the substance abuse programs in this Nation are directed to males within

our criminal justice system and that we don’t really have a focus

on substance abuse within the welfare system. And I know, Senator Rockefeller, I guess the point that you are making, and Senator DeWine, we need to really concentrate on this population in

order that we get programs and infrastructure in place in order to

deal with it. Is that pretty much as you see it?

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Yes, it is outreach. You know, we have

caseworkers for all kinds of people in our society, and somehow

when you get to substance abuse, it becomes somebody else’s problem. And that is the interagency question or, you know, whose jurisdiction, who is meant to be doing it.

What I think we are trying to do here—I will just use this alliteration because we are all three from Ohio and West Virginia. What

we are trying to do is stitch together a quilt which you can hang

up on the wall which will work, because the many parts hold together, outreach and counseling and help and the money for the

treatment is all fundamental.

Mr. CARDIN. If you have an episode that brings you into the

criminal justice system, you have a chance to get some help—

may—but if you are a mother with a problem, it is much more difficult. I think that is what we are trying to really do here.

16

Again, I applaud you on your bill, and also, as you know, we

have some legislation pending in the Senate now that deals with

the court personnel. I would just hope that we could figure out a

way to move these issues forward, and I understand it may cost a

few dollars, but these are certainly investments in children who

need our help, and I very much applaud you for your efforts.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Now I’d like to recognize

Dave Camp from Michigan. You know, when a committee works,

the chairman doesn’t necessarily lead the effort on every single bill.

And on the Adoption and Safe Families Act, Dave Camp really led

the effort. It certainly was a bipartisan bill, but he did all the picking through the details and building the consensus and leading it.

And it is a very special pleasure to have him still on this committee, and I recognize Dave if he would like to comment.

Mr. CAMP. Well, thank you. I used to sit next to the Chair, and

then after that bill passed, I got sent to the end of the line. [Laughter.]

Mr. CAMP. But I want to thank—

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. It just goes to show you, he

is much higher ranking on other subcommittees. You can’t have it

all.

Mr. CAMP. Well, I want to thank all of you for your testimony

and your comments and also your help and efforts on the Adoption

and Safe Families Act, and obviously I am looking forward to the

hearing today and looking at what else we can do. And I realize,

Senator Rockefeller, these are issues that you have cared about

very deeply for a long time, as all of you have, and I am glad we

didn’t delay that bill because there have been some positive things

that have occurred in moving kids out of foster care into loving

homes.

My own State won almost $1 million in incentive awards under

the legislation, so there are some positive changes being done. But

this problem of what to do with the system kids find themselves

in and trying to ensure that the provisions of the legislation that

we worked on are enacted I think is a very real one, and particularly when there is also an interfacing of agencies, both law enforcement and child protection services, and they don’t always coordinate. And I just think there is going to be a lot of work ahead

to do on this, and I look forward to working with all of you, and

thank you all for your leadership on this. It wouldn’t have happened without all of your efforts, and I appreciate it very much.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. This committee has held very

extensive oversight hearings on the Adoption and Safe Families

Act, and it was very clear that the problem is in the courts. And

so this is an opportunity to begin to look at how we can overcome

that problem. The provision that was in the bill that passed the

House came directly from those hearings and Deborah’s legislation

in the House. So it is a small start, but this computer issue and

then the larger issue of coordination are really work yet to be done.

So we thank you for testifying, and we look forward to working

with you both and with Deborah.

Senator DEWINE. Thank you very much.

17

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Thank you.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Now let’s start with the first

panel: the Honorable David Grossmann, the National Council of

Juvenile and Family Court Judges, from Reno, Nevada; the Honorable Robert Leuba, Chief Court Administrator, Supreme Court of

Connecticut, on behalf of the Conference of State Court Administrators; Mark Hardin, Director of Child Welfare for the American

Bar Association Center on Children and the Law; Christine DeLay,

volunteer, National Court Appointed Special Advocate Association;

and Ron Moorman, Executive Director, Child Care Association.

It is a pleasure to welcome you. Thank you very much for being

with us, and please feel free to comment on the preceding testimony if you care to.

Congresswoman Pryce, are you staying? Would you come up and

join us up here?

Ms. PRYCE. Well, I cannot stay with the panel long, but thank

you very much.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Stay as long as you can. We

are happy to have you.

We will start with Judge Grossmann.

STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID E. GROSSMANN, HAMILTON

COUNTY JUVENILE COURT, CINCINNATI, OHIO, AND PAST

PRESIDENT, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF JUVENILE AND FAMILY

COURT JUDGES, RENO, NEVADA

Judge GROSSMANN. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and Congressman Cardin. I appreciate the opportunity to be here this afternoon to testify on this very important matter. I have spent the good

portion of my adult life working in the area of the courts. I have

been the presiding judge in Cincinnati, Ohio, for the last 25 years,

and before that 16 years as a magistrate, and we have worked

through many of the problems that you are now looking at in the

area of a struggle to move children into safe, nurturing, permanent

homes who otherwise would continue to be stranded in the system.

We all know the problem, the many hundreds of thousands of

children that are, in fact, struggling, stranded, as I said, in the system. We know that they come out of dysfunctional families. We

also know that the system itself is to some degree dysfunctional.

And when you have a dysfunctional system, the problem is that it

keeps functioning dysfunctionally. And that presents a very serious

challenge.

You know, when your pipes break or your plumbing doesn’t

work, the first thing you do is turn off the water. When your car

is burning oil, the first thing you do is to turn off the engine and

go get the head off and grind the valves and replace the rings.

With courts, you can’t just turn off the system. It keeps going, and

the problem is, the challenge is, to fix it while it is going. It is sort

of like heart surgery. You have to keep the body living while you

try to fix the problem.

Now, it is not only important to know—of course, it is basic to

know that you have a problem, but the real challenge is to know

why do you have the problem. And I think in the area of the courts,

a number of us who have studied this and have been very much

18

instrumental in preparing documentation on how to manage this

are quite well aware of why we have the problem.

First of all, in the courts—and I address them primarily because

if the courts don’t work, the rest of the system doesn’t work either.

And that seems to be a reality that has now dawned on many folks,

including Congress, that the courts need some real help here to get

done what they need to do, both in training and in technical assistance.

But if we look at the courts, we see across the country a number

of things that are obvious. The cases are not moving swiftly. They

are not given sufficient attention in front-loading, that is, enough

information is not presented quickly on to bring the case moving

forward in an expeditious way. The courts lack information systems, and I think, Madam Chairwoman, you mentioned that. And,

by the way, you have spent a lot of money on SAQUIS and

AFGARS. Those are fine computer systems. They do the courts

practically no good at all because the courts themselves must have

information and computer systems to manage their own processes.

It is nice to have aggregate information, but it is very important

to know within each individual court how the system is functioning. They can’t do that, particularly in the larger courts, if they

don’t have their own systems. And, of course, you observed that

many of them do not; therefore, they are kind of flying blind.

And you are stuck with the fact that you look at statistics and

we look back and say, well, in 1997 it was such-and-such or 1996.

We are lucky if we can tell what it was in 1998. It is kind of trying

to fix a problem, and you are looking at history, but you don’t know

what the problem looks like right now.

Therefore, one of the things that I would urge the committee to

do is to look very carefully at how monies move to the courts to

increase their ability to handle their management information systems and to handle their processes.

I brought with me a document called the ‘‘Resource Guidelines:

Improving Court Practice in Child Abuse and Neglect Cases.’’ This

has become the yellow brick road. This has become kind of the

how-to manual across the United States with courts. This volume

tells courts exactly how to handle the problem, what to do in a very

specific way. This is not a lot of platitudes and nice sayings. It is

actually a very detailed how-to manual.

We know what the problems are. We know how to fix them. The

challenge is to get the training necessary while the system is running. And, of course, you come to judges and say, look, you got to

change how you do business, and their response is: ‘‘I am so busy

doing what I am doing, I don’t have time to look up. I don’t have

a chance to try to fix it.’’

Now, we know how that can be done. We have seen it happen.

And, by the way, I brought another document along which is called

the ‘‘Child Victims Act: Model Court’s Project Status Report.’’ This

is 20 courts across the country that have become very active in the

area of trying to address this problem. These are courts that you

will recognize. This is New York City, this is Miami, Florida. It is

Chicago, Illinois, it is Newark, New Jersey. These are important

areas where this problem is highly, highly visible. These courts are

now working to solve these problems. I am telling you that we are

19

making progress, but we need more assistance from the standpoint

of funding to improve the training of judges, the training of court

personnel, the opportunity to develop the technical assistance that

these courts most desperately need. And it is not happening unless

we get the kind of financial support that they need.

The courts have been, as you observed Madam Chairwoman, they

have been sort of the stepchildren. We have poured a lot of money

into the executive branch, into the child welfare systems, but the

courts were just sort of standing on the side there, and nobody noticed. But if you don’t fix the courts, they are the great accountability agent, they are the people that possess the wherewithal and the

power to hold the entire system accountable and can make the

thing function. But if they themselves are not functioning properly,

it is very, very hard to get home.

Madam Chairman, I think I have talked long enough, but you

understand my urgency here.

[The prepared statement follows:]

Statement of Hon. David E. Grossmann, Hamilton County Juvenile Court,

Cincinnati, Ohio, and Past President, National Council of Juvenile and

Family Court Judges, Reno, Nevada

Chairman Johnson, members of the Subcommittee, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) is honored to have the opportunity to testify before you today on the court’s experience and views on the training needs of

court personnel and on the problem of substance abuse in child protection.

I am David E. Grossmann of the Hamilton County Juvenile Court, Cincinnati,

Ohio, and a past President of the NCJFCJ. I currently serve as Chair of the Expedited Adoption Committee of the National Council, and regularly serve as faculty

for the National Council during judicial and interdisciplinary training seminars and

conferences nationwide.

The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges

Founded in 1937, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges is

the nation’s oldest judicial membership organization. We are an independent nonprofit organization, and membership is comprised of state judges and other professionals of courts who deal with children and families. The case loads of these courts

have grown dramatically, especially in the areas of child abuse and neglect, family

and domestic violence, juvenile crime, alcohol and drug abuse, divorce, adoption and

non-support of children.

The National Council maintains the National College of Juvenile and Family Justice on the University of Nevada, Reno campus. Last year, the College sponsored

or collaborated in implementation of over 191 national, regional, state or local training programs for over 25,000 judges and system professionals. NCJFCJ members

serve as faculty and also assist in providing technical assistance to trainees and

their courts. Funding for training efforts of the National Council comes from a number of private and federal grants, with substantial funding from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

In 1975, the National Council’s research division, the National Center for Juvenile

Justice (NCJJ) was established in Pittsburgh, PA. With federal support from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the National Center collects

data from juvenile courts nationwide and analyzes data and trend information on

juvenile crime issues. The reports generated by the National Center based on this

data provide the primary source of credible information on juvenile delinquency nationwide.

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The Permanency Planning for Children Department

Now celebrating its twenty-fifth year of providing judicial training and technical

assistance for this nation’s juvenile and family court judiciary and others, the Permanency Planning for Children Department leads the National Council of Juvenile

and Family Court Judges’ effort to improve court practice in handling child abuse

and neglect cases.

The history of the Permanency Planning for Children Department dates back to

the early 1970’s, when juvenile and family court judges who comprised the National

Council’s membership began to recognize the need for judicial review of children in

placement. At that time, children were often being removed unnecessarily from their

homes. Once in foster care, children were lingering for years with no permanent resolution to their cases. Children who had been abused or neglected by their birth

families were subjected to years of out-of-home placement. They found themselves

moved from foster home to foster home, with no clear goals for reunification with

their birth families or movement toward alternative permanent placement. Children

were reaching adulthood and transitioning out of the foster care system with no

sense of family, with low self-esteem, and with no direction for the future.

Public Law 96–272—The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980

The National Council, recognizing the need for judges to take a leadership role

in overseeing dependency cases and in moving cases toward permanency, began a

national training effort in 1974 for the education of juvenile and family court judges,

child welfare professionals, attorneys, and other court and child welfare system professionals. Training was based on principles which were later encompassed in Public

Law 96–272—The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of l980. An unprecedented piece of legislation, this Act set out principles which are key to child welfare

and court practice today. The Act made it clear that courts must take an oversight

role to: (1) Avoid unnecessary separation of children and families; (2) If removal is

necessary, provide for reunification at the earliest possible time; (3) When reunification is not feasible, provide for a safe, permanent home at the earliest possible time.

Upon passage of the Act, the National Council recognized the continued need for

training for judges and interdisciplinary audiences nationwide to inform key players

of their new roles in the handling of dependency cases and to map out protocols and

plans for changes in practice that implementation of the new law would require.

Training nationwide focused on the law and its provisions, and resulted in changes

in court rules, child welfare agency practice and in legislation at the state level

across the country.

Early training efforts and subsequent national training initiatives were funded by

the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention of the U.S. Department of Justice and the Children’s Bureau of

the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In 1984 Permanency Planning

Task Forces were established in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Focused

efforts of judicial leaders at both the appellate and juvenile and family court levels

ensured that training was provided to judges and court personnel. Training efforts

resulted in changes in practice which improved the handling of child abuse and neglect cases by the courts and by child welfare systems.

Within the limits of funding provided, training continued throughout the 1980’s,

but it became clear at the close of the decade that in spite of the best efforts of the

National Council and its team of volunteer judicial, child welfare and court-related

faculty, that much more needed to be done. Although hundreds of training programs

had been held, hundreds more were needed. Even as late as the 1990’s system practitioners in jurisdictions who had not had the benefit of training around the provisions of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act were unaware of their new

roles as envisioned by the Act.

Conducting ‘‘business as usual’’ in many jurisdictions was meeting with disastrous

results. Public outcry was often noted when judges and other key system players

who had not had the benefit of training regarding the Act misunderstood the ‘‘reasonable efforts’’ provision of the Act, thinking that ‘‘reasonable efforts’’ was synonymous with making ‘‘every effort’’ to return a child home. In spite of the Act’s intent,

children were being returned home to unsafe situations and being harmed as a result of misconception and lack of understanding as to what the law intended. Clearly, the desperate need for training on the Act and its provisions had not been met

for many members of the judiciary, the child welfare system, or other professionals

within the child welfare and court systems. Resources in terms of training dollars

were simply not available to meet the nationwide need for training for all members

of the judiciary and court systems who made critical decisions regarding the lives

of this nation’s abused and neglected children.

21

1 Administration for Children and Families; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,

1999. 2 ‘‘No Safe Haven: Children of Substance-Abusing Parents,’’ National Center on Addiction and

Substance Abuse at Columbia University, January 11, 1999. 3 ‘‘Blending Perspectives and Building Common Ground,’’ Administration for Children and

Families, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, and the Substance

Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human

Services, 1999.

The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997

In 1997, another landmark piece of child welfare legislation was passed by Congress and signed into law. The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, P. L. 105–

89 placed additional responsibilities upon courts requiring that they take an even

more vigilant role in monitoring the handling of child abuse and neglect cases. Additional judicial oversight, shortened time lines, and increased accountability on the

part of child welfare agencies and courts alike were required to ensure that children

were moved to permanency at the earliest possible time. Changes in practice on the

part of courts, attorneys, child welfare agencies and all other key players within the

child welfare and juvenile and family court systems were required to meet the mandates of the law.

The Adoption and Safe Families Act was important in clarifying the roles of the

courts and child welfare agencies in the handling of child abuse and neglect cases,

and set forth clearly the important considerations in the handling of dependency

cases—that each child be provided a safe, permanent and stable home, and that the

child’s safety and well-being be considered paramount in the decision-making process.Once again, a new federal law was passed to guide states in improving court practice in child abuse and neglect cases. And once again, adequate resources to ensure

the training of every judge handling a dependency docket nationwide were not available. Training dollars since passage of that law have been stretched to the limit.

In 1995 The Permanency Planning for Children Department of the National Council

conducted 26 judicial and interdisciplinary training programs. In 1999, due to the

rising demand in the field for training around the Adoption and Safe Families Act

of 1997, the number of training programs provided totaled 114, reaching 8,156 participants, an increase of over 250% in three years’ time without additional resources

to fully fund such efforts.

Impact of Substance Abuse on Handling of Child Abuse and Neglect Cases

This nation’s juvenile and family courts have witnessed an unprecedented rise in

cases involving child abuse and neglect over the past decade. Cases are entering the

court system which are more complex and more difficult to handle than ever before.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in 1997, over

three million cases of suspected child abuse and neglect were reported. Over two

million of these cases were investigated by child welfare agencies, and over one million of those reported cases were substantiated.1 A variety of reasons for this rise

in caseloads and for the increasing complexity of cases have been cited. These include poverty, homelessness, and most significantly—substance abuse.

A January, 1999 report by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse

at Columbia University indicated that ‘‘drugs and alcohol abuse causes or exacerbates seven out of ten cases of child abuse or neglect.’’ 2 The study concluded that

‘‘substance abuse and addiction dangerously compromise or destroy the ability of

parents to provide a safe and nurturing home for children.’’

In a report released in April, 1999 the U.S. Department of Health and Human

Services estimated ‘‘that substance abuse is a substantial factor in a third of all

child abuse and neglect cases, and up to two-thirds of foster care cases’’ 3

Information regarding, how to handle child abuse and neglect where substance

abuse is a factor, services necessary for treatment of these cases, establishment of

drug courts as a method for handling this caseload, and other critical areas can best

be imparted through provision of judicial and interdisciplinary training at the local,

state and national level.

Improving Court Practice in Child Abuse and Neglect Cases

In 1992, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, following a

three-year effort, published the RESOURCE GUIDELINES: Improving Court Practice in Child Abuse and Neglect Cases. This document, written by a committee of

judges, child welfare professionals, attorneys, consultants and others identified best

practice in handling child abuse and neglect cases. Endorsed by the Conference of

Chief Justices and the American Bar Association, the RESOURCE GUIDELINES

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has been used as a blueprint for change by State Court Improvement programs nationwide. Over 19,000 copies of this document have been disseminated to date, and

courts and child welfare agencies alike are using the RESOURCE GUIDELINES as

a basis for assessing current practice and planning for change.

Upon completion of the RESOURCE GUIDELINES, the National Council established a Model Court Project. The purpose of this project was to identify courts, nationwide, who were willing to examine dependency practice, identify barriers to permanency, implement change and to serve as models to others with similar goals.

The Hamilton County Juvenile Court in Cincinnati, Ohio served as the first demonstration Model Court. The Model Court Project currently encompasses 20 courts,

including jurisdictions as large as Cook County, Illinois—Chicago; Los Angeles, CA;

New York City, NY; Essex County, NJ—Newark; and Dade County, FL—Miami.

One third of the nation’s children in foster care are served by the Model Court

Project.

Model Courts of the National Council have demonstrated remarkable success in

improving practice in the handling of child abuse and neglect cases by: (1) shortening time in care from removal to permanency; (2) increasing adoptions; (3) building

resources for providing services to children and families through judicial leadership

and through collaboration with key system players in each Model Court community.

Collaboration between courts, child welfare agencies, attorneys, service providers,

the faith community and others has resulted in better outcomes for children and

families in each Model Court jurisdiction.

Currently, each of the twenty Model Courts involved in the Model Court Initiative

of the National Council is serving as a mentor to other courts around the nation

who are attempting to improve dependency practice. Strategies for change as well

as programs and principles which have guided the work of Model Courts are being

shared and replicated by other courts nationwide.

The work of the Model Courts, their successes, and their challenges is chronicled

each year in a written publication entitled the Model Court Status Report. This has

proven a useful tool in ‘‘getting the word out’’ to courts nationwide who are attempting court improvement efforts on their own.

However, in addition to the written work being generated as a result of the Model

Court initiative, training has been established as the best method of disseminating

the work of the Model Courts nationwide. Through national, state, and local conferences, Model Court representatives share their experience, provide guidance regarding how other jurisdictions may overcome barriers to permanency, and provide

encouragement to the many inspired judges and others who may wish to undertake

a systems change effort. Training is the essential tool for allowing jurisdictions to

plan and implement systems change efforts on their own. Resources for this work

have been barely able to keep up with the demand.

Currently there are literally dozens of courts beyond the twenty Model Courts at

work in developing new models for handling child abuse and neglect cases. The RESOURCE GUIDELINES provides a blueprint for change. The Model Courts and

their experiences as laboratories for change provide the essential tools to ready

other systems to implement changes without ’remaking the wheel’’ and stumbling

over similar barriers.

Training regarding the need for systems change for judges and other system professionals, the work of the Model Courts and others, emerging issues such as child

development and substance abuse, and trends in juvenile and family court dependency practice is critical, and resources for doing so are currently stretched to the

limit.

The Importance of Judicial Education

The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, the National Council’s

RESOURCE GUIDELINES and Model Court project, and the Adoption and Safe

Families Act of 1997 set policy guidelines for best practice in handling child abuse

and neglect cases. However, as pivotal and important as they are, they cannot have

a positive impact upon court and systems practice at the grassroots jurisdictional

level until resources allow for training in every juvenile and family court jurisdiction

across the nation. Judges do not change how they do business unless they are convinced they need to do so. Child welfare agencies, attorneys, service providers and

others will not modify their behavior without motivation and the tools to do so.

Training can provide the bridge between current practice and improved practice. No

law can ‘‘go on the books’’ and be effective unless system practitioners understand

the intent and spirit of the law, and the expectations of all parties in carrying out

the mandates of the law. Training serves this purpose.

The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 is an excellent piece of legislation,

but it will not fully be implemented until every judge in this nation understands

23

4Gatowski, Ph.D., Sophia, Shirley Dobbin Ph.D., Krista Johns, J.D., Margaret Springgate,

J.D., ‘‘Child Abuse and Neglect Cases: Examining State Statutes in Everyday Practice’’ and

‘‘Child Abuse and Neglect Cases: A National Analysis of State Statutes.’’

the mandates of the law and his responsibility under the law. As was the experience

with Public Law 96–272, the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980,

there may be judges and system practitioners throughout the country who, if not

provided training, will proceed with business as usual.

A study conducted by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges

of court representatives across the nation from 1996–1998 indicated that practice

varied widely from legislation around adherence to time lines and other statutory

guidelines as mandated by P.L. 96–272. In fact, 54% of study respondents indicated

that time frames or other statutory guidelines as set by the law were ‘‘loosely adhered to’’ in actual practice. ‘‘Composite responses from court improvement specialists across the nation confirm that supporting good practice in statute involves careful articulation the duties and responsibilities of parties, providing guidance with

respect to expectations and required procedures for events, improving representation, providing consistency and supporting efforts to monitor case progress effectively.4 Training can bridge the gap between legislative intent and daily practice.

Making the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 A Reality

The critical need for judicial and interdisciplinary education continues, and must

be met. Every judge in the nation handling child abuse and neglect cases must be

reached, in order for new twelve-month timelines to be achieved, clear expectations

of courts and child welfare agencies under the law to be outlined, and goals for improved handling of child abuse and neglect cases to be developed and implemented.

Resources are currently not available that will allow for this nationwide judicial

training and technical assistance effort. However, the mechanism for providing judicial training nationwide is in place. Volunteer faculty, sitting judges who have the

knowledge and desire to motivate others on the bench to change practice, have made

a commitment to serve as trainers during state, local and national training programs. Information focusing on the requirements of the new federal legislation and

topical information on subjects related to dependency court are currently available.

Nationally recognized speakers have indicated their willingness to travel and to

speak to judicial and interdisciplinary training Conferences. Written materials

which can supplement hands-on training are available. The lack of adequate funding for this training is currently the only barrier to providing each of this nation’s

judges the tools with which to improve court practice in child abuse and neglect

cases. Let us make the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 a reality by educating a system for change.

Thank you, Mrs. Chairman, for inviting me here today to speak on behalf of the

National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. I am pleased to be available

tem, and I always hate to cut people off because your experience

to answer your questions or to provide additional information you may require.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. We do have a red light sysf

is so terribly valuable to our committee. But we will have more

time to question if we can keep our statements within the 5-minute

limit, and we do include your entire statement in the record.

Judge Leuba?

STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT C. LEUBA, CHIEF COURT ADMINISTRATOR, CONNECTICUT SUPREME COURT, ON BEHALF OF THE CONFERENCE OF STATE COURT ADMINISTRATORS

Judge LEUBA. Thank you very much, Madam Chair and members

of the committee. It is an honor to be here to address this important issue of child protection.

I am a judge of the Superior Court in Connecticut and the Chief

Court Administrator.

24

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Excuse me, Judge. Could you

speak a little closer to the microphone?

Judge LEUBA. I certainly can. Thank you.

For the record, my name is Robert Leuba. I am a judge at the

Superior Court in the State of Connecticut and the Chief Court Administrator for the Connecticut court system. I am honored to be

here today as a member and representing the Conference of State

Court Administrators, which is consisting, as you know, of 50

States, Puerto Rico, and the Territories. The State courts are

pleased to be included in the discussion on policy matters relating

to the issue before the committee of oversight of the child protection area.

I have submitted written testimony, and I won’t review that, just

to summarize. But before I do, I want to thank you for last year’s

passing of the Fathers Count Act with the amendment that included assistance here, and I guess we will just have to work harder with the Senators who were here and others to get that all the

way this year, if the committee sees fit.

I have several key points, many of which have been covered by

the previous speakers. ASFA, the Adoption and Safe Families Act,

is an important program in moving ahead in the child protection

area. I have submitted copies of a resolution adopted by the Conference of State Court Administrators and also the Conference of

Chief Justices supporting the implementation of ASFA, and I want

to wholeheartedly add my voice to that resolution.

As you know—it has been said before—that legislation makes

judges a key component of the process. There are many, many

steps in the process in which the judge is the necessary ingredient.

I have listed them in my testimony. I won’t enumerate that here.

It adds responsibilities to the courts without any funding whatever, and, of course, I guess we are all here today to indicate to

the committee the need in State courts around the country of financing for training and technical assistance in connection with

the implementation of ASFA.

Specifically, we would request the amendment of the Social Security Act, Titles IV–B and IV–E, which provide for training now in

the executive branch, but we would need to have the judicial

branches of government around the country included as eligible

participants in that process.

We appreciate the opportunity to be here today, and just before

I conclude, I want to just give you a little idea of what is happening

in Connecticut. In Connecticut, which is one of the members of the

Conference of State Court Administrators, we have about 3 million

people, as you know, Madam Chair, and we use about $285 million

to run the court system, $54 million of which is devoted to juvenile

courts. We have received from the Federal Government under the

Court Improvement Program $75,000 a year for training, which, as

you can see, in proportion is a small drop in the bucket for us, and

we need more, frankly.

I have given you information in my written testimony about

other States, what they are doing, Arizona and Kentucky and

Michigan, and I won’t elaborate further on that except to say I

would be glad to answer any questions you have about what is

going on in Connecticut and to provide any information that is

25

needed by the committee or staff through the National Center for

State Courts or the Conference of State Court Administrators, of

which I am a member.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement follows:]

Statement of Hon. Robert C. Leuba, Chief Court Administrator, Connecticut Supreme Court on behalf of the Conference of State Court Administrators

Introduction

Ms. Chairperson and Members of the Subcommittee, my statement is submitted

on behalf of the Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA). I thank you

for the opportunity to appear before you today on the important issue of child protection.

My name is Judge Robert C. Leuba, Chief Court Administrator for the State of

Connecticut Judicial Branch. The points that I want to make this afternoon are:

• The Conference of State Court Administrators wants to commend Congress for

its efforts to improve the protections available to children through the enactment

of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA).

• It is our belief that the court systems and judges are the key to effective implementation of ASFA, but we need help in meeting our responsibilities.

• ASFA significantly increased the responsibilites of the courts in handling child

protection issues, but did not provide the court systems with additional resources

to assist them in meeting the new demands.

• State court systems need additional resources to provide training and technical

assistance to the local courts and judges so that they can effectively implement

ASFA.

• Specifically, we are requesting that the Social Security Act be amended to make

judicial training eligible for federal financial participation and that funds be appropriated to provide technical assistance to state court systems.

I have been with the Connecticut Judicial Branch for 13 years, both as an administrator and as a trial judge. Prior to becoming a judge, I served for a number of

years in the public sector and as an attorney in private practice. During my prebench public service career I served as Legal Counsel and Executive Assistant to

Governor Thomas J. Meskill from 1973–1975; Commissioner of Motor Vehicles from

1971–1973; and Mayor of the Town of Groton from 1967–1969.

Throughout my years with the Judicial Branch, I have had the opportunity to preside over a variety of criminal, civil, and family matters, including those involving

the abuse and neglect of children and termination of parental rights. I served as

presiding judge of the family division of the New London Judicial District, as well

as Chief Administrative Judge of the Judicial Branch’s Civil Division.

Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA)

I appear before you today as a representative of the Conference of State Court

Administrators (COSCA). COSCA was organized in 1953 and is dedicated to the improvement of state court systems. Its membership consists of the principal court administrative officer in each of the fifty states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the

Territories of American Samoa, Guam, and the Virgin Islands. COSCA is a nonprofit corporation endeavoring to increase the efficiency and fairness of the nation’s

state court systems. The purposes of COSCA are:

• To encourage the formulation of fundamental policies, principles, and standards

for state court administration;

• To facilitate cooperation, consultation, and exchange of information by and

among national, state, and local offices and organizations directly concerned with

court administration;

• To foster the utilization of the principles and techniques of modern management

in the field of judicial administration; and

• To improve administrative practices and procedures and to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of all courts.

Support for the Effective Implementation of ASFA

COSCA and the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ) have established the effective

implementation of ASFA as one of their highest priorities for 2000, as they did in

1999. Attached for your information is a copy of a joint resolution that was adopted

26

by CCJ and COSCA that supports the goals of ASFA and its effective implementation.

Our interest in this issue grows out of our longstanding involvement with federal

efforts to protect children in danger of abuse and neglect. The enactment of the

Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 (P.L. 96–272) vested a unique

and critical responsibility with the courts to oversee the protection of children in

child abuse and neglect situations. For the first time, the 1980 Act required courts

to review and evaluate state welfare agencies’ actions. Further, courts were required

to make judicial determinations that the state agencies had made ‘‘reasonable efforts’’ to prevent the removal of children from their homes, to reunify children with

their families after a foster care placement, and to provide permanent homes for

children who cannot be reunited with their families. Congress also required courts

to hold dispositional hearings no later than eighteen months after a child’s original

placement and hold a hearing every twelve months thereafter to review progress on

the permanency plan. States in which the reasonable efforts findings were not made

and properly documented and in which the time frames for hearings were not met

could be sanctioned with the loss of federal funding.

In 1997, Congress concluded that the promises of the 1980 Act were not realized.

Passage of ASFA holds new promises for children who are vulnerable to abuse and

neglect. To realize these promises, however, Congress needs to recognize and provide adequate support for the needs of the institutions critical to ASFA implementation: the courts.

Impact of ASFA on the Courts

The effect of the new mandates on courts has been to increase the workload of

the courts because of the added judicial determinations and longer hearings needed

to resolve the complex issues required by the Act. The following represents the highlights of the new mandates and their impact on the courts.

• Judges are required to make the child’s health and safety the primary standard

for determining a state’s reasonable efforts to keep the child in the home or reunify

the child and the parents.

• Judges are required to make judicial determinations of when reasonable efforts

to prevent removal and reunify the family are not required because of egregious circumstances.

• Judges are required to make the difficult decisions pertaining to the termination of parental rights in cases where a child has been in foster care for fifteen

consecutive or fifteen of the twenty-two most recent months. In the cases where an

exception to the fifteen-month rule is requested, judges must determine whether the

compelling reasons are sufficient not to file the petition.

• Judges are required to conduct hearings on the permanency plans that have

been developed by state child protection agencies no later than twelve months after

a child enters care, six months earlier than had been required in the past.

• Judges are required to insure that the procedural rights of foster parents, preadoptive parents, and relative caretakers are protected and that they are notified

of hearings and have the opportunity to be heard at all hearings.

• Judges are required to review the placement of a foster child every twelve

months and to determine when the child will be returned to his or her parents or

placed for adoption or with a relative or with a legal guardian.

Additionally, ASFA strengthened the courts’ oversight authority in reviewing the

work of the child protection agency staff. The combined result of the ASFA changes

is more complex and significantly longer court hearings.

Congress enacted the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) of 1997 (P.L. 105–

89) in response to the concerns that the child protection system was not adequately

addressing the needs of abused and neglected children. The Act was designed to address two major concerns (1) the safety of children in all decisions and (2) the need

to find permanent homes in a timely manner for children who have been removed

from their homes. The changes brought about by ASFA are positive and will bring

about better results for children.

Please do not misunderstand, we support implementation of ASFA. Our concern

is with ensuring that courts have the resources necessary to implement the Act, not

with its provisions. We believe that these changes are necessary to insure better results for children. We share your belief that the health and safety of our children

should be given the highest priority when deciding the difficult issues pertaining to

the termination of parental rights and the removal of children from their homes and

families. As mentioned earlier, in establishing priorities for 1999 and again in 2000,

CCJ and COSCA identified the effective implementation of ASFA as one of their

highest priorities.

27

Court Needs for Training and Technical Assistance

To implement ASFA effectively, courts need federal support and assistance. To

this end, we want to address two issues. First, courts need to have access to the

training funds currently available to executive agencies under Title IV–B and Title

IV–E of the Social Security Act. Second, Congress needs to appropriate the $10 million for technical assistance for states authorized by ASFA.

We have strong evidence that training is inadequate and that state court systems

are in need of technical assistance to aid them in implementing systemic changes

for improving the handling of child protection cases and in implementing the provisions of ASFA. In 1993, Congress created the Court Improvement Project (CIP), a

grant program to assist state courts in improving their handling of child abuse and

neglect cases. Congress appropriated funds to provide CIP grants to the highest

court in each state for judicial improvement efforts. Congress required each state

to use their CIP funds in the first year to conduct an assessment, to identify problems in processing child abuse and neglect cases, and to develop strategies for addressing those identified problems. While these assessments pre-dated the adoption

of ASFA, they identified clearly the need for more training and technical assistance

for courts. The amount of CIP funds each state receives is not large, but states have

leveraged the CIP funds with state and local dollars and used the CIP funds to

stimulate a synergy among judicial, executive, and private resources.

The availability of federal financial participation dollars for training expenses for

judges and non-judicial personnel will significantly increase the availability of needed training programs. Many states have used state and local funding and a portion

of their CIP funds for judicial training, but the funding is not adequate to address

all of the training needs for judges and non-judicial personnel. To effectively implement ASFA and protect the interest of children, judges and non-judicial personnel

need to know more than the child welfare laws and court procedures. Judges need

training on such topics as child development (particularly the importance of attachment and bonding), the dynamics of families, the dynamics of domestic violence and

child abuse, the impact of substance abuse on the abusers and the family, and the

appropriate application of mediation in child protection cases. These topics are just

a sampling of the training needs. Judges do not have to be experts on these topics,

but they need a good understanding of the subject matter so they can put the testimony of the experts that testify in their courts into perspective. Federal reimbursement dollars would significantly enhance the ability of courts to provide needed

training for court personnel.

Federal resources to provide states with technical assistance will allow state court

systems to benefit from the court-based initiatives and experimentation that is taking place around the country. In a survey, State Court Administrators and Chief

Justices were asked to identify the types of technical assistance that they need to

assist them to effectively implement ASFA. The responses fell within the following

eight categories.

• development of automated tracking systems;

• development of automated interfaces between court, law enforcement, and social

service agency data bases;

• evaluation of case flow and implementation of streamlined procedures;

• development and implementation of new case management models;

• development and implementation of early case resolution programs;

• development and implementation of mechanism for monitoring compliance with

terms of court orders;

• development and evaluation of new models for representation of children; and

• development and implementation of court rules that facilitate timely case processing.

Courts have struggled to exploit the resources that have been available to them

for improving the handling of abuse and neglect cases. Certainly, the indicators

exist to show that courts are committed to systemic improvements. States are experimenting in the development of training programs, case management models,

automated tracking systems, and expedited procedures. These state efforts would be

all the more effective if additional resources were available to enhance training efforts and to provide technical assistance to the state court systems so they can aid

each other and share lessons learned.

Additional federal resources will allow state court systems to go far in effectively

implementing ASFA. To provide a broader understanding of some of the identified

training needs and the opportunities for technical assistance, a brief summary of activities in Connecticut and other states follow.

28

Connecticut Experience with Training

The Court Improvement Program funds enable the Connecticut Superior Court for

Juvenile Matters to continue its efforts to further enhance the court’s response to

children and families presented before the court for child protection matters. These

funds are used to pay for technological enhancements, to support staff development

and to improve the quality of legal representation for children and indigent parents.

As the Committee is particularly interested in the training, I will focus my remarks on how Connecticut uses court improvement program funds to pay the costs

associated with providing training to judges and court officials on the complex issues

surrounding child protection.

In Connecticut, a standing committee of state and private agency training experts

has been convened to identify training needs for child welfare workers, court staff

and agency attorneys and staff attorneys in relevant topic areas. A primary goal of

the group is to focus on experiential learning for adults that can be applied in daily

work. Agency management, social workers, court administrators, court support staff,

judges, and other public and private child welfare agency staff will be targeted to

receive skill building training and become familiar with innovations in permanency

planning.

The first endeavor of the group was to plan a seminar focused on mediation advocacy. This seminar was held in May of 1999 and assisted participants in the mediation process to understand their role and assist them to understand how to maximize their participation. Three hundred participants attended this seminar which

proved to be very valuable in providing a better understanding of the mediation

process and intervention strategies for mediation participants.

The funds available through the Court Improvement Program have assisted the

court in sponsoring multidisciplinary training for court staff, attorneys, CPS agency

staff, and judges on the Adoption and Safe Families Act. A state team was sent to

the National Grantees Meeting held in Baltimore. The team was comprised of a

judge handling juvenile matters, a Department of Children and Families administrator, and the State Court Improvement Program grant manager.

In addition, the Judicial Branch has collaborated with the child welfare agency

and the Office of Child Advocate to sponsor multidisciplinary training seminars.

One seminar, which was attended by approximately three hundred people, including

attorneys, court personnel, and mental health professionals, was held on the Adoption and Safe Families Act and the role of the guardian ad litem. Another such seminar was held on mediation and the last seminar that was conducted provided child

advocacy training for attorneys.

A concurrent permanency-planning seminar was held in the Fall of 1999. The National Resource Center for Foster Care and Permanency Planning at Hunter College

provided technical assistance and training resources.

We are in the process of developing training initiatives on adoption and attachment issues for staff across agencies and systems. This portion of this year’s Court

Improvement Program funds will be used to design and implement a core curriculum for attorneys representing children and parents in child protection cases.

The Connecticut Judicial Branch has received $150,000 for the period from August 1, 1999 through July 31, 2001 under the Court Improvement Program which

is administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. Considering the fact that, in Connecticut, we

spend $54.1 million per year on our juvenile efforts, this $150,000 provides us with

some much needed additional resources, but does not represent a significant portion

of our overall budget for juvenile matters.

If we were given additional resources, we would be able to enhance our efforts.

For example, we would be able to provide training to senior judges, judge trial referees, and attorneys who have indicated an interest in serving as mediators. Currently, in Connecticut, we do not have a mediation program for juvenile matters

that involves full-scale mediation with family members. We do have, however, a mediation program that typically involves the attorneys in a particular case. We have

recognized the need to enhance this program, but have been unable to fund it todate.

In addition, if funding were made available, we would like to develop an extensive

training program for courtroom clerks, office assistants, and caseflow coordinators

in the child protection system. It is essential that staff who work in the area of child

protection be given on overview of the entire system and an up-to-date training

manual.

Finally, it has been brought to our attention by the Chief Administrative Judge

for Juvenile Matters that many judges would benefit from an intensive four or five

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day seminar on the use of computers, particularly in the area of child protection.

We do not have the funds at this time, to provide this intensive training.

Unfortunately, we have not been able to provide all of the training that is so sorely needed in this area due to funding limitations. If additional funding were made

available, we would be able to implement this training plan, which would benefit

the children and families appearing before the court for child protection matters.

Experience and Experimentation in Other States

Kentucky

Kentucky is typical of most states in the way in which they handle their judicial

education programs. States, such as Kentucky and Connecticut, have taken the initiative to develop training programs, but limited resources have restricted the availability of the programs. Federal financial participation dollars would significantly

enhance the availability of judicial and non-judicial education programs.

The Kentucky court system is striving to improve the handling of dependency

cases. They have initiated innovations, but are in need of additional resources to

help them sustain and expand these initiatives.

In most states, many guardian ad litems (GALs) have limited experience in representing children in abuse, neglect, and dependency proceedings. The GALs essentially practice this kind of law as one small part of their overall general practice.

Thus far, Kentucky has had the ability to conduct GAL training on ASFA in certain

designated pilot sites and family court sites. Kentucky court officials see the need

for this training to continue and to be conducted in additional judicial districts and

circuits.

In Kentucky, judges attend ‘‘Judicial Colleges’’ every year. At the Colleges, judges

receive training regarding the method by which courts should conduct their business. However, more judicial training relating to ASFA is necessary, particularly in

those districts and circuits where family courts do not exist. An evaluator reporting

to Kentucky court officials concluded that some judges, particularly in rural areas,

have been reluctant to order terminations of parental rights. The evaluator concluded, ‘‘altering the day to day behavior of courtroom decision makers, not rewriting statutes, has the most promise for systemic, meaningful change.’’ At this year’s

Circuit Judges’ Judicial College, a special ‘‘family court track’’ was developed for the

family court judges to attend. At this section, Judge Jim Payne from Indiana conducted an in-depth training on ASFA. All circuit judges were not able to receive this

training. Kentucky court officials have identified regional training sessions, in addition to the Judicial Colleges, as a mechanism to insure that all judges receive the

training they need to comply with spirit and requirements of ASFA.

Currently Kentucky has a statewide tracking system for children in foster care;

however, access to this system is only available to employees at the Administrative

Office of the Courts Central Office. The system contains several different variables,

including the findings made by Citizen Foster Care Review Boards. This tracking

system could be expanded to include real time access in the courtroom to judges

during judicial proceedings involving abuse, neglect, and dependency cases. This expansion would perhaps allow judges to make more informed decisions on behalf of

children. One essential step in the implementation of ASFA is the identification of

those children who have been in foster care for twelve months or more and more

importantly those who have been in foster care for fifteen of the last twenty-two

months. Currently, Kentucky court officials are able to provide family court judges

with statistical reports that identify these populations. Limited resources have prevented them from providing the same reports to circuit court judges.

Arizona

Arizona has developed an on-line training program, available through their state

Intranet that would serve as a good model for other states. The availability of technical assistance dollars would increase the ability to replicate this type of training

enhancement in other states.

The Arizona court system has been very proactive in addressing the changes

needed to improve the handling of dependency cases. Starting January 1, 1999, all

Arizona jurisdictions, with the exception of Maricopa County (Phoenix), were required to process dependency petitions in the ‘‘Model Court’’ format. Due to its size,

Maricopa County was given an additional time for the conversion and brought their

cases into the new process by July 1, 1999.

State Court Improvement funding was made available to assist Superior Courts

with the changes in dependency case processing. All fifteen Arizona counties receive

funds for Court Improvement implementation.

All counties established a local Court Improvement Implementation team that

oversees ‘‘Model Court’’ implementation. The teams may include staff from the Attorney General’s office, Department of Employment Security (DES), contract attorVerDate 20-JUL-2000 11:02 Nov 08, 2000 Jkt 061710 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 K:\HEARINGS\66736.TXT WAYS3 PsN: WAYS3
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neys, Clerk’s office, behavioral health providers, and tribal representatives. In April

of 2000, all teams will go to Phoenix for training and to discuss successes and barriers to Court Improvement implementation. They will also identify future project

goals.

Arizona has spent over a year developing the Juvenile On-Line Tracking System

(JOLTS), a statewide dependency data collection system. JOLTS has been fully

operational in all counties since September 1999. Although the system continues to

undergo enhancement it has been designed to collect all dependency case information including hearing dates and outcomes, family problems, placement information,

sibling information and case plan details.

In 1999, Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Zlaket signed an Administrative Order mandating that all judges new to the dependency bench (including pro

tem judges and commissioners) participate in a Dependency Curriculum Program.

The training program is held annually and includes the following topics:

—Dependency Case—From Removal to Permanency,

—Law,

—Mediation and Settlement Conferences,

—Severance and Guardianship,

—Adoption,

—The Role of Other Players in Dependency Cases,

—Drug Addiction and Treatment,

—JOLTS—Dependency Data Collection,

—Introduction to Child Development,

—Child Abuse and Neglect,

—Mental Illness, and

—Services and Programs.

Because Arizona judicial rotation often occurs mid-year and Dependency Judicial

Training occurs only once a year, it was necessary to develop an interim training

for judicial officers hearing dependency cases. Judicial staff have access to a Distance Learning Program via the state Intranet. The Distance Learning Package focuses on the progress of a dependency case from petition filing through conclusion.

This includes possible termination of parental rights, permanent guardianship, and

adoption. The training was developed as a tool for judges who have not yet had the

opportunity to attend the full Dependency Curriculum as required.

As you can see, Arizona has accomplished a great deal in the dependency arena.

They are currently working with a contractor to evaluate the changes in their dependency system over the past year. Although it will be a year before the report

is completed, Arizona court officials feel certain that the changes that they have

made will have a positive impact on dependent children.

Other states could benefit from the work that Arizona has done if there was a

system for transferring the information and products they have developed to those

other states. Although they have accomplished much within their own state, Arizona

court officials also see the need for additional training and technical assistance. In

particular they cited the need for training on the Indian Child Welfare Act (P. L.

96–262) and the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act (P. L. 103–382) and on the new federal

rules for implementing ASFA that were published on January 25, 2000. As to the

types of technical assistance that may be needed nationally, they cited the need to

assist courts with (1) developing standards for attorneys (both private or court appointed counsel) practicing before them, (2) establishing data collection systems, (3)

developing judicial benchbooks, and (4) evaluating the progress made by the courts.

Michigan

Michigan is developing a reporting system to assist them in monitoring the ASFA

timeframes to insure that the local courts are in compliance. Again, the availability

of technical assistance dollars would increase the ability to replicate this reporting

system in other states.

The Michigan court system is in the process of designing and implementing a reporting system to gather data on its compliance with the ASFA time frames. The

State Court Administrative Office will be publishing an annual report for the State

Legislature that includes information and statistics detailing the court’s adherence

to the ASFA time frames and specific reasons for any failures to meet any of the

time frames. On a monthly basis, the State Court Administrative Office will issue

a Permanency Indicators Report to each judge that tracks seventeen indicators. The

seventeen factors follow:

1. Number of days from removal to hearing;

2. Number of days from placement to commencement of trial or acceptance of

plea;

3. Number of days from removal from home to adjudication (petition closed);

31

4. Number of days from adjudication to commencement of initial dispositional

hearing;

5. Number of days from commencement of initial dispositional hearing to entry

of Order of Disposition;

6. Number of days from dispositional order or last review hearing to new review

hearing;

7. Number of days between permanency planning hearing date and review hearing date;

8. Number of days from original filing to permanency planning hearing;

9. Number of days from trial to termination hearing;

10. Number of days from petition to termination hearing;

11. Number of days from termination hearing to decision;

12. Number of termination hearings (granted, denied on motion, and dismissed/

withdrawn);

13. Number of children made permanent wards;

14. Permanency outcomes (return home, kinship care, adoption, permanent foster

placement, independent living, and guardianship);

15. Cases with disrupted permanency;

16. Number of days from removal to permanency; and

17. Cases that have not reached permanency.

Michigan is in the process of piloting this tracking and reporting system. The

knowledge that they gain in this project will be most helpful to other states. As stated previously, having a mechanism to transfer knowledge and products from one

state to another would benefit many states.

COSCA Recommendations

We ask your consideration of two recommendations—(1) modify the Social Security Act to make federal funding available for reimbursing the costs of training for

judicial and non-judicial personnel and (2) appropriate technical assistance funds

targeted at the needs of courts.

As mentioned previously, I have attached for your information a copy of a resolution that was adopted by the CCJ and the COSCA at their last annual meeting on

August 5, 1999. While this resolution goes beyond the scope of our testimony today,

it does represent the support of the two Conferences for ASFA and our respective

commitments to the effective implementation of ASFA.

Courts have been and will continue to be creative and leverage resources from a

variety of sources to assist them in meeting their responsibilities and your expectations for the effective implementation of ASFA. We ask your consideration in making federal resources available to accomplish that end result. Additional federal resources will allow state court systems to go a long way toward effectively implementing ASFA.

Thank you for giving COSCA, and through it the state judges of our country, an

opportunity to be heard on this important issue. I would be glad to address questions from the Subcommittee.

Judge.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Thank you very much,

f

Mr. Hardin?

STATEMENT OF MARK HARDIN, DIRECTOR, CHILD WELFARE,

AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION CENTER ON CHILDREN AND

THE LAW

Mr. HARDIN. Madam Chair, Congressman Cardin, Congressman

Camp, thank you very much for the opportunity to testify, and I

want to say first how delighted I am with your remarks and also

the testimony previously from Congresswoman Pryce and the Senators which demonstrate your concern and your knowledge of the

key role of the courts in foster care improvements and also your

commitment to improvements.

I am speaking today specifically on the importance of training for

attorneys in achieving safety and permanency for children, and esVerDate 20-JUL-2000 11:02 Nov 08, 2000 Jkt 061710 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 K:\HEARINGS\66736.TXT WAYS3 PsN: WAYS3
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pecially the importance of training to achieve the goals of the Adoption and Safe Families Act. And I will cover four points: first, the

critical role of attorneys in protecting children and achieving the

goals of ASFA; second, the unique and demanding nature of legal

practice in child protection cases; third, current problems in performance of attorneys in these cases and how it is related to training issues; and fourth, how effective attorney training with Federal

help, can help protect children, ensure fairness to families, and accomplish the goals of ASFA.

My first point was that attorneys play a vital role in affecting the

future of these children. You are already very aware, as your remarks indicate, that courts play a central role in planning and decisionmaking for children in foster care. Well, it is attorneys who

largely control the flow of information that reaches the judge. And

when attorneys are unaware of vital facts important to children’s

safety and treatment and, therefore, don’t present them to the

judge, there is a greater possibility of tragic judicial mistakes.

Effective attorneys are vital to the success of the Adoption and

Safe Families Act. Agency attorneys, for example, need to know

how to trouble-shoot and move their cases. Agency attorneys need

to learn how to pursue the difficult and challenging cases instead

of waiting for years to bring them forward when they have become

easier in court due to the length of stay of the child in foster care.

Effective attorneys for parents and children are also crucial to

the success of ASFA. Because of the tighter ASFA deadlines, basic

fairness makes it especially important that the attorneys for parents and children perform well.

Second, I want to point out that child protection law is very specialized and very demanding. Very few attorneys outside our field

appreciate the challenges and complexity. Child protection cases involve a unique set of hearings, each with very specific purposes and

specific strategies. There are also very many legal issues unique to

child protection law, including special issues related to confidentiality, unique constitutional questions, evidentiary issues, administrative law procedure. There are likewise many non-legal areas that

attorneys need to know about, like child development. You referred

to substance abuse. They need to understand something about that,

and they also need to understand about child abuse.

Another challenge for attorneys is the particular severity of child

and family problems in child protection cases. One or more parents

may well have difficulties with substance abuse, serious psychological disorders, character disorders, and may be involved in criminal behavior. Likewise, children often have serious psychological

problems often due to the abuse and neglect, learning disabilities.

My point, of course, is that attorneys need to have training in all

these subjects, legal and non-legal.

Attorneys also deal with very large and complex organizations including the child protection agency, law enforcement, a wide array

of public and private service providers as well as with mental

health and medical professionals.

My third point was that the performance of many attorneys in

child protection—while we are working on it and making

progress—is still deeply flawed due to a lack of systematic training.

I am sorry to say that in many courts attorneys still often meet

33

their clients just a few moments before the beginning of court hearings. And there are places where this is still common practice and

even accepted.

My final point is that effective training can make a major difference. Training can explain the special ethical obligations of attorneys. Federal training monies through Title IV–E matching

funds can help develop performance standards for attorneys and

educational programs to explain those standards. Training materials can summarize law, describe the hearing process and, explain

key legal concepts. With more stable funding for training, agencies

and courts can set up standard curricula that all attorneys are expected to learn. Attendance can be made mandatory, and attorneys

can be held accountable for what they are supposed to learn at

those programs.

To sum up, there are many other crucial issues such as performance measurement and computerized performance measurement

systems. While improvements in training will not solve all the

problems in attorney or court performance, it ultimately will make

a major difference in the lives of abused and neglected children and

their families.

So, again, I will just say how much we appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement follows:]

Statement of Mark Hardin, Director, Child Welfare, American Bar

Association Center on Children and the Law

Madam Chair, members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to

testify this afternoon.

I am Mark Hardin, Director of Child Welfare at the American Bar Association

Center on Children and the Law. For over 22 years, I have specialized and provided

training in legal issues concerning child abuse and neglect, foster care, and adoption. I have also testified here a number of times in the last 20 years. I submit this

testimony at the request of the President of the American Bar Association, William

G. Paul of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

The ABA has supported court reforms and improvements of the system that

serves children who have been abused or neglected dating back to the 1970’s. We

have focused particularly on the role of judges and attorneys in child abuse and neglect and foster care cases in the nation’s juvenile and family courts. I am speaking

today on the importance of training for attorneys in achieving safety and permanency for foster children and especially in achieving the goals of the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act. I will discuss four points:

• The critical role played by attorneys in protecting children, achieving justice for

the parties, and achieving the goals of the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act

of 1997 (ASFA).

• The unique and challenging nature of legal practice in child protection cases.

• Current problems in the performance of attorneys in foster care litigation, and

how that is related to a lack of training.

• How effective training for attorneys can help protect children, ensure fairness

for parties, and achieve the goals of ASFA.

My first point is the critical role played by attorneys in determining the future

of abused and neglected children.

You are already aware, I’m sure, that courts play a central role in planning and

decision making for children in foster care. Courts must make a whole series of pivotal decisions concerning each child in foster care. Without a well functioning court

system, children’s safety is compromised, families are needlessly broken up, and

children languish for years in foster care instead of permanent homes. Without well

functioning courts, the goals of ASFA cannot be achieved.

Judges cannot serve families and children effectively without competent and wellprepared attorneys. Attorneys largely control the flow of information to the judge.

Attorneys decide what witnesses, evidence, and arguments to present. When attorneys are unaware of vital facts important to the children’s safety and treatment,

34

these facts may never be brought to the judge’s attention. Without complete relevant

information, judges’ decisions may well be ill informed or even tragically mistaken.

Effective agency attorneys are vital to the success of the Adoption and Safe Families Act. They must be able to troubleshoot and identify problems in advance, such

as failure to locate key parties and relatives. They must help prepare findings for

the judge that will move the case forward later. They must be willing to pursue the

difficult and challenging cases and not wait years for them to because easier because the child has already stayed so long in foster care.

Knowledgeable and trained attorneys for parents and children are equally crucial

to filling the goals of ASFA. Given the tighter timeframes for decisions that are required by the Adoption and Safe Families Act, it is particularly important that attorneys for parents and children effectively and diligently represent their clients. If

parents’ attorneys are unprepared, family relationships more likely will be severed

unfairly or needlessly. If children’s attorneys or guardians ad litem do not perform

well, children’s needs may not be met in foster care and the ASFA decision timelines

may be frustrated.

Child protection law is a very specialized and demanding area of practice. It remains a little known area of the law, and few attorneys appreciate its challenges

and complexity. Child protection cases involve a unique series of hearings each with

specific purposes. For attorneys, each hearing requires a special set of strategies and

careful preparation. There are no close analogues for child protection hearings in

different areas of the law. There are also many legal issues unique to child protection law, including special issues of evidence, constitutional law, administrative law,

and procedure. Likewise, there are many non-legal issues attorneys must understand such as child development, substance abuse, and basic principles of child

abuse and medicine. Attorneys need to understand the unique way these issues are

presented in child protection cases. They need training to gain this understanding.

Another factor adding to the challenges of child protection law for attorneys is the

severity of child and family problems in child protection cases. For example, in the

majority of child protection cases, one or more parents has difficulties with substance abuse. More often than not, parents often have serious disabilities, psychological disorders, character disorders, or are involved in criminal behavior. We know

that a disproportionate number of foster children have psychological problems (often

due to the abuse or neglect), learning disabilities, and other critical issues and disabilities.

Still another difficult challenge for attorneys is that they must deal with large

and complex bureaucracies, especially the child protection agency. Attorneys must

understand how these bureaucracies work in order to represent their clients effectively. In addition to the public child protection agency, attorneys must effectively

work with law enforcement, a wide range of public and private treatment providers,

schools, and medical and mental health professionals.

Finally, child protection cases present unique legal strategies. An attorney who

is familiar only with criminal or civil practice is unlikely to appreciate these strategies. For example, attorneys need to understand that criminal defense strategies in

defending a parent in juvenile court usually is counter productive for their client

and family, serving only to delay the case. Child protection attorneys also need to

understand the unique ongoing oversight role of the court and how to develop strategies for the different steps in the case.

The performance of many attorneys in child protection cases is inadequate. This

is directly related to a lack of systematic training. Recently, under the federal court

improvement grants, the nation’s state court systems evaluated their own performance in child abuse and neglect. The American Bar Association prepared a summary

of the findings of these state court self-assessments.

The self-assessments found a very real need for improvement in the performance

of attorneys. In many places, low standards of preparation and performance prevail.

In many courts, some attorneys meet their clients for the first time only a few moments before the beginning of hearings. No other pre-hearing preparation occurs.

In addition, many attorneys don’t understand their special roles in child protection cases. One report described new agency attorneys coming to court and actually

asking caseworkers what they, as the workers’ attorneys, were supposed to do.

Other reports describe attorneys not understanding either law or strategy in these

cases.

Many state court self assessment reports said that attorneys handling child protection cases not only are often inexperienced in child protection cases, but often

also quickly move on to new areas of law. This fact adds to the need for systematic

and early training for all attorneys taking on these cases.

Effective training for attorneys can make a major difference in their performance.

Training can explain the special ethical obligations of attorneys in these cases.

35

Training moneys can help develop performance standards for attorneys and then establish programs where practitioners learn what is expected of them. Training materials can also summarize child protection law, describe the hearing process, and

explain key legal concepts and issues.

With more stable funding for training, agencies, bar organizations, and courts can

set up standard curricula that all attorneys are expected to learn. Attendance at

such training should be required. Attorneys can be more easily held accountable for

performing in accordance with their training. They can receive rapid instructions in

new legal developments, through materials, face-to-face training, and videotapes. If

administrative costs under Title IV–B of the Social Security Act are made available

for this purpose, attorney training will realize major advances.

While improvements in training will not solve all the problems in attorney and

court performance, it can translate into significant performance improvements, and

ultimately will make a major difference in the lives of abused and neglected children

and their families.

We appreciate the opportunity to testify and will submit more complete written

testimony at a later time.

Hardin.

Thank you very much.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Thank you very much, Mr.

f

Ms. DeLay?

STATEMENT OF CHRISTINE DELAY, VOLUNTEER, FT. BEND

COUNTY CHILD ADVOCATES PROGRAM, RICHMOND, TEXAS,

ON BEHALF OF NATIONAL COURT APPOINTED SPECIAL ADVOCATES ASSOCIATION, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

Ms. DELAY. I am honored to be invited to speak to you today,

Madam Chairwoman and Mr. Cardin and Mr. Camp, about courtappointed special advocates, CASAs, and the role they play by

helping courts and the different social services make informed decisions in the best interest of children.

First, I would like to thank you and applaud the subcommittee’s

leadership for your work last year on the Foster Care Independence

Act. I am a CASA volunteer with the Child Advocates of Fort Bend

County in Richmond, Texas, and my husband, Tom, and I have

been foster parents for a number of years. We are well acquainted

with the support and services that older teens need when they are

transitioning out of foster care into becoming self-sufficient. I recognize that this legislation will be instrumental in helping young

adults transition into independent living.

The committee is considering increasing the training of court personnel, including court-appointed special advocates. Let me tell you

why this is important.

CASAs are citizen volunteers appointed by the juvenile and family courts in cases of abuse or neglect. The volunteer is an independent voice focusing exclusively on what is best for the child. The

courts and the child protective service agencies are dealing with

overwhelming caseloads. CASAs only have one or two cases at a

time so they can give each child’s case the sustained personal interest it deserves.

The volunteer reviews, records, researches information, and talks

to everyone involved in the case before making a recommendation

to the court about a particular child’s placement and their needed

services. The CASA remains on the case until it is resolved, the

36

same CASA, as the child’s tenacious advocate for a safe and permanent home. Sadly, sometimes this takes years.

It is easiest to illustrate the CASA volunteer’s unique ability to

effectively advocate for children by citing real cases. I want to

share one with you. The names and identifying information have

been changed to protect the confidentiality of the people involved.

The story takes place in my home county of Fort Bend, Texas.

It was in the fall of 1998, and our CASA program entered a courtroom expecting to attend a third and final termination of parental

rights hearing for a specific case. The drug-addicted mother of

three little boys had relinquished her rights 6 months earlier. The

father of the boys was a career criminal that no one could find. Previous hearings had resulted in two 30-day continuances at the request of the court-appointed attorney for the father. Despite a

year’s worth of work by both CASA and CPS to locate the father,

his whereabouts were still unknown.

When the CASA arrived at the courthouse, she heard the same

old song and dance. The father’s attorney needed more time and

the other attorneys in the case, including the children’s attorney,

were willing to agree to yet one more continuance. However, the

CASA would not stand for it. She told the rest of the professionals

assigned to the case that enough was enough.

She went on to tell them, ‘‘I represent three little boys who deserve a permanent home. They have been waiting for over a year

for us to free them for adoption. The foster parents want to adopt,

and they have been here three times now hoping the termination

would be granted. We can do better than this. I don’t want them

to go home empty-handed today.’’

She stated that the father couldn’t be found because he didn’t

want to be found. It was imperative for the parties involved to shift

their focus to the welfare of the children. Therefore, she would not

agree to a continuance and would ask the judge to go forward. She

did, and he did.

That night, Mark, Scott, and Nathan learned that they were

going to be adopted by their foster parents and they would have

what they had never had in their young lives—a permanent home.

This story illustrates the need for all court personnel to be

trained in the requirements of the new Federal laws. Today there

are nearly 900 CASA programs throughout the country. In 1998,

the courts appointed CASA volunteers to the cases of 183,000 children representing more than one-third of the children in foster

care. These volunteers are the eyes and the ears of the court, and

they are critical to the implementation of the new adoption laws.

But training alone will not change the hearts and minds of a culture. Cultural change will only come when we as a society really

believe that children’s safety and well-being must be paramount.

In the best interest of our children, I would recommend to this

committee that you support training of CASA volunteers as well as

the judges and attorneys. I am sure you recognize this, and I do

want to thank you the committee for passing H.R. 3073. We were

very upset that it was not—that it died in the Senate. But we are

hopeful that the training provisions will be reintroduced and

passed again.

Thank you.

37

[The prepared statement follows:]

Statement of Christine DeLay, Volunteer, Ft. Bend County Child Advocates

Program, Richmond, Texas, on behalf of the National Court Appointed

Special Advocate Association, Seattle, Washington

Madame Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee,

I am honored by your invitation to speak today about the Strengthening Abuse

and Neglect Courts Act.

First, I would like to thank and applaud the Subcommittee’s leadership for your

work last year on the Foster Care Independence Act. I am a CASA volunteer with

the Ft. Bend County Child Advocates Program in Richmond, Texas. My husband

Tom and I are also foster parents. From my experience as a CASA volunteer, I am

very well acquainted with the support and services that older teens need when they

age out of foster care and must become self-sufficient.

When Congress approved the Adoption and Safe Families Act [ASFA], it established a national standard that a child’s safety is of paramount concern in cases of

abuse and neglect. What’s more, that foster care should only be a ‘‘temporary’’ situation in the precious short time of childhood. Children should be placed in safe and

permanent homes as quickly as possible. The Strengthening Abuse and Neglect

Courts Act [SANCA] will bring much-needed resources to our juvenile courts to

more effectively manage the backlog of children’s cases already in the system, and

to move new cases more expeditiously.

Among the resources provided to courts through SANCA is the expansion of Court

Appointed Special Advocates (CASAs). CASAs are citizen volunteers appointed by

the juvenile and family courts in cases of child abuse, neglect or abandonment. The

volunteer is an independent voice, focusing exclusively on what is best for the

child. CASAs handle just 1 or 2 cases at a time, so that they can give each child’s

case the sustained, personal attention it deserves. The volunteer reviews records, researches information and talks to everyone involved in the case, before making a

recommendation to the court about a particular child’s placement and needed services. The CASA remains on the case until it is resolved, as the child’s tenacious advocate for a safe and permanent home.

The role of the CASA volunteer becomes even more critical under the shorter

timeframes of ASFA. The courts and agencies are still dealing with overwhelming

caseloads, yet have less time to devote to an individual child’s case. CASAs are an

assurance that a child has an advocate who will take the time to thoroughly research the child’s situation and that important facts are not overlooked. CASA volunteers are typically appointed to the more complex children’s cases—those in which

the best solutions for a child’s safe placement are difficult to discern. CASA volunteers will delve deep into a child’s situation, including locating and speaking with

extended family members, and report this information to the court.

Today there are nearly 900 CASA programs throughout the country. In 1998, the

courts appointed CASA volunteers to the cases of 183,000 children, representing

more than 1⁄3 of the children in foster care. More than 30% of all children in foster care live in just ten cities—the country’s largest cities. CASA volunteers

advocate for 7,000 children in these cities. Yet that is just a little more than 4%

of the children in care—an estimated total of 162,000 children in the 10 largest cities.

SANCA will expand the capacity of CASA programs in these urban areas to advocate for more children, and to assure that these children do not get lost in systems

that are so overwhelmed.

The legislation will also provide for CASA expansion by establishing programs

that can serve children across multiple rural jurisdictions. There are already CASA

programs throughout the country—from New York, to Indiana, Oklahoma, Texas,

New Mexico and California—that are serving children residing in rural areas across

two and three counties. SANCA will enable the National CASA Association to promote and support this model in the 387 rural court jurisdictions that are still without CASA advocacy.

In rural Southeast Texas, the Supreme Court Task Force on Adoption has piloted

a cluster court in a 10-county area. The judge travels among the 10 counties and

specializes in just child protection cases, rather than myriad cases typically handled

by rural county courts. The cluster court can serve as another model for rural expansion from a central location.

Thank you for your attention and the opportunity to speak before you today.

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38

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. I would point out, it hasn’t

died. It is suffering from benign neglect. [Laughter.]

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. And we still have a chance

to get the proper focus upon it, and we will appreciate your help

and the help of all of you advocates in the room to accomplish that

goal.

Mr. Moorman?

STATEMENT OF RONALD H. MOORMAN, EXECUTIVE

DIRECTOR, CHILD CARE ASSOCIATION OF ILLINOIS

Mr. MOORMAN. Madam Chairperson and members of the subcommittee, I do want to thank you for the opportunity to testify

today and recognize the fact that the testimony that I am going to

give is beyond the scope of just talking about court training. It has

to do with another whole sector of the child welfare community

that is in desperate need of training resources, and that is the private sector, and the link between what we do in the private sector

and what we do in the court system is extremely important.

My name is Ron Moorman, and I represent 108 voluntary, notfor-profit child welfare agencies in the State of Illinois, and these

are agencies that basically deliver the full range of child welfare

services, foster care and adoption and reunification services. The

testimony that I am giving is supported fully by our Governor,

George Ryan, and also by other organizations in our State such as

the Catholic Conference and the Jewish Federation.

I am very, very proud of the role that the private agencies provide in the State of Illinois. Illinois is a two-sector system, and it

has a very, very strong base of voluntary not-for-profit child welfare agencies. It is a true public-private partnership that is, I

think, a hallmark of our system. This is true, and not just in Illinois, but in many other States as well.

I do need to point out that in the past several years, under the

impetus of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, Illinois adoption

rates have grown in record-shattering numbers. We had 9,500

wards that moved to adoption in FY 1999. We had 6,600 in the FY

2000. We have 6,100 projected for this year. If we include reunifications in that number, we will move approximately 13,000 children

through the court systems in Cook County.

In order to achieve that record, Illinois places priority emphasis

on a dual public-private sector approach to the delivery of child

welfare services. In fact, Illinois purchases over 80 percent of its

foster care services from private child welfare agencies.

As the numbers demonstrate, that process works, and what is

critical to that is a dedicated, committed, and well-trained workforce. That is absolutely essential if we are going to meet the performance standards that, in fact, you have set up for the system.

Unfortunately, current Federal policies financially penalize Illinois

for its reliance on private sector agencies in the delivery of child

welfare services. I am testifying here today to urge you to rectify

what we perceive to be perhaps an unintended but clearly unfair

statutory policy.

39

As required under Title IV–E of the Social Security Act, training

funds for public child welfare programs are reimbursed at a 75 percent matching rate by the Federal Government. This incentive ensures that States do invest in training public child welfare workers

for the work that they have to do. However, the current law does

not provide States the same financial match incentives to train

child welfare workers from private child welfare agencies. Plainly,

this structure of the Federal training match unfairly discriminates

against States like Illinois that have a strong private sector child

welfare base.

As I said, Illinois currently purchases over 80 percent of the foster care services it provides from private agencies, and I simply

have a hard time believing that it was ever your intention to exclude private agencies from these critically needed resources. That

doesn’t correlate with the vision and the wisdom that you recently

displayed in passing the Adoption and Safe Families Act.

In closing, I would stress that States such as Illinois which make

innovative and successful use of private agencies in the delivery of

child welfare services must be able to take advantage of the same

incentives and reimbursement opportunities for training that

States that rely on a public child welfare system do. So we would

urge the members of the subcommittee to take immediate steps to

rectify this inequity and pass corrective legislation this year that

will ensure the continued success of public-private partnerships to

better the lives of children and families in need.

Madam Chairman, in the press release that was put out for this

hearing, you had a quote that said, ‘‘Every child deserves a safe

and loving home,’’ and that is why it is important to have welltrained and qualified judges to make crucial decisions about children involved in abuse and neglect. And while that is certainly true

for judges and it is certainly true for CASA, it is equally true for

those individual caseworkers, public and private, who on a daily

basis hold the lives and futures of countless children and families

in their hands.

I thank you for your consideration, and I urge your help with

this request. Thank you.

[The prepared statement follows:]

[Attachments are being retained in the Committee files.]

Statement of Ronald H. Moorman, Executive Director, Child Care

Association of Illinois

Madame Chairperson, Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for giving me the

opportunity to testify today on critical issues related to child welfare. My name is

Ronald Moorman and I am the Executive Director of the Child Care Association of

Illinois (CCA), which is a voluntary, not-for-profit organization established in 1964,

dedicated to improving the delivery of social services to the abused, neglected, and

troubled children, youth and families of Illinois. This testimony enjoys the full support of Governor Ryan and many other child welfare organizations in Illinois, such

as the Catholic Conference and the Jewish Federation.

I testify here today with great pride in describing the strong private sector base

of the child welfare system in Illinois and want to underscore the strong public-private partnership that is a hallmark of our system and those of several other states.

Ensuring the safety of Illinois’ children, the availability of stable care, and the establishment of permanent placements are of utmost importance to those of us in

both the public and private sector who are participants in the delivery of child welfare services to children and families in Illinois. Clearly, successful outcomes for

children and families in the child welfare system depend heavily on the availability

of a qualified, highly trained workforce in both the public and private sectors. Today

40

I will focus my remarks on a critical problem facing the child welfare system in

America and steps that must be taken to guarantee the continuing availability of

such a trained workforce in Illinois and in other states with similar child welfare

systems.

In the past few years, under the impetus of the Adoption and Safe Families Act,

Illinois’ adoption rates have demonstrated the success in child placement—9,514

wards to adoption/guardianship in FY1999, 6,623 in FY2000, and 6,112 projected for

FY 2001. Additionally, dedicated efforts have been targeted at ensuring that children’s needs within the State’s foster and substitute care systems are quickly and

appropriately met with the right types and levels of services. In order to achieve

such strong and successful results in our child welfare system, including high rates

of adoption and a ‘‘wrap around’’ service delivery system, Illinois places priority emphasis on a dual public/private sector approach to delivering child welfare services

in the state. In fact, Illinois purchases over 75 percent of the foster care services

it provides from private child welfare agencies.

The Governor of Illinois and the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services

fully expect our provider agencies to meet high performance and outcome standards.

We strongly support that expectation. Also, to meet such a challenge and to guarantee that children and families receive quality care, a high premium is placed on ensuring that both public and private workers are thoroughly trained. We fully support that assumption. As adoption numbers alone clearly demonstrate, such collaborative working relationships help ensure that the vast needs of children are efficiently met throughout the state. Moreover, a dedicated, committed and well-trained

workforce is absolutely essential to meet federal performance standards.

Unfortunately, current federal policies financially penalize Illinois for its reliance

on private sector agencies in the delivery of child welfare services. I testify here

today to urge you to rectify what we perceive to be perhaps an unintended, but

clearly unfair, statutory policy. As required under Title IV–E of the Social Security

Act, training funds for public child welfare programs are reimbursed at a 75 percent

matching rate by the federal government. This incentive ensures that states invest

in training public child welfare workers to work effectively with abused and neglected children and their families. The current law does not, however, provide

states the same financial match incentives to train child welfare workers from private child welfare agencies. Plainly, the structure of the federal training match unfairly discriminates against states that have a strong private sector welfare base,

like Illinois, which as I stated previously, currently purchases over 75 percent of the

foster care services it provides from private sector agencies.

States such as Illinois should not be penalized for the private sector commitment

of its non-profit child welfare agencies and their creative use of private resources

in meeting the needs of children and families. Changing the current federal welfare

training match to include training for private welfare agency workers must occur.

The investment of federal monies in this training effort would ultimately be to the

benefit of all parties involved. In fact, in Illinois, officials at all levels in both public

and private sectors believe that extending the incentive to train private agency

workers will ultimately result in a less expensive child welfare system.

Finding permanent homes and safe environments for children who enter the child

welfare system, whether in foster care or adoptive families, requires a highly

trained and committed workforce. The extensive efforts in training the child welfare

workforce in Illinois has contributed to Illinois’ recent successes—the state is among

the nation’s leaders in the number of adoptions from foster care. Permanency results will continue to improve and children will spend less time in foster care if the

entire system—public and private—is well-trained and focused on similar child protection and permanency goals. An enhanced federal matching rate will help achieve

these goals.

In closing, I would like the Members of the Subcommittee to remember that given

rapidly changing public policy, service delivery standards, and best clinical practices, it is imperative that ongoing training for welfare workers be available. States

with innovative and successful use of private agencies in the delivery of child welfare services, such as Illinois, must be able to take advantage of the same incentives

and reimbursement opportunities for training private workers in the best clinical

practices as are available to states whose systems are built on public workers. Do

we as a nation genuinely want to push states toward a fully public child welfare

delivery model as the current statutory language does, or do we want to foster and

build the valuable private sector strengths of states like my own?

We urge Members of the Subcommittee to take immediate steps to rectify this inequity and pass corrective legislation this year that will ensure the continued success of public/private partnerships to better the lives of children and families in

need. Thank you for your time, and I would be happy to answer any questions.

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Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Thank you. As the former

chairman of a nonprofit children’s agency, I hear exactly what you

are saying. It is bizarre, isn’t it, that we have—

Mr. MOORMAN. It truly is bizarre. It doesn’t make sense.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. No one in their right mind

would imagine that, you know, government agencies are going to

do all this work. I personally don’t know of a State in which that

is the case. Maybe there is one, but certainly Connecticut has also

a very developed public-private partnership providing the services

to this group of children, and we have already begun getting estimates on that issue.

You raise some very interesting points as a panel. Certainly you

all make a compelling case for training of volunteers, of lawyers,

of judges, of court personnel, and the training that people need in

these areas, that was very helpful, Mr. Hardin, for you to line out

not just the complexity of the legal issues but the ethical issues

and the child development, the human development information

that you really need to have at least some grasp of.

So if you are going to have this level of training and sophistication, it seems to me States should not be allowed to rotate their

judges through the children’s courts. You know, I just don’t see how

we do this anymore. You look at some of the big complex mergers

and acquisitions, and I certainly would want a judge that would

have some experience in that level of complex case. And we are

reaching that same level of complexity in family law, and the body

of information that you need that is non-legal and the knowledge

of the agency network and so on and so forth. So it isn’t just a matter of coordination. It is a matter of coordinating well-trained parts,

well-informed people.

Judge Leuba, in Connecticut—or, actually, you know, you represent the court administrators across the country. Are courts moving now to letting people specialize in this? Should part of our effort, if we are going to spend money on training, should we also reward States that are willing to get people to specialize in this

work?

Judge LEUBA. My own view for Connecticut, we do rotate judges

as a general rule, but judges who want to stay working in a particular area do so. And my experience in Connecticut is that a very

large percentage of our judges do stay from year to year.

We do find, however, that over the long haul there is what I am

going to call, for lack of a better term, burnout. And when you get

a judge who has been in a court for a long time and just can’t stand

to go and listen to one more of these problems, it is my responsibility, I think, to the court that the judge is leaving to find someone

else who is appropriately qualified, train that person, and get them

in the place where they are needed.

Connecticut is just one of the States. You will notice in my testimony I highlighted what they are doing in Arizona. They are developing online training programs so that judges who are moved into

that court are trained before they get there. We haven’t had an online system in Connecticut, but we are doing annual training proVerDate 20-JUL-2000 11:02 Nov 08, 2000 Jkt 061710 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 K:\HEARINGS\66736.TXT WAYS3 PsN: WAYS3
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grams when court judges change assignments. So they will be

trained in the areas, and the training funds which you could unleash in this process will assist courts across the country to be sure

that any judge that is assigned to a court dealing with child protection issues will be adequately trained. And I hope a lot of that will

come from computer programs.

I asked my own chief administrative judge in the juvenile area

what their biggest need was, and it was in the training of judges

in the computer world and the development of computer programs

for training. So I think that is going to be of assistance to courts

that do move judges around from time to time.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Hardin, in discussing the

really desperate need of lawyers for some better training, it is sort

of like post-specialty training in medicine. You suggested that we

might even want to require that to practice in this arena that you

have completed certain courses as a matter of professional credentials.

That raises the issue of if you are going to offer the level of training that really we need in many ways, you are going to give a lot

of people in the court system credentials that should have educational—they should be recognized by the education system, they

should be recognized as accomplishments, and they should be rewarded in the pay structure.

Mr. HARDIN. I agree with that. The courts are beginning in some

instances to set up mandatory training programs, but they haven’t

gone as far as they might go in terms of expecting people to actually demonstrate competence. And they haven’t gone as far as they

need to go in creating really systematic curricula that people are

actually expected to master to perform in this field.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. And, Ms. DeLay, the same

kind of question to you. If we put the money into training and you

testified that volunteers need it as well, we would certainly have

to reward the volunteers for that level of investment in education

with certificates and degrees. You know, we have certificate programs for people who work in nursing homes as nurse’s aides. And

when you look at the level of responsibility that volunteers take in

this system, it really not only bespeaks a right and an obligation

for training, but some recognition on our part. I hope you will think

about that and see how we might do that.

The other question I wanted you to address was: Is it common

for CASA volunteers to have as much influence in a case as that

really remarkable experience you described?

Ms. DELAY. It is in child advocates of Fort Bend County. Our

CASA is very strong, and it goes back to our leadership. We have

a wonderful executive director and staff, and—

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. So do you have training for

volunteers that is quite extensive—

Ms. DELAY. Oh, yes, we do. You go through a minimum of 30

hours of training before you ever get a first case, and then you

have to complete, I don’t know, a certain amount of trainings

throughout each year in order to keep your ability to be able to volunteer.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. And you have no problem

getting volunteers? This is a pretty demanding volunteer job.

43

Ms. DELAY. We have a smaller county, so we have enough volunteers for every child that comes into the court system. However,

some of the larger counties like Harris County in Texas and Los

Angeles County in California, they don’t have nearly enough. But

they do send a CASA to court with each child even though the

CASA doesn’t work with that child throughout the year.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Doesn’t have the personal relationship that is possible in the smaller districts.

Ms. DELAY. Yes.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Well, thank you for your

dedication to that movement. This makes such a tremendous difference. I appreciate it.

On the other issue of credentialing, would that make it harder

to get volunteers or might it be an incentive?

Ms. DELAY. Not in my experience. I mean, we are pretty open

for every bit of training they can get. It is a very passionate group

of people.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. How many hours a week do

CASA volunteers put in?

Ms. DELAY. Well, it varies a lot. A week before last, I was just

assigned a new case, and I probably spent 30 hours the first week

I had it and maybe 20 the second. And then we don’t go to court

again until April the 26th, and I probably won’t put in more than

15 hours between now and then.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. That is very interesting because, you know, both of my daughters are stay-at-home moms

after, you know, a number of years of professional working. And,

you know, if we gave credentials for completing that kind of training, you set yourself up later on when you want to go back parttime or full-time with a very impressive record as a volunteer and

documentable experience. Interesting.

Judge Grossmann, when you look at the variety of—the breadth

of training demand and the need for continual training—I mean,

you can’t just do this once and let it go. Are there already seminars

going on in your State on other issues? We passed some pretty

complicated legislation in recent years like the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act. Do you have training sessions going on that are looking

across agency lines and that would be easy to use to fold this additional burden in?

Judge GROSSMANN. Yes, there are two sources within the State.

We have, of course, the Ohio Association of Juvenile and Family

Court Judges that cooperate with the supreme court in putting out

training sessions and systems that are very useful in bringing on

judges as they become new to the bench, and ongoing training for

those that have been there for a good while. And then the National

Council does a fair amount of training, as is outlined in some of

my written testimony, which is also accessible.

But the challenge is great. The turnover, you touched on a very

serious point when you said shouldn’t there be some tenure in this

office. I remember going out to California a number of years ago

when they were first trying to struggle with the fact of bringing

their juvenile court judges into some kind of status where they

could stay on long enough to at least find out where the key to the

washroom was.

44

The problem is very serious when you have fungible judges and

they move in for a year or two and move out, and they have no

clue as to how this system functions. So that is a very, very serious

need.

But, yes, there are tools which, with some funding assistance,

could be spread even wider than they are now.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Well, I do appreciate the seriousness of the burnout problem, and when you are burned out,

I don’t care what your profession is, you really need to have the

right to move on. But also, if the system works better, we will have

a little less burnout.

Judge GROSSMANN. That is right.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. It is just so terribly frustrating.

Mr. Moorman, would you like to add anything before I turn to

Mr. Cardin?

Mr. MOORMAN. Not really.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Cardin?

Mr. CARDIN. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Let me just jump in a little bit on the rotation or the expertise

or the burnout issue because I think it is more than just that. I

do think the richness of our court system benefits from judges rotating to different service, so I think it is not just the desire to

make sure that a judge is trained in a particular area and knows

the agencies that are involved and the community involved, which

is true in any part of law that a judge has to deal with.

It is also the fact that traditionally at our circuit court levels we

felt that it is important for the administration of justice for judges

to have a broad experience and not to just concentrate in one area.

Some legislatures have disagreed with that by setting up family

courts, which have worked very well in many parts of the country

where they deal with family issues, including children issues.

Regardless of what system is used, the judge needs to be trained,

and I think that is the point, and judicial personnel needs to be

trained. And I think the point that each of you have made is that

there are not adequate resources nor have there been parity in resources in the judicial branch of government for training the court

personnel to deal with this. And, obviously, our subcommittee recognized that last year in the fatherhood bill, and the Senators that

were here are committed to trying to do something about that. So

I think we all can work together to try to deal with that specific

issue.

Mr. Hardin, your point about lawyers I thought was very interesting. It is not a very lucrative field of law for attorneys. Many

times the lawyer who gets involved in this area may do so for a

couple of years or for a very small part of his or her total practice.

And it even, I think, cries out more for the courts to be adequately

trained because in children’s issues, the court can exercise more

discretion than it can when dealing with adults. So it points together again the main focus here, and that is to modernize and

train—have enough resources to make sure that our court personnel are adequately trained in this area. So I think you all have

made an excellent record for us on this, and we certainly hope that

45

we will be able to move forward on the legislation that passed the

House and perhaps broaden it. The legislation introduced by our

Senate colleagues is broader than in our bill, and I think there is

a lot of interest on our side to see this effort made even more comprehensive.

Ms. DeLay, I have one question for you, and that is—it really follows up on Mrs. Johnson’s point, and that is, in your experience,

are the courts paying attention to the CASA volunteers’ recommendations or information? Is it having the type of impact on

the system that you think is correct?

Ms. DELAY. Our family court judge does. It depends on, obviously, the judge. I would say when we disagree with any other part

of the case, whether we disagree with CPS or maybe the family’s

attorney, I would say about 90 percent of the time he goes with

CASA because we know the case better than anybody else. We

spend more time, and he is interested in the best interest of the

child, and these other people, certainly not CPS, but their clients

may be somebody else.

Mr. CARDIN. Well, I really do applaud your efforts and the efforts

of the volunteers, and I noticed that Congressman Tom DeLay was

here for most of our hearing. I am sure it had nothing to do with

your presence. [Laughter.]

Mr. CARDIN. But we certainly thank him very much for his leadership on the passage of the Foster Care Independence Act, and we

hope that we can get Tom DeLay and President Clinton together

on more bills so we can get some more things done. [Laughter.]

Ms. DELAY. No promises. [Laughter.]

Mr. CARDIN. I can understand that.

On the Adoption and Safe Families Act, I would like to get the

response particularly from those that have been involved in the administration enforcement of those provisions as to how those requirements are working. Are we having the permanency hearings?

Are we dealing with the termination of parental rights? Are we

complying with the terms of that act and certainly the intent of

that act to have more timely determination hearings? Whoever

would like to—Mr. Moorman?

Mr. MOORMAN. Yes, I would just like to speak from the private

sector and from the Illinois experience. I can absolutely guarantee

you that is happening in the State of Illinois, and the timelines are

being met. There has been a very aggressive and I think a very

positive response on the part of the court systems in Illinois. And

as I said in my testimony—the results are there. I have been in

the child welfare system for about 30 years in Illinois, and this is

a new experience and a new era, and this piece of legislation definitely pushed that button. It is an entirely different experience. It

does, back to my testimony, also accelerate the need for a very well

trained staff to be able to meet the court requirements that are

now in this bill. So lots of pieces fall together here, but it is having,

in Illinois—I can just speak for Illinois—a remarkable effect.

Mr. CARDIN. Good.

Judge LEUBA. In Connecticut, you would see the same result. I

am not sure it would be so dramatic. I don’t have the statistics.

But, really, ASFA has stood the system on its ear because for many

years, as you know—and I am sure that is what led to your acVerDate 20-JUL-2000 11:02 Nov 08, 2000 Jkt 061710 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 K:\HEARINGS\66736.TXT WAYS3 PsN: WAYS3
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tion—the emphasis was on the reunification, so much so that everyone in the system was spending all their efforts on reunification,

and now I think the Congress has made it clear to the States that

it is necessary to take into consideration the children rather than

the reunification as the primary goal in the whole process.

Mr. CARDIN. The timelines of the act in Connecticut are being

complied with?

Judge LEUBA. The timelines are moving. The training will help

us to do more of that. In Connecticut, we have increased the judges

from 9 to 16 in recent years, and the more we can add to it, the

more we will add to it because we need more not just judges but

courtrooms and staff. It is a multidisciplinary problem, as you

know, and everybody has to participate. You just can’t throw the

judges in. It has to be a team effort.

Mr. HARDIN. Our observation nationally is that ASFA is certainly

having a lot of good impact. Its effects are uneven in that they are

stronger in some States than others, the impact is much greater in

some courts than others, the knowledge of ASFA varies from place

to place throughout the country. And I guess also when I say

knowledge, I don’t just mean knowledge in a very simple sense of

a few of the requirements, but knowledge of what it takes to actually make it work.

For example, regarding the permanency hearing, the big difference in an ASFA permanency hearing from what used to exist

is that it is supposed to be a very careful, thoughtful, methodical

decision about what the permanent home of the child is going to

be. In order to have a really meaningful permanency hearing, it

takes time. The court has to set aside more time for that hearing,

and the people who are participating in the hearing have to be better prepared and they have to really have put more thought into

their decision, and they have to be less willing to accept continuation of the status quo.

So I see this as an ongoing process with ASFA. We have seen

some dramatic improvements, particularly some of the places that

were the most troubled, and it is very gratifying, for example, to

see what they have done in Chicago. But there is still considerable

room for improvement to truly consistently carry out the requirements of ASFA.

Judge GROSSMANN. I would second what Mark says. There is a

substantial improvement in places, but there is a lot of work to be

done. And there are a lot of courts that are not meeting those

timelines. There are a lot of children that are still languishing. So

it is not over yet.

Mr. CARDIN. Thank you.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Two very brief questions. Mr.

Moorman, you recommend that we reimburse training for nonprofit

agencies in the same way we reimburse training for government

agencies. In some parts of the country, for-profit agencies play a

very big role, and is your recommendation for just nonprofit or all

private sector child-caring facilities that contract with the State or

something?

Mr. MOORMAN. I think the issue here is that whoever is involved

in the life of a child or a family needs to have the training. I think

that is a critical piece here. I think that is the issue. If you are

47

going to be involved, you have to be trained and you have to have

the type of experience and background to be able to do it.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. And let me just ask, one of

the other big groups of volunteers in the system are the citizen review boards. How effective are they and do they need to be included in the training network as well? What is your experience

with them, if any? I will ask this of the next panel, too. It may

have really more direct—

Judge GROSSMANN. Well, the citizen review board system has

been useful and continues to be useful, but it is not a substitute

for the court doing its own reviews.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Members of the citizens review, they get involved at an earlier level of case review. Do they

play any role similar to the CASA role in the legal setting?

Judge LEUBA. Not in Connecticut.

Mr. HARDIN. Some States have much stronger foster care review

boards than others. They are not similar to CASA programs to the

extent that individual members don’t go and investigate particular

cases. But the boards do sit and review cases carefully, and they

also play a role in some States in identifying and advocating for

improvements in particular aspects of the system. So if they are

seeing something in case after case that is wrong about the adoption process, et cetera, they can sometimes be quite effective in advocating for resources or policy changes.

Also, in States that have particularly strong programs, they can

be important in individual cases.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Thank you very much, and

I thank the panel for your testimony. It has been very, very helpful.

Now let me call Kristine Ragaglia, the commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Children and Families, accompanied by

Thomas Kirk, the deputy commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, a partnership that

is addressing itself to the substance of the bill introduced by our

Senate colleagues; Nancy Young, director of Children and Family

Futures, from Irvine, California; Mary Nelson, administrator of the

Iowa Division of Adult, Children and Family Services, on behalf of

the American Public Human Services Association; and Gale Saler,

the deputy director of Second Genesis, Bethesda, Maryland.

Nice to have you with us, too. Frank Horton, our former colleague in the House, highly esteemed and very effective former

member. Thank you, Frank.

We will start with Commissioner Ragaglia. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF HON. KRISTINE D. RAGAGLIA, COMMISSIONER, CONNECTICUT DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND

FAMILIES, AND THOMAS A. KIRK, JR., PH.D., DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, CONNECTICUT DEPARTMENT OF MENTAL

HEALTH AND ADDICTION SERVICES

Ms. RAGAGLIA. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Madam

Chair. Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify today on

the topic on the relationship between child protection and substance abuse. My name is Kris Ragaglia. I am the commissioner of

the Connecticut Department of Children and Families, which is a

48

multi-service agency in Connecticut which serves child protection,

mental health, substance abuse services for children, juvenile justice and prevention activities. I am here today with Dr. Thomas

Kirk who is the deputy commissioner of our adult mental health

and substance abuse system called DMHAS, Department of Mental

Health and Addiction Services. DMHAS is the State’s lead agency

for substance abuse services, and I understand that we—I just

wanted to check the clock. I understood we have 6 minutes for our

joint presentation here this morning—this afternoon. We have submitted written testimony. What I would like to do is highlight some

of the issues.

We know that when we look at our caseload that drugs and alcohol is a factor in about 60 to 70 percent of all of our cases. It is

certainly a greater factor in our cases that are neglect cases as opposed to abuse cases, although it has been identified as a significant factor, 81 percent, in abuse fatalities in a Connecticut study

that covered a two-and-a-half-year period from 1995 to 1998.

I can tell you as an attorney who used to represent our child protection agency several years ago that a majority of the cases where

kids are in out-of-home care actually involve substance abuse.

Before 1995, child protection cases involving substance abuse followed a basic pattern; we didn’t have the expertise to identify and

address parental substance abuse as an issue in those cases. We

didn’t consider ourselves as being in any way responsible as child

protection workers for identifying the issue or ensuring that families actually got to treatment or followed through, and what tended

to happen was that cases lingered. It didn’t really matter if they

were in-home or they were out-of-home cases. They lingered within

our system. The only time that they did not linger was when kids

were injured, either through neglect or through abuse.

Unfortunately in 1995, we had a series of child fatalities in Connecticut, and it was very clear to us when we looked at those cases

that substance abuse was the primary factor, and it was not identified, and we didn’t know what we were doing in that area. We

knew that we needed to better train our workers to recognize the

signs of substance abuse. We knew that we needed immediate access to expert evaluations and screenings. We knew that we needed

priority access to services. Hence, back in 1995, Project SAFE,

which stands for Substance Abuse Family Evaluation, was born in

Connecticut, and I think it is probably one of the first statewide

programs that links child protection with the adult substance

abuse system.

We sat down and we worked with a private provider. At that

time DMHAS was not involved. We developed a central intake system for referral from both our investigations and our treatment

workers. We developed priority access for evaluations and

screenings. All of this was funded through our child protection system to a tune of $1.6 million.

We hired substance abuse specialists in our regional offices. We

added pre-service training that was mandatory for workers as well

as in-service training, and we felt that we were starting to make

a difference because at least it was on our radar screen.

Since 1995, we have made 25,000 unduplicated referrals for evaluation and screening. We have about 5,000 new referrals per year.

49

Sixty-seven percent of these referrals actually showed for the evaluation, and 56 percent of the people who came for the evaluation

actually needed treatment or were recommended for treatment.

We determined we needed to figure out a better way to make

sure that people who are in need of treatment on our caseloads get

to that treatment. Around that same time, ASFA came in with the

12-month requirement, and we said we really need to get moving

here because we need to prove to the court that we have made reasonable efforts to reunify.

Shortcomings of the program were identified. First, was the

treatment model. It really wasn’t for women, and it certinly wasn’t

for women with children. We were also concerned that we were

missing a good opportunity to have early prevention activities for

the kids involved with these families. Treatment didn’t really address issues around a cause for the use or misuse of the drug and

alcohol. The approach failed to address related issues like housing

and drug-free living environments.

So, quickly, because I know that Tom Kirk is watching the clock

tick, we said we cannot do this alone, and we turned to our counterpart, our adult mental health system, and asked for their assistance and, hence, Phase II of Project SAFE was born.

Mr. KIRK. Thank you, Chair. It is a privilege to testify before you

today on the important issue of children, families, and recovery. I

am Dr. Thomas Kirk. I am deputy commissioner of the Connecticut

Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.

Treatment does work. But today’s traditional treatment settings

work better for some than others. Last year in Connecticut, we

treated about 27,000 adult persons in our treatment system. The

majority of those persons are what might be called the more typical

substance abuse treatment population, 72 percent were men, 28

percent were women, the average age was about 34, the primary

substance of abuse, was alcohol, which was about 60 percent, close

to 50 percent of cases used heroin, about 45 percent used cocaine.

I mention this and emphasize it, and I will emphasize it repeatedly, this is not the profile for the cases that are coming into the

system through the Department of Children and Families.

The system in Connecticut, in response to the challenges that we

have in terms of providing care, has emphasized access; the adult

treatment system has been responsive. As we began forming the

partnership with the Department of Children and Families, there

were several things that stood out, and simplistic as it may sound,

one of the major things we tried to attend to. The question was

who was the client? Well, if I am in the adult treatment system,

the client is the mother and father sitting before me for treatment.

If I am in the DCF system, it is not the same.

How is this population different from the entire treatment population? To be maximally effective, treatment services must be tailored to the individual needs and circumstances of the patients involved.

Let me quickly tell you in the time remaining some of the things

we found. One of them was that the 25,000 cases that were referred through the Department of Children and Families, 5,000

each year, they are not the same as the typical adult treatment

population. Number one, their use of marijuana is about twice

50

what it is in the traditional adult population. Fifty percent don’t

use heroin. It is more like about 10 percent. So what we find is

that these 5,000 cases, represent an expansion on the 27,000 that

we are doing, and very, very important, it is not just a matter of

expanding the treatment population to respond to them, it is providing the right kind of care.

The University of Connecticut has one of the major grants from

the Federal Center for Substance Abuse Treatment to work on

services for marijuana dependence. Their reports will be out in

June. So if I left you with a couple of points, one of them would

be: number one, your emphasis on children as part of the system

here is critically important, but we also have to understand that

the adult treatment system, it doesn’t have the capacity to treat

those persons; and, furthermore, the type of persons coming in for

care are different. When you heard Senator Rockefeller talk about

engagement and retention in care, those are not terms that we

used 5 or 6 years ago, but they are clearly messages that have to

be built into the system of care at this point in time.

My time is up, or it is close to being up. Let me have a couple

of additional points. The numbers are higher and the type of care

that is being provided is different, so that the kinds of things that

DCF and our agency have worked on the last couple of years are

geared toward a format that says we are going to add another component to the treatment system, but now we are going to call it the

family recovery system. It pays attention to the individual. It pays

attention to the child. The type of outcomes that are built in are

different. But, furthermore, the kind of care that must be provided

is not the same as what we have in our current system.

Thank you.

[The prepared statements follow:]

Statement of Hon. Kristine D. Ragaglia, Commissioner, Connecticut

Department of Children and Families

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members of the Subcommittee on Human Resources. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today on this important

topic. My name is Kristine Ragaglia, and I am the Commissioner of the Connecticut

Department of Children and Families (DCF). With me today is Dr. Thomas Kirk,

Deputy Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS). In our state, DCF is mandated to provide mental health,

substance abuse and protective services to children. DMHAS is responsible for the

adult population and is the state’s lead agency for substance abuse services.

I would like to begin by commenting on the extent of substance abuse among families involved with the child protection system and the challenge this presents for

achieving permanency for children within the timelines mandated by the Adoption

and Safe Families Act (ASFA). I would then like to highlight and comment on Connecticut’s Project SAFE (Substance Abuse Family Evaluation), an innovative and

collaborative approach to dealing with these issues. Dr. Kirk will then discuss the

specific treatment needs of this population and the importance of developing working partnerships between child welfare agencies and substance abuse providers in

the effort towards improving outcomes for children and families.

The rise in substance abuse among many of the parents involved with the child

welfare system has complicated the system’s efforts to protect children. Substance

abuse is extremely destructive and is a major factor leading to the abuse and neglect of children. The impact of substance abuse on children is a critical issue. Over

the last 10 years, the number of abused and neglected children has doubled nationwide, from 1.4 million in 1986 to more than 3 million in 1997. Substance abuse was

a factor in 70 percent of those cases. The impact of drugs and alcohol abuse in such

cases is dramatic and has been identified as a contributing factor in a significant

number of child fatalities. It is estimated that 5 children die each day as a result

of neglect and abuse. Children whose parents abuse substances are almost three

51

times more likely to be abused and four times more likely to be neglected than other

children.

If substance abuse issues are left unaddressed, many of the system’s efforts to

protect children and to promote positive change in families will be wasted. We need

to break the cycle of the intergenerational transmission of substance abuse and

child abuse and neglect. Children with substance abusing parents are more likely

than other children to suffer from significant developmental delays and have a higher risk of developing substance abuse problems as adults. In addition, these children

are more likely to abuse and neglect their own children when they become parents.

Moreover, children of substance abusing parents have an increased likelihood of

being placed in out-of-home care.

Given the often difficult task of identifying and securing appropriate and timely

substance abuse treatment for parents whose children are in out-of-home care, children have historically remained in placement longer than might otherwise be necessary. As you are aware, the federal government enacted ASFA in 1997 in an effort

to address this concern and the need to move children into permanent living arrangements as quickly as possible following placement into foster care. Connecticut

supports the goals of ASFA and the emphasis it places on timely permanency for

children. More specifically, ASFA set out shortened timelines for seeking terminations of parental rights and requires the states to seek termination of parental

rights within 15 months of a child entering foster care unless certain exemptions

apply (i.e. the child is placed with a relative, there is a compelling reason that termination is not in the best interests of the child, or appropriate reunification services were not provided). These shortened timelines have increased the urgency and

need to target substance abuse prevention and treatment services for parents involved in the child welfare system.

Connecticut has addressed these issues by developing and implementing an innovative program called Project SAFE. The program was initially developed in 1995

to improve the child protection system by screening for substance abuse, and Gov.

John G. Rowland provided leadership in making the necessary changes in the child

protection system. Project SAFE was one of the first programs to directly link the

child protection system with the adult substance abuse treatment system on a statewide basis. The program presently provides centralized intake procedures and priority access to substance abuse evaluations, drug screens, and outpatient treatment

services.

As a result of this collaborative program, direct line social work staff in DCF have

an ability to secure timely substance abuse evaluations and screenings in cases

where substance abuse issues are identified. Since the program began, DCF staff

has made over 25,000 unduplicated referrals for substance abuse evaluations and

screenings, and there are approximately 5,000 new referrals a year. By tracking clients, we have been able to monitor the show rates for evaluation screening and outpatient treatment as well as retention in treatment. These efforts have assisted us

in maximizing resources.

At the time Project SAFE was created, DCF began to hire substance abuse specialists to serve as consultants to social workers in the regional offices. This provided the needed expertise and training for the DCF social workers to make the program work between the two systems and created the necessary infrastructure. The

results of Project SAFE have also provided the court system with necessary information regarding access to and availability of substance abuse services in Connecticut.

We found that the Project SAFE client is likely to be new to the adult treatment

system and to present with complex and multiple needs. Almost 60% of the referrals

from Project SAFE are women. Approximately 67% of clients referred for a substance abuse evaluation keep the appointments, although some areas having show

rates of above 75%. More than 56% of those evaluated receive recommendations for

substance abuse treatment. Given that a significant number of clients are found to

require substance abuse treatment following the initial evaluation, there is a clear

need for collaboration with and access to necessary and appropriate treatment programs.

As noted above, ASFA created new challenges for Project SAFE by creating shortened timelines for developing permanency plans for children and by emphasizing

the state’s responsibility to provide reasonable efforts to reunify children with their

parents following placement into foster care. There was a clear need to create a

strategic plan for Project SAFE in collaboration with DMHAS that would meet the

complex needs of our clients within the timelines mandated by ASFA. We needed

to identify and assess the impact these new requirements would have not only on

DCF but also on the substance abuse treatment system. The child protection system

could not address the issue of substance abuse on its own. The substance abuse system needed to begin addressing issues such as gender, family functioning, trauma

52

and parenting skills. Similarly, the child protection system needed to gain knowledge about substance abuse screening and treatment.

To address these needs, a new strategic planning partnership was created in 1998

called Project SAFE Phase II. This collaboration has provided an opportunity to improve screening, assessment, bridge the gaps in data and knowledge, develop joint

outcome measures, enhance children’s services and share in resource development.

Connecticut’s Alcohol and Drug Policy Council provided the support and leadership for this interagency collaboration by developing client-based models. One model

was developed for women and children that focused on the specific and unique needs

of these clients. In addition, in an effort to promote reunification of families when

appropriate, Connecticut implemented a program called Supportive Housing for Recovering Families. Based on the client-based model, the program supports and assists clients in finding safe, drug-free housing and provides in-home intensive case

management services for parents who have made substantial gains in their substance abuse treatment and plan to be reunified with their children. The early success rate based on the criteria for those entering the program is close to 80%. One

reason this program works so well is that the service closely monitors the parent’s

compliance with adult outpatient substance abuse treatment.

The new partnership between the child protection system and substance abuse

providers has created innovative and unique opportunities for research and education regarding substance abuse, child development and prevention. While parental

substance abuse may increase the likelihood of out-of-home placement for children,

studies show that the overwhelming majority of children affected by parental substance abuse remain in the custody of their parents.

There are a number of projects that we are involved with in collaboration with

the academic community to help break the cycle of substance abuse and child abuse

and neglect and to assist in maintaining children in their own homes whenever possible. These projects include integrating parenting groups within substance abuse

treatment settings. More specifically, the Relational Psychotherapy Mother’s Group

in New Haven, Connecticut has found that mothers receiving this service were at

lower risk for maltreating their children, reported higher levels of involvement with

their children and greater parental satisfaction compared to mothers who did not

receive this service.

The experience in Connecticut is that substance abuse can and should be identified by the child protection system. The challenge lies in developing and maintaining working partnerships between the child protection system and the substance

abuse treatment system and in developing, implementing and funding effective

treatment and prevention programs.

To discuss these challenges, I’d like to introduce my colleague, Dr. Thomas Kirk,

Deputy Commissioner of DMHAS. Thank you again for giving Connecticut the opportunity to testify before you today on this important and timely topic.

Thomas A. Kirk, Jr., Ph.D., Deputy Commissioner, Connecticut Department

of Mental Health and Addiction Services

Thank you. It is a privilege to testify before you today on such an important issue:

children, families and recovery. I am Dr. Thomas A. Kirk, Jr., Deputy Commissioner

for the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.

Treatment does work. But today’s traditional treatment settings work better for

some than others. The traditional treatment system is geared primarily for the ‘‘majority’’ population of drug abusers (male heroin users with criminal justice involvement) and treatment slots and strategies for women (marijuana users with young

children) are often not available.

Let me tell you a story about Cathy J. She has had periodic episodes of excessive

drinking over the past few years, and especially so in the past six months since separating from her abusive husband. This 32-year-old mother of two now lives with

friends who also drink. Depression disturbs her sleep and precipitates episodes of

rage, usually directed at her son, Jack. Jack, who used to be a good student, is now

failing in school. Cathy is determined to make things better, but she needs help.

We know that approximately 1.84 million American women per year, like Cathy

J., are abusing alcohol or drugs (U.S. Public Health Service). We also know the impact of these women’s substance use on their children is huge:

Use of substances during pregnancy causes significant problems for the fetus

(Brown & Zukerman, 1991).

During childhood, these children are at risk for emotional and behavioral health

problems (Hawley et al., 1995).

Women who abuse substances are more likely to abuse and neglect their children

(Kelly, 1992).

53

Women who abuse substances are usually themselves past victims of childhood

sexual abuse. Among women in inpatient substance abuse programs, about 75% report childhood sexual abuse (Rosenhow et al., 1988). This history of trauma leaves

women more likely to have problems with self-injury, eating disorders, abusive relationships, as well as abusing their own children. To be effective, programs for

women must treat trauma. They must focus on nurturing relationships and provide

gender-specific group treatment for women who have been victimized by men. They

must provide childcare, focus on parenting, and place more attention on other barriers facing mothers who are substance abusers, such as their immediate needs for

safe housing and jobs.

In our work with the Connecticut Department of Children and Families around

Project SAFE, Phase II, we have learned that we must understand, ‘‘Who is the client?’’ and ‘‘How are they different than the entire treatment population?’’ To be effective, treatment services must be tailored to the individual’s needs and circumstances. To answer these questions, we have developed a system of assessment

to determine: (1) risk to the child, (2) readiness for treatment and (3) the severity

of the substance abuse problem.

Because of the early identification provided through Project SAFE, Connecticut is

seeing an expanded treatment population. This expanded population requires a new

service mix that our current service system can not fully address. These services fall

outside of the parameters of our current funding sources.

Women are entering the treatment system in earlier stages of the addiction cycle.

The client is not only the individual with a substance abuse problem, but also her

children and family. We need to build a range of service options that fit these circumstances.

Our service system needs to be able to build a family recovery plan rather than

focusing solely on the individual. We need to look differently at our expectations for

outcomes, considering the health and safety for the children, quality of life, and

other critical factors for family life. We need to build into that system engagement

specialists that may work with a client for weeks or months to develop her readiness for treatment. Once actively engaged, retention specialists can sustain and expand the duration in treatment. This is what Connecticut is doing!

What works for women and their families?

Case management is effective in getting and keeping women in treatment by tailoring programs to their individual needs and addressing barriers to getting to

treatment (Erickson et al., 1997; Brindis & Theidon, 1997). Case management is associated with decreases in substance use, increased enrollment in educational and

vocational programs, reduced legal involvement, improved child birth weight, and

increased social support (Linehart et al., 1996), as well as retention in treatment

(Haller, 1991).

Focusing on child welfare can be a helpful, motivating factor in treating women

(Coletti, 1980), and permitting substance abusing women to live with their children

during treatment is associated with longer stays in treatment (Hughes et al., 1995;

Szuster et al., 1996).

Using a family focus for treatment, and especially parenting training, improves

self-esteem and parenting attitudes (Camp & Finkelstein, 1997).

Providing attention to trauma issues along with substance abuse treatment results in greater improvements in substance use, and fewer trauma-related symptoms (Najavits et al., 1998).

In Connecticut, we are finding that using women in recovery as engagement specialists, outreach workers, and other peer support roles significantly improves the

likelihood of connecting women to treatment and other support services.

The message I would like to leave you with today is that filling this newly identified gap in treatment—services mentioned above using a family-based model—will

result in healthier and safer children and families. Filling the gap will provide an

opportunity to break a tragic cycle of abuse and addiction that is handed down from

generation to generation.

Thank you.

References

Blending Perspectives and Building Common Ground: A report to congress on

Substance Abuse and Child Protection, U.S. Department of Health and Human

Services (DHHS) 1999.

No SAFE Haven: Children of Substance Abusing Parents by The National Center

on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) 1999 Columbia University.

McCurdy, K and Daro D. Current trends in child abuse reporting and fatalities:

The results of the 1993 survey annual fifty-state survey. Chicago, National Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse 1994.

54

Connecticut Department of Children and Families Substance Abuse Study prepared by Tere Foley, 1994.

State of Connecticut Project Safe Phase II 1999, by Dr. Nancy Young, PhD.

Connecticut Alcohol and Drug Policy Reports 1999 and updated report for 2000.

Luthar, S.S. and Suchman, N.E. Relational Mothers’ Group: A developmentally informed intervention for at risk mothers. Development and Psychopathology, in

press.

Chairman J

Dr. Young?

OHNSON of Connecticut. Thank you very much.

f

STATEMENT OF NANCY K. YOUNG, PH.D., DIRECTOR,

CHILDREN AND FAMILY FUTURES, IRVINE, CALIFORNIA

Ms. YOUNG. Good afternoon, and I bring greetings to you from

the president of our organization, Sid Gardner, who had fond

memories of working with you in Connecticut. He wouldn’t let me

go home if I didn’t start by saying that.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. First supporter of Anderson

as president.

Ms. YOUNG. That is right,

I was asked to talk about the scope and prevalence of the substance abuse problem in child welfare, and there are a couple of

things that I’d like to mention about that. First is that there is a

range of ways that we have looked at the problem. If we focus first

on the larger population in the general population, if we look at an

elementary school classroom, say there are 30 kids in that classroom, three of them are living with a parent who is alcoholic or

needs treatment for illicit drug use, 11 percent of the kids in our

country. So if you are talking about 11 percent of the kids in the

country, it sets the context for that more narrow population of almost 550,000 kids who are living in out-of-home care.

Clearly, those 8.3 million that are living in a family where there

is an alcoholic or someone who needs treatment for illicit drug

abuse, not all of them are abusing or neglecting their children.

Many of them are. And if we look at that narrower population of

those that have abused or neglected their children, how many of

those have alcohol and drug problems, it depends on how you ask

the question, it depends on who you ask the question of, and what

population you are looking at.

But as you mentioned earlier, generally the range is—if you ask

workers, they will say at least half of their caseload. If you do a

case review, look at the actual case that comes in, about 60 percent. In Sacramento County that has done some pretty in-depth

studies and has an assessment process in place, that has looked for

about the last 4 or 5 years and tried to differentiate that population to not just somebody who has a substance abuse problem,

but the extent of that problem. They ask, somebody who is using?

Is that somebody who has got some negative consequences as a result of that use and is a substance abuser? Or is that somebody

who has crossed over the line, that the chemicals in their brain

have changed, creating the compulsion to continue to use that substance, regardless of the negative effects that it is having on their

family?

55

And when they differentiate that population, they are able then

to make a differential response, so they are using their treatment

resources a bit more wisely by being able to say these are the parents who need to have intensive services and these are parents who

we can serve in outpatient.

So, again, the estimated prevalence changes. It depends on how

you ask it and when you ask it and of what population. All of those

estimates are not great data, and I used to—just even up until

probably 6 months ago, you would have heard me say we need better data, and I think I have a written point that says we need better data. But the prevalence of is over half of the population—and

there hasn’t been one of these estimates that has said it is not over

half, so where then is the 60 percent response? Where is the response in the child welfare system and in the alcohol and drug

treatment system that says it is the majority of the kids?

Someone made a statement in the first panel about these kids—

or the families are dysfunctional families. Perhaps it is a dysfunctional coping skill that is being used by families that have been impacted by abuse and neglect for more than one generation. Over

three-quarters of the women who come into our publicly funded

treatment system have suffered trauma as a child, either abuse or

neglect. So I guess part of the point is: How do we turn the system

around to keep that from happening in a second generation or a

third generation if we look at that larger number of kids who are

being affected by substance abuse who also are in the child welfare

system? In my written testimony, I have provided a table that gets

at some of those estimates trying to extrapolate the estimates into

the total numbers of children and families affected.

The numbers point out some big gaps, and a couple gaps that I

think we need to emphasize. One is the gap in workers that can

work across systems, that understand the other system enough

that they are able to look at families in a different way, that look

at family recovery, as Dr. Kirk mentioned, how to intervene for

those children. At present, I know of only one State that has developed a system that tries to intervene on behalf of the children of

substance abusers, regardless of their parents’ receiving treatment

and recovering or not. So turning that system around I think is a

big gap.

The gap in data systems, the gap in treatment resources, we talk

about the competition that goes on among women client groups.

You heard that women are only about a third of the publicly funded treatment admissions, and among those third, we have different

client groups that get different kinds of entry into the system. But

it is a real competition to get a woman, and particularly a woman

with her children, into the publicly funded treatment system.

This committee has heard me testify before about the clocks that

are operating in the lives of these families, the TANF clock, twenty-four months on the TANF clock to be in work participation and

60-month lifetime; the ASFA clock with 12 months for a permanent

plan; the recovery clock that says at least an early recovery, one

day at a time for the rest of our lives; and the child development

clock that is one of those clocks that doesn’t stop regardless of what

we legislate, and how to pay attention to that.

56

1 Huang, L., Cerbone, F. & Gfroerer, J. (1998). Children at risk because of parental substance

abuse. In Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, Office of Applied Studies, Analyses of Substance Abuse and Treatment Need Issues (Analytic Series A–7). Rockville, MD: U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration. 2Child Welfare League of America (1998). Alcohol and Other Drug Survey of State Child Welfare Agencies. Washington, DC: Child Welfare League of America. 3 Young, N.K., Gardner, S.L. & Dennis, K. (1997). Responding to Alcohol and Other Drug

Problems in Child Welfare: Weaving Together Practice and Policy. Washington, DC: Child Welfare League of America and Children and Family Futures (1999). Project SAFE Phase II Strategic Plan. Hartford: Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services and Department of

Children and Families. 4 U.S. General Accounting Office (1994). Foster Care: Prenatal Drug Abuse has an Alarming

Impact on Young Children. Washington, DC: U.S. General Accounting Office.

Recently, I have become aware of a fifth clock, and that is a clock

on us. How long do we get? If our clients get 24 months to be in

a work activity and they get 60 months in their lifetime, if they get

12 months to have a permanent plan for their child, how long do

we get as policymakers? We have known about this problem at

least a decade. We need a partnership between the two agencies

that are able to work on systems and work on the gaps that we

have in the system, to fill those gaps and to work together to make

that happen.

Thank you very much for my time today.

[The prepared statement follows:]

Statement of Nancy K. Young, Ph.D., Director, Children and Family

Futures, Irvine, California

Thank you for inviting me to testify on the impact of parental substance abuse

on the placement of children into foster care. I have been asked to address the issue

of the prevalence and scope of substance abuse problems among the population affected by the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA). I’d like to make four primary

points on this topic today:

1. the overall number of children affected by parental substance abuse;

2. the estimated prevalence of substance abuse among child welfare cases;

3. the degree of substance-related problems within child welfare services; and,

4. the implications of this information on the implementation of the Adoption and

Safe Families Act (ASFA).

Before I talk about ASFA prevalence and scope issues, I think we need to focus

for a moment on the prevalence in the larger population that concerns all of us—

among the nation’s nearly eighty million children and their parents.

If we think of the typical classroom, which these days contains nearly thirty children, the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse tells us that in that classroom

there are three children who are affected a great deal by substance abuse. Eleven

percent of our children live in a household where at least one parent is dependent

on alcohol and/or in need of treatment for illicit drugs. That’s more than eight million children in the country, and that is the context for our narrower, but very significant data on the child welfare system.1

In that system, the most detailed studies performed have documented percentages

of children impacted by alcohol and other drug use by their parents ranging from

60% to over 75%. In dependency courts, anecdotal evidence indicates that over 90%

of dependency court cases are affected. The range of estimates depends on which

population is under scrutiny and how the problem was estimated.

• In studies that have surveyed workers in public and private agencies, workers

state that at least alcohol and/or other drugs significantly affect 50% of families

with substantiated child abuse/neglect allegations.2

• In multiple sites across the country—Sacramento County, Oregon, Connecticut—when assessments have been conducted or open child welfare cases have been

reviewed, the estimates consistently indicate that alcohol or other drugs (AOD) have

played a significant role in the abuse and neglect of 60% of those cases.3

• Among young children in urban areas of two states (California and Illinois),

78% were estimated to be in out of home care due to parental substance abuse.4

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5General Accounting Office (1998). Foster Care Agencies Face Challenges Securing Stable

Homes for Children of Substance Abusers. Washington, DC: U.S. General Accounting Office. 6Personal communications with Judge James Milliken, San Diego Dependency Court; Judge

John Parnham, Escambia County Florida Juvenile Court; Judge Robert Hutson, Orange County,

California Dependency Court. 7 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Children’s Bureau (2000). Highlights of

Findings from the 1997 National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System. Http://

www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cb/stats/ncands97/hl.htm. 8 National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors (1999). State Resources and

Services Related to Alcohol and Other Drug Problems for Fiscal Years 1996 and 1997. Washington, DC: NASADAD.

• When cases are reviewed in which the child has been placed in protective custody, estimates are in the 65% to 75% range.5

• However, when we ask Dependency Court Judges who see the narrow spectrum

of cases who have been placed in out-of-home care, the response is that virtually

every case—over 90%—that come into their courtroom has some alcohol and drug

problems in the family that affect the well-being of the children.6

The following table shows the population of children reported as abused and neglected; the numbers reduce to those who are placed in protective custody. Based

on the number of children affected by child abuse and neglect, the estimated number of those children who are also affected by parental substance abuse is shown.

1997 CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES 7

All Children Affected by Child Abuse/

Neglect

Children Affected by Child Abuse/Neglect

and Parental Substance Abuse

Children Reported ........................................... > 3 Million Unknown

CPS Investigations .......................................... Estimated 2 Million Unknown

Substantiated Cases ....................................... 984,000 492,000 (50%) 2

Young Children ................................................ ∼ 490,000* 382,200 (78%) 4

Placed in Out of Home Care .......................... 155,200** 100,800 to 116,400 (65% to 75%) 5

Population of Children in Out-of-Home Care

(3/1998) ...................................................... ∼ 520,000 338,000 to 390,000 (65% to 75%) 5

*Approximately half of substantiated case

**Sixteen percent of victims were removed from the home

Projecting these numbers nationally means that between 300,000 and 400,000 of

the children in out-of-home care are from families where AOD problems will determine whether these children can return home to safe, stable families. We must remember, however, that in 1997, there were approximately 905,000 admissions to

publicly funded treatment in the entire country. Only 34% of those admissions

(306,000) were admissions for women.8

Thus in 1997, providing treatment to the mothers of the 155,200 children placed

in out-of-home care in a single year would require one-third of all annual women’s

admissions. Further, providing treatment to the mothers of the entire population of

children who are currently in out-of-home care would require virtually 100% of annual admission slots. Finding appropriate substance abuse services for child welfare-referred women and their children is a daily competition among child welfare

clients and women who seek treatment on their own, women who are referred by

the criminal justice system (particularly drug courts), women referred by primary

health care providers (particularly pregnant women), and those referred by the

TANF system.

To make the best possible use of these scarce treatment resources, we need to understand better the differences revealed by the data among three kinds of AOD-involved parents:

1. parents who are using a substance,

2. those who are abusing the substance—who are experiencing negative consequences as a result of their use, and

3. those who have crossed over the line to addiction and chemical dependency, in

which brain chemistry has been altered in ways, which create a compulsion to continue drug use, despite the negative consequences for the family.

In Sacramento County, which has done detailed studies of these three levels; over

3,000 cases have been assessed for alcohol and drug problems. Among those cases,

7% were determined to not be substance users, one in five (20%) were substance

users without substantial negative consequences, another 26% were classified as

substance abusers, and 47% were assessed as chemically dependent; 21% were in

early stages of recovery at the time of assessment.

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The State of Connecticut has a well-developed system of screening and assessing

for substance abuse problems among caregivers in the Department of Children and

Families. In State Fiscal Year 1999, there were over 5,000 substance abuse assessments completed; 56% of clients assessed (2,735) received a recommendation for

treatment services.

Despite the differences in studies and resulting prevalence rates, the implications

of these numbers in implementing ASFA strongly suggest that we need to address

four gaps:

• the gap in workers in both systems who can work across the systems—who

have the ability and will to build the bridges that ASFA’s timetables now demand;

• the gap in data systems that can document the AOD problems that many states

and communities are still failing to capture;

• the gap in treatment for the parents who are willing and able to comply with

treatment requirements, especially for women with children in a treatment system

that is oriented more to males than to women; and,

• the gap in communications at the worker level and at the top policy levels between CWS and AOD agencies who need to work out agreements on how they will

refer and monitor cases so that children can be returned home to stable families

where they can be safe.

The good news is that the early innovators across the nation have begun to fill

these gaps, using the limited resources now available to them. Some of their experience is captured in the Report to Congress commissioned as part of ASFA that was

presented last year and which so powerfully captures the range of policy actions

needed to respond to the problem. In addition, we are in the midst of developing

case studies of eight of these innovative sites for a monograph that CSAT will publish later this year.

The other good news is that the early innovators have enough experience at this

point that they have made changes to their programs and are in a second stage of

their initiatives, building on pilot projects and beginning to go to scale. The best examples of this that we are familiar with are Sacramento County and Connecticut’s

Project SAFE.

Chairman J

Ms. Saler?

OHNSON of Connecticut. Thank you, Dr. Young.

f

STATEMENT OF GALE SALER, DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,

SECOND GENESIS, INC., BETHESDA, MARYLAND

Ms. SALER. Madam Chairman and Mr. Cardin, my name is Gale

Saler. I am deputy executive director of Second Genesis, a not-forprofit drug treatment and prevention agency providing residential

and outpatient substance abuse treatment and prevention services

to adults and children in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

One of our programs is Mellwood House for Women and Children.

And I am happy to be here today to bring you some good news

about the treatment of substance abuse as it relates to child welfare and to offer some opportunities for further improvement.

The women and children’s program that we operate was originally funded by a grant from the Center for Substance Abuse

Treatment. This past year, as that grant ran out, the Maryland

State Legislature at the request of the Governor appropriated the

funds to continue that program based on our success and, in fact,

worked with us to expand that program.

The treatment program we offer is a modified therapeutic community that allows women to bring up to two of their children up

to 10 years of age into treatment with them. The program provided

is comprehensive, including substance abuse treatment and education, parenting training, education, work adjustment training, vocational counseling, child care, preschool preparation, children’s

59

therapy, family counseling, family health education, and so on. It

is not an easy program. And it is more complex than this brief

overview.

The teachers, for example, would be running remedial and GED

classes for mothers and a preschool preparation for 4-year-olds in

the morning, and in the afternoon operating a study hall for schoolaged children, teaching their mothers how to supervise homework

and how to advocate for their children in the school system.

We do all of this work with the parents—the mothers and their children for about $152 a day. It is a program that is much better

experienced than it is described. We are located only a few miles

up Pennsylvania Avenue right outside D.C., and I would welcome

you or your staffs to come out anytime and talk to the women and

the counselors who are out there doing the work every day.

My written testimony details some of the research and evaluation we and the University of Maryland Center for Substance

Abuse Research completed. I just want to highlight a couple of

items here, and that has to do with follow-up data that we have

gathered on the women at follow-up, which occurred approximately

9 months to a year post-residential treatment. Eighty-eight percent

of the women who completed treatment reported no drug use in the

days prior to their interview. Fifty-nine percent of the women who

had not completed treatment had not used drugs. Eighty-three percent of the completers had negative urinalysis, 47 percent of the

non-completers. Fifty-five percent of the completers were employed,

24 percent of the non-completers. Ninety-five percent of the

completers had had no further criminal justice involvement after

they left treatment, 79 percent of the non-completers. And none of

the women who had completed treatment had lost custody of their

children. This was true despite the fact that some of the children

had come directly from foster care to Second Genesis, and other

mothers were in treatment because of pressure from Child Protective Services or the Department of Social Services.

So treatment is having a strong, positive impact and is most effective when mothers complete their treatment. For that reason, we

continue to develop interventions directed at increasing the numbers of women who complete their individual treatment programs

and remain in ongoing recovery programs.

There are challenges that still exist for us. Even given the availability of treatment dollars, which right now in the State of Maryland we are lucky to have, there continues to be a lack of capital

dollars to open additional facilities or expand existing ones. That

is a problem that I am dealing with right now in terms of having

the treatment funds to expand the program at Mellwood up the

street, but not having the capital funds and, in fact, having fundraised the funds to open another facility in Baltimore City, which

we have been working on for a number of months, but, again, having difficulty placing and siting and dealing with zoning issues to

open that facility.

Another infrastructure problem is finding and training qualified

quality staff. In current economic times, counseling, like teaching,

is suffering in recruiting and maintaining folks in the field.

The other issue that I would hope this committee would look at

is that the monies that we are using to provide the services that

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we provide to women and their children are substance abuse monies, and we are, therefore, limited in what services we can provide

for the children. We need to be able to access other child-related

funding streams to expand the services that are crucial to longterm prevention with these high-risk children. I encourage this

committee to provide the needed leadership to ensure that we take

those necessary next steps.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement follows:]

Statement of Gale Saler, Deputy Executive Director, Second Genesis, Inc.,

Bethesda, Maryland

Madam Chairwoman, and Members of the Committee. I appreciate this opportunity to testify on the issue of substance abuse in the child protection system.

For many women with substance abuse problems, the decision to seek, avoid, or

refuse treatment centers on their concerns about their children. Recognizing the

critical need for residential treatment programs for drug-addicted mothers and their

children, Second Genesis, a substance abuse treatment agency serving over 500 clients in the Washington-Baltimore area, applied for and received a 5-year demonstration grant from the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT). The primary purpose of the grant was to establish a therapeutic community for women who

had severe histories of substance abuse and who wanted to have their children live

with them while they were in treatment. In many cases, these were women who had

no safe alternative in which to place their children while they were in treatment.

With support from CSAT, Second Genesis set up a treatment facility, Mellwood

House, so that it could house 21 women and approximately 30 children at any one

time.

Studies have shown that chemically dependent women in general have different

treatment concerns than do men. Addicted women with children have even greater

needs than do others of their gender. According to one study, ‘‘In order to manage

the drug-dependent woman and her child, it is essential that a comprehensive treatment program be provided. It is necessary to include intensive prenatal management, psychosocial counseling, prenatal/parenting education, [and] psychiatric therapy when necessary’’ (Finnegan, 1988).

Young children in families suffering from alcohol and/or drug dependency are a

high-risk group for various developmental deficiencies and have a greater need for

intervention. Risk for behavioral, psychological, social, educational and future drug

and alcohol problems can be related to the multiple problems that appear with increased frequency in this population including: lack of communication and social

withdrawal; assumption of roles for which a child is not developmentally ready; selfdoubt and diminished self-esteem; self-blame; higher rates of anxiety; phobias, insecurity and nightmares; disproportionate symptoms of depression; a higher rate of somatic complaints; centeral nervous system involvement and lower IQ scores and deficient school performance. For the Children, the issues related to intervention are

in many ways more complex than for adults. First, it is increasingly recognized that

intervention can occur early in childhood before detrimental behaviors—become

manifest. Second, intervention for children in chemically dependent families raises

issues related to balancing the individual needs of the children, and the reality that

they need support in a family environment that is currently dysfunctional (Springer

et al, 1992).

The literature demonstrates that providing children and family services in treatment produces many benefits. Drug-affected children can exhibit lasting gains from

comprehensive care with early enrichment programs and parental involvement

(Smith, 1990). A National Association for Perinatal Addiction Research and Evaluation study showed that infants who are exposed to drugs in utero can catch up the

non-drug-exposed children by the age of two if conditions such as motivated mothers

and nutritional, medical and developmental assessment and management are provided (Substance Abuse Reports, June 1992).

Perhaps most importantly, bringing children into treatment with their mothers

encourages the formation of an appropriate bond between mother and child during

developmentally sensitive years.

[Drug-exposed] children, especially, need a safe secure, predictable environment,

where medical needs are met and opportunities are provided to compensate for

neurodevelopmental immaturities. To maximize the potential for an appropriate attachment, they require a single, loving, consistent interactive caregiver—the body

61

of evidence that points to the consequences of disrupting an attachment, no matter

how tenujous, are compelling reasons for attempting to maintain and strengthen the

parent/child bond (Jones, McCullough, DeWoody, 1990). ‘‘Keeping families together

also lessens the strain on the overwhelmed foster care system, where children of

chemically involved parents are the fastest growing population’’ (Weston et al,

1989).

Second Genesis, Inc., began offering therapeutic community services for women

and their children at Mellwood House in June 1994 under the above mentioned

CSAT grant. It was immediately recognized that the children who accompanied

their mothers into treatment required interventions for delayed development resulting from neglect, abuse, living in violent households and exposure to substances in

utero. The unaddressed needs of the children created a significant disruption in the

operation of the program. Services for children were not addressed by the CSAT

grant so Second Genesis secured an $80,000 grant from the Prince George’s County

(Maryland) Commission for Children, Youth and Families to contract with the Reginald S. Lourie Center to provide a 12-month study from January through December

1995, to determine the developmental needs of the children at Mellwood House and

to provide interventions required to address those needs.

The women who came to Mellwood House for treatment had severe histories of

substance abuse and associated problems. On standardized assessment instruments

the women filled out at intake, more than half reported beliefs and feelings about

parenting that are associated with a risk of child abuse and a need for clinical intervention. At follow-up, six to eight months after leaving the program, the women

showed huge increases in holding realistic expectations about children’s developmental capabilities and limitations. This was true for both clients who completed

residential treatment and for clients who did not. The clients who completed residential treatment also reported dramatic decreases in levels of stress associated

with being a parent and also associated with risk for child abuse. Clients who did

not complete the program showed no change in parenting stress levels.

Throughout that year, 51 children received developmental testing and 14 mothers

and their children attended parent-child groups. The total number of children tested

exceeded the projected expectations of the project. All children were evaluated within a month of entry into the program. Assessments focused on sensory processing

and reactivity; behavioral and emotional problems as reflected in play and motherinfant interactions and child behaviors; and developmental status.

Eighty-eight percent of the children tested had been exposed to substance in

utero, and 12% (6) had not. 15% of the children exposed in utero qualify for developmental services through Maryland Infants and Toddlers Program, the preschool

education program, or other school programs because of the nature and degree of

their developmental delays. Twenty-seven percent of the exposed children fall into

the at-risk category for one or more of the developmental categories listed, placing

them at high-risk for developing more serious delays if left untreated. The areas

that showed the greatest need for intervention were socialization, daily living skills

and communication. Of the non-utero exposed children tested, it is significant that

although they represented a statistically insignificant number of the full sample,

25% of them showed developmental problems. That is significant because it indicates that developmental problems point to the impact that socio-environmental

variable had on their development. In addition, 23% of the children who were exposed were tested as having significant behavioral problems in at least one area.

The children who were so identified were referred for specific interventions including behavior management, play therapy and parental guidance.

Mother-child interactions were evaluated using the Functional Emotional Assessment Scale (FEAS)(Greenspan 1992). This instrument assesses the child’s emotional

and social functioning in the context of the relationship with his or her caregiver.

It also provides a measure of the mother’s capacity to support the child’s emotional

development. The mother is asked to play with her child as she might at home for

14 minutes. These unstructured play observations are videotaped, then the child

and caregiver’s behaviors are scored for six levels of emotional development:

1. Regulation and interest in the world

2. Forming relationships (attachment)

3. Intentional two-way communication

4. Complex sense of self: (a) behavioral organization of sequential circles of communication; (b) behavioral elaboration of feelings dealing with warmth, pleasure, assertion, exploration, protest and anger

5. Emotional ideas: Representational capacity and elaboration of feelings and

ideas that are expressed symbolically

6. Emotional thinking of complex intentions, wishes and feelings in symbolic communication expressed through logically connected ideas

62

This test is intended for children from 7 months through 5 years of age; therefore,

play for children over the age of 5 could not be scored. Based on the results of this

test, the mothers and their children showed significant problems in their capacity

to self-regulate, to engage in social interactions with others, to demonstrate closeness and attachment for one another, to organize symbolic play, and to represent

emotional themes in play. Pre-tests and post-tests measured the functioning of children referred to Mellwood House during 1995. Qualitative observations were made

on nine children and their mothers to document changes in functioning after attending the parent-child groups for six months. Some of the changes noted were the following:

For the Mothers:

• Increased trust of staff to meet the mothers’ and childrens’ needs • Increased pleasure interacting with their children • Increased reciprocity in playing with their children • Emergence of symbolic play with their children • Controlling anger when confronted with childrens’ autonomy • Tolerating childrens’ independence • Learning that their childrens’ needs are separate from their own • Learning to set appropriate limits • Increased pleasure sharing with other mothers • Greater competence with parenting skills

For the Children:

• Diminished signs of depression • Less crying and fussing • Increased interest in other children and adults • Initiated interactions with others • Increased attachment for mother • More affectionate to mother and others • Approach staff to ask for things • Improved use of language, gestures • Increased use of symbolic play • Decreased use of pacifier when developmentally inappropriate • Improvements in daily living skills • Better response to limit setting

Based on these results, it was clear that the interventions provided at Mellwood

House in 1995 were most helpful to children in improving socialization, daily living

skills and self-regulation (e.g. less irritability, greater ability to tolerate transitions).

Children with difficulties in the areas of play and sensory processing also showed

some progress. The areas that appear least apt to change appeared to be in communication and language, fine and gross motor skills, and attention. Behavior problems

may also improve for some children, while others required more intensive intervention than could be provided at Mellwood House.

In 1997, Second Genesis utilized data acquired from the Reginald S. Lourie study

to acquire a supplemental grant from the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment

that permitted us to enhance children’s assessment and treatment services from late

1997 through 1998. Funding to meet the treatment and developmental needs of children has, unfortunately, been sporadic, and is not considered a substance abuse

treatment cost. Because childrens’ services are not typically ‘‘substance abuse treatment,’’ agencies that typically fund substance abuse treatment services for women

have been unable to extend funding to provide additional services for the children

who accompany their mothers into treatment. And the unmet needs of the children

are a serious problem for program that treats women with children.

During the course of the 5-year demonstration grant, CSAT funded an evaluation

component designed to evaluate baseline information, client satisfaction, and client

outcomes. The Center for Substance Abuse Research (CESAR) of the University of

Maryland was contracted by Second Genesis to provide the program evaluation.

Each woman was allowed to bring one or two children under age 11 to live with

her at Mellwood House while she was in treatment. Between February 1996 and

September 1998, CESAR interviewed 113 clients at intake about the 156 children

they brought into Mellwood House. We believe the characteristics of this particular

sample of children represent the entire set of children who resided at Mellwood

House during the five-year demonstration period. The average age of the children

was 4.0 years. Almost half of the children were male, and about 77% of them were

African-American. The mothers reported that 45% of the fathers were known to be

using drugs.

Many newborns are not tested to see whether drugs are in their blood. Nevertheless, mothers reported that 25% of the children in this sample had tested positive

for cocaine, alcohol, and/or other potentially damaging substances at birth. Most of

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the children had grown up in poverty. Many had lived in dangerous environments

(including crack houses). Twenty-eight of the children (18%) had been homeless at

some time in the 2 years preceding treatment. Child Protective Services had previously removed 13% of the children in this sample from the mother’s care because

of abuse and/or neglect. Twenty-eight percent of the children had not seen their fathers at any time in the year before admission. Another 12% had seen their fathers

only once or twice. Interviewers from the Center for Substance Abuse Research

(CESAR) at the University of Maryland administered two standardized parenting

questionnaires to clients when they entered treatment. The first was the Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory (AAPI). The AAPI is an index that measures attentive

and nurturing child rearing attitudes as opposed to abusive and neglectful child

rearing attitudes. It examines four parenting constructs: (1) Developmental Expectations of Children; (2) Empathetic Awareness of Children’s Needs; (3) Belief in Corporal Punishment; and (4) Reversing Parent-Child Roles. The self-report questionnaire includes 32 items to which clients respond with ‘‘strongly agree, agree, uncertain, disagree, or strongly disagree.’’

CESAR summarized AAPI responses from 132 clients who entered treatment during the first 31⁄2 years of the program—from 9/1/94 to 12/31/97. The distribution of

scores for empathetic awareness was skewed toward the low end of the scale. Only

7% of the women scored in the high range. Parents who score in the high range

tend to create a supportive parenting environment, recognizing their children’s

needs and accepting their children for who they are. They tend to view disciplining

children as a way to foster growth, not as a means of exerting strict control. Thirtythree percent of the women scored in the middle/average range. The majority of the

women ¥59%—had low scores. Low scores indicate that the mother usually views

children’s wants and needs as irritating and believes that tending to them would

spoil the children.

Approximately half (49%) of the women displayed little understanding of appropriate child-parent roles. Their answers indicated that they measured a child’s

worth by the child’s ability to gratify the needs of the parent. Such parents tend

to be needy and to display feelings of inadequacy. Forty percent of clients interviewed scored in the average range for this construct and 11% of the clients scored

high. Parents who get high scores on this scale tend to recognize the needs of both

the child and the parent and to are able to put the child’s needs first.

The second parenting questionnaire administered at intake was the Parenting

Stress Index (PSI). On the PSI, the mother reports how much stress she is experiencing in her role as a parent in the areas of (1) the child’s characteristics, (2) the

parent’s characteristics, and (3) life stressors associated with the parent-child system. Children’s characteristics include adaptability, demandingness, mood, hyperactivity, acceptability according to parental expectations, and children’s reinforcement of the parent role. Parent personality and situational variables include depression, parental sense of competence, attachment, role restriction, isolation, and

health. The self-report questionnaire includes 120 items to which clients respond

with ‘‘strongly agree, agree, not sure, disagree, or strongly disagree.’’ High scores

are associated with increased risk of child abuse.

CESAR summarized PSI responses from 128 clients who entered treatment during the first 31⁄2 years of the program. (A few women completed the AAPI or the

PSI but not both. That is why the sample sizes differ for the two instruments.) A

very high percentage of the clients reported levels of stress to the child-parent system that would lead to recommending clinical intervention. Over half (57%) scored

in the high stress range (the top 10% of the scale’s range) for overall stress to the

parenting system. Thirty-two percent of clients scored in the top 10% of the available range for reporting characteristics that indicate feelings of being overwhelmed

and inadequate. Similarly, approximately half (46%) of the clients reported that

their children’s behaviors were in the top 10% of the scale for child behaviors make

it difficult to be a parent.

Unfortunately, we had no direct measure of the quality of care a mother gave her

children after leaving Second Genesis Mellwood House. However, the AAPI and the

PSI have both been standardized and validated as measures associated with quality

of care. Furthermore, working with an overlapping but different sample of Mellwood

House clients, CESAR did gather data about whether any children had been removed from the mother’s physical custody between admission to treatment and the

follow-up interview (usually 6 to 8 months after leaving treatment). None of the

mothers who completed the residential program had had children removed. This

was true despite the fact that some of the children had come directly from foster

care to Mellwood House, and other mothers were in treatment because of pressure

from Child Protective Services or the Department of Social Services.

64

CESAR succeeded in locating a high percentage of this set of clients for followup interviews. About six to eight months after leaving Mellwood House, 85 of the

women from this sample filled out the AAPI (Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory)

again. Among the 21 clients who completed residential treatment, the number reporting realistic expectations about children’s developmental capabilities and limitations increased from 25% to 75%. Among the 64 clients who left against advice or

were referred, terminated, or remanded, the number reporting realistic expectations

increased from 15% to 61%. From a scientific perspective, these changes were decidedly significant (p<.01). Changes on the other AAPI scales—empathy for children’s

needs, opposition to corporal punishment, and understanding of mother and child

roles—were not significant.

71 of these clients completed the Parenting Stress Index (PSI) at follow-up. For

the 51 who did not complete treatment, changes in reported stress levels influenced

by child characteristics, parent characteristics, and life stressors were all trivial.

Both at intake and at follow-up, between 55% and 59% of these women scored in

the high stress range, not in the normal range, on each of the PSI scales. The high

stress range is associated with increased risk of child abuse.

For the 20 clients who completed residential treatment, the number who scored

in the normal range (low risk for child abuse) increased noticeably on each scale.

The percentage of these women who scored in the normal range rose from 55% to

90% for stress related to parent characteristics (p <.05). It increased on every subscale of the parent characteristics scale: depression, attachment, restrictions associated with the parental role, sense of competence, isolation, and health. The percentages in the normal range for stress levels associated with child characteristics and

with life stressors also increased, but the changes were not large enough to be statistically significant.

Unfortunately, we had no direct measure of the quality of care a mother gave her

children after leaving Second Genesis. However, the AAPI and the PSI have both

been standardized and validated as measures associated with quality of care. Furthermore, working with an overlapping but different large sample of Mellwood clients, CESAR did gather data about whether any children had been removed from

the mother’s physical custody between admission to treatment and the follow-up

interview (usually 6 to 8 months after leaving treatment). None of the mothers who

completed the residential program had had children removed. This was true despite

the fact that some of the children had come directly from foster care to Mellwood

House, and other mothers were in treatment because of pressure from Child Protective Services or the Department of Social Services.

Literature Citations:

Abidin, R.R., Parenting Stress Index. Charlottesville, Virginia: University of Virginia, 1986.

Achenbach, T.M., Child Behavior Checklist. Burlington, Vermont: University of

Vermont, 1989.

DeGangi, G., Ph.D., Annual Report: Lourie Center-Second Genesis Collaborative

Project. Upper Marlboro, Maryland: The Albert Lourie Center.

DeGangi, G, Poisson, S, Sickel R., & Wiener, A.S. Infant/Toddler Symptom

Checklist. Tucson, Arizona: Therapy Skill Builders.

Frankenburg, W.K. & Dodds, J.B. (1975). Denver, Colorado: DDM, Inc. Denver Developmental Screening Test (Revised). DDM, Inc., Denver, Colorado.

Greenspan, S.I. (1991). Functional Emotional Assessment Scale. In Infancy and

Early Childhood: The Practice of Clinical Assessment and Intervention with Emotional and Developmental Challenges. Madison, Connecticut: International Universities Press.

Substance Abuse Reports, June 1992, Silver Spring, MD.

Sparrow, S.S., Balla, D.A., & Cicchetti, D.V. (1984). Vineland Adaptive Behavior

Scales. Circle Pines, Minnesota: American Guidance Service, Inc.

Betty Byers, (1989) Developmental Disorders of Language, Whurr Publishers.

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Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Thank you.

Ms. Nelson?

STATEMENT OF MARY NELSON, ADMINISTRATOR, DIVISION

OF ADULT, CHILDREN AND FAMILY SERVICES, IOWA DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES, ON BEHALF OF THE

AMERICAN PUBLIC HUMAN SERVICES ASSOCIATION

Ms. NELSON. Chairman Johnson and Congressman Cardin, my

name is Mary Nelson, and I am the child welfare director in Iowa.

I am also here today on behalf of the American Public Human

Services Association for which I serve as vice president of the child

welfare affiliate. In addition, I co-chair APHSA’s joint work group

with NASADAD, the National Association of State Alcohol and

Drug Abuse Directors.

I am pleased to testify before you today about the urgent need

to address the impact of alcohol and drug abuse on children and

families in the child welfare system. In my testimony I would like

to do three things: first, I would like to describe the magnitude of

the problem and its effects on child welfare; second, to talk about

some of the exciting efforts that are underway at the national,

State, and local levels; and, third, to ask you to consider creating

a Federal initiative to develop comprehensive prevention and treatment services for child welfare families with substance abuse problems.

Substance abuse by parents is one of the most pervasive problems facing child welfare. Forty to 80 percent of the children who

are involved with the child welfare system have families with alcohol and drug problems. In my own State of Iowa, over 50 percent

of our family foster care cases involved parental substance abuse.

Studies indicate that children whose parents abuse alcohol and

drugs are almost three times likelier to be abused and more than

four times likelier to be neglected. Children from families with

AOD problems are more likely to remain in out-of-home care for

longer periods of time and have less chance of returning home or

being adopted. They are also at greater risk for re-entering care.

While the majority of these families require substance abuse

services, as we have heard this afternoon, studies suggest that less

than one-third receive treatment. Studies also show a high failure

rate for engaging and retaining in treatment women with children

in foster care. More must be done to develop and increase the availability and effectiveness of treatment.

Partnership between child welfare and AOD is critical. There are

numerous challenges, however, to collaboration between our two

systems which I have detailed in my written testimony. None of

these challenges are new, but what is new is the Adoption and Safe

Families Act and the urgent need to ensure safety and achieve permanency for children in expedited time frames. A redesign of treatment services that engages parents early on and achieves measurable progress in shorter time frames is critical. Without this, children will likely remain in foster care longer because judges will not

terminate parental rights if services have not been provided or

67

families will be broken up when they might otherwise have remained intact.

State agencies have taken a leadership role at both the national

level and in their own States and localities to address the problems

I have described. Soon after ASFA’s enactment, APHSA joined with

NASADAD to bring administrators from both the child welfare and

AOD systems to the table as problem solvers. My written statement includes a detailed list of issues for joint attention by our

work group. All of these activities are directed at the goal of improving the accessibility and effectiveness of substance abuse prevention and treatment services for child welfare and achieving the

goals of ASFA.

In Iowa, we have provided AOD training for our child protective

staff and developed strategies to better serve this population such

as recovery coaches and support groups. Next month we are holding a statewide conference to further develop these partnerships

across the State.

Project SAFE, as you heard about in your own State of Connecticut, Madam Chairman, is another good example of a promising collaboration. Also, a handful of States are implementing IV–E waivers for substance abuse services, including your State of Maryland,

Congressman Cardin. Individual counties are also taking important

steps to forge partnerships to address the AOD service needs of

child welfare clients so that safety, permanence, and parental recovery can be addressed.

States and localities, however, are at different places with respect to progress. These efforts need to be expanded statewide and

across all States to meet the goals of ASFA. Even with these exciting efforts underway, the extent of the problem far outstrips the

current resources of either system. Other Federal funding streams,

such as IV–B, the substance abuse block grant, Medicaid, and IV–

E, are either tapped out or limited in how they can be used for

these purposes. We need additional targeted funding to address the

unmet need as well as increased flexibility in current funding.

APHSA and NASADAD have been working with other national

organizations—Child Welfare League, Children’s Defense Fund,

and the Legal Action Center—to develop a general outline of a Federal partnership grant program. If funded, a program like this or

like the proposal you heard this afternoon from Senator Rockefeller

could support and enhance child welfare and AOD agencies’ efforts

to address the impact of alcohol and drug abuse on children and

families in the child welfare system. We ask for your consideration

of such an initiative and would welcome the opportunity to work

with you on this.

In closing, I would also like to add my support for enhancing

training opportunities and resources for judges and court personnel. The courts and public and private child welfare agencies play

critical roles in achieving safety and permanency for children.

ASFA imposes new requirements for State courts, and we need to

ensure that all partners have the resources and training to handle

their additional responsibilities. We appreciate your efforts and

look forward to working with you on this issue as well.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement follows:]

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1Kelleher, K., Chaffin, M., Hollenberg, J., & Fischer, E. (1994). Alcohol and drug disorders

among physically abusive and neglectful parents in a community-based sample. American Journal of Public Health, 84,(10), 1586–1590.

Statement of Mary Nelson, Administrator, Division of Adult, Children, and

Family Services, Iowa Department of Human Services, on behalf of the

American Public Human Services Association

Chairman Johnson, Congressman Cardin, and Members of the Subcommittee. My

name is Mary Nelson, and I am the Administrator of the Division of Adult, Children

and Family Services in the Iowa Department of Human Services. I am also here

today on behalf of the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA), for

which I serve as Vice-President of the child welfare affiliate, the National Association of Public Child Welfare Administrators (NAPCWA). In addition, I co-chair

APHSA’s Joint Workgroup with the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug

Abuse Directors (NASADAD). APHSA is a bipartisan organization of state and local

human service agencies and individuals whose mission is to develop, promote and

implement public human service policies that improve the health and well-being of

families, children and adults.

I am pleased to testify before you about the urgent need to address the impact

of alcohol and drug abuse on children and families in the child welfare system.

In my testimony today I would like to do three things:

First, to describe for you the importance of responding to the problems of families

who come to the attention of the child welfare system with alcohol and drug problems in a timely and comprehensive manner. I also want to describe some of the

challenges states face in doing so.

Second, to detail for you some of the exciting efforts that are underway at the national, state and local levels to forge partnerships between child welfare and alcohol

and drug prevention and treatment agencies, and related service providers. These

partnerships are designed to ensure that the needs of children for safety, permanence, well being and parental recovery can be addressed.

Third, to ask you to consider creating a federal child welfare and substance abuse

initiative to develop a comprehensive system of prevention and treatment services

for families with substance abuse problems who come into contact with the child

welfare system. New targeted funding would promote safety and permanence for

children in the child welfare system and recovery from alcohol and drug abuse for

their families.

Alcohol and Drug Problems Facing Families in The Child Welfare System

State human service administrators and child welfare directors have identified

substance abuse by parents as one of the most pervasive problems affecting the

child welfare system today. The facts are staggering. An estimated 40 to 80 percent

of the children who are involved with the child welfare system have families with

alcohol and drug problems. In my own state of Iowa, over 50% of our family foster

care cases involve parental substance abuse, and at least 1⁄3 of our ‘‘in-home’’ cases

involve parental substance abuse. In Polk County, which contains our state’s largest

city Des Moines, the Youth Law Center reports that 55% of new child welfare referrals to Juvenile Court (in-home supervision and placement cases) involve parental

substance abuse.

National studies indicate that children whose parents abuse alcohol and other

drugs (AOD) are almost three times likelier to be abused and more than four times

likelier to be neglected than children of parents who are not substance abusers.1

Children from families with alcohol and drug problems are more likely to remain

in out of home care for longer periods of time and have less chance of being reunited

with their parents or adopted. They also are at greater risk of reentering care once

they are returned. While the majority of these families require some kind of substance abuse service, studies suggest that less than one-third are able to be provided

with treatment.

These statistics point to the serious lack of alcohol and drug treatment services

nationally, a problem which is compounded by a lack of appropriate and effective

service interventions tailored to women with children, particularly those who come

to the attention of the child welfare system. While there are good examples of treatment programs that have been effective for women and children, most substance

abuse services are not designed to meet the specific needs of the child welfare population. Studies show a high failure rate for engaging and retaining in treatment

women with children in foster care. More must be done to develop and increase the

availability and effectiveness of such programs. A redesign and rethinking of curVerDate 20-JUL-2000 11:02 Nov 08, 2000 Jkt 061710 PO 00000 Frm 00072 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 K:\HEARINGS\66736.TXT WAYS3 PsN: WAYS3
69

rent service delivery is critical to addressing these challenges as well as an expansion of services to address the unmet need.

The Federal substance abuse confidentiality laws and its implementation add to

these challenges. Confidentiality barriers, whether imposed by statute or in practice,

can often prevent critical information from being shared across systems. Caseworkers cannot make critical safety and permanency decisions if they do not know

how the parent is progressing in treatment or if they are attending. Judges are reluctant to reunify families or terminate parental rights if they do not have the critical information needed to make informed decisions about safety and permanency.

None of these challenges are new to child welfare directors. These issues have

confronted the child welfare system from the time of the crack cocaine epidemic and

have continued with the rise of methamphetamines and the resurgence of heroin.

But what is new is the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) and the urgent need

to achieve permanency for children in expedited timeframes.

The problems of alcohol and drug abuse among families involved with the child

welfare system and the inadequacy of resources and appropriate treatment have become especially apparent since the enactment of ASFA. States are committed to

ASFA’s goals of safety, permanency and well being for children in the child welfare

system. The need for closer connections between the child welfare system and the

alcohol and drug system is clear—now more than ever. The complex issues facing

their common clients call for both systems to work together to find better ways of

treating families and addressing the safety, permanency and well being of children.

These problems transcend the availability of sufficient resources. We must do better with what we have. But the extent of these problems far outstrips the current

resources of either system and additional funding, including federal funding, is

needed. Funding for Title IV–B has competing service demands. The Substance

Abuse Block Grant has priorities and set-asides, and there is not enough funding

to meet the competing claims on those dollars from other populations such as criminal justice. Medicaid is limited in its ability to pay for the range of comprehensive

services that need to be part of substance abuse treatment for parents in the child

welfare system, particularly with respect to non-medical supportive services. Medicaid does cover medical treatment, such as inpatient detoxification, but does not

cover a wide range of preventive and supportive services that are necessary to ensure successful outcomes. Title IV–E does not cover substance abuse services and

child welfare waivers for these services have been limited to date.

Good practice demands that parents be appropriately assessed and engaged in

treatment early on, unless of course, risk to the child makes reunification inappropriate. Treatment interventions must be improved to achieve measurable progress

in shorter timeframes. Child welfare agencies and family court judges must have

the critical information from AOD treatment providers to assess risk and safety, and

make informed permanency decisions. Without the above, children will likely remain in foster care because judges will not terminate parental rights if services

have not been provided, or families will be broken up when they might otherwise

have remained intact with the provision of services. Initial screening and assessment, coupled with early treatment and enhanced engagement and retention strategies, will make it more likely that realistic assessments of the likelihood of reunification or appropriateness of other permanency options can be made within the timetables mandated by the Adoption and Safe Families Act. The states are accountable

and committed to meeting these new timetables. However, increased resources are

essential to improving the capacity of states to meet the ASFA mandates.

Collaborative Efforts Between Child Welfare and Alcohol and Drug Agencies

There are both philosophical and structural challenges to collaboration across the

child welfare and AOD systems. Historically, at all levels of government, Federal,

state and local, child welfare and AOD systems have functioned independently of

each other, even when administrative responsibilities for both systems are located

within the same department, and even though they frequently both work with the

same families. Each system operates with different clients (either the abused/neglected child or the substance-abusing parent), goals, frameworks, legal mandates,

and desired outcomes.

Recognizing the impact of parental alcohol and drug abuse on children, states

have paid increased attention to the need for child welfare and alcohol and drug

partnerships at the national, state and local levels. There are some exciting efforts

that are underway to forge collaborative efforts between child welfare and alcohol

and drug prevention and treatment agencies, so that the needs of children for safety, permanence and well being and for parental recovery can be addressed. However, states and localities are at different places with respect to their progress on

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this. These efforts need to be expanded statewide and across all states to meet the

goals of safety, permanency and well being embedded in ASFA.

National Partnerships

APHSA and NASADAD Joint Workgroup on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare.

With the enactment of the ASFA in November 1997, APHSA and NASADAD members felt it was imperative to bring state agencies from both systems—child welfare

and AOD—to the table as problem solvers. Our associations formed a task force in

March of 1998 to work together, with the goal of improving the accessibility and effectiveness of appropriate substance abuse prevention and treatment services for

families in the child abuse and neglect and foster care systems. APHSA and

NASADAD identified the following issues for joint attention by its members and the

workgroup: • Developing shared knowledge and understanding on the part of both systems

regarding underlying values and missions of each system, as well as identifying

ways to work more collaboratively across systems. • Developing shared knowledge and understanding on the part of both systems

of the impact of AOD issues on families in the child welfare system. • Need for and development of shared screening tools, training for child welfare

(e.g., on assessing need for AOD treatment) and AOD staff (e.g., on risk assessment

and permanency planning), joint protocols for collaborative work at the practice

level, data collection and performance measures. • Identifying and developing methods for better engaging families referred by

child welfare into AOD treatment, keeping them engaged in treatment, and re-engaging them when necessary; as well as identifying and developing treatment methods that can achieve success with families in shorter time frames. • Identifying and developing ways to work within existing Federal laws, as well

as changes in Federal laws which may serve as barriers to working together (e.g.,

confidentiality prohibitions, which may limit cooperation and coordination). • Identifying and disseminating information about successful models of joint child

welfare and AOD programs. • Addressing the need for additional resources for prevention, treatment, and

other essential support services; and ways to access and utilize various Federal,

State and local funding streams.

APHSA and NASADAD also developed joint recommendations in response to the

HHS Report to Congress required by ASFA entitled Blending Perspectives and

Building Common Ground. APHSA and NASADAD urged HHS to provide leadership and support for a variety of activities including improving and expanding treatment and services, improving state systems and collaboration, identification and dissemination of best practices, support for state-based cross training, addressing confidentiality barriers, increasing Federal funding for prevention, treatment and

aftercare, and removal of barriers to current funding streams to make them work

more effectively, and enhancing research, data and performance. The ultimate goal

is to develop, enhance and sustain an array of comprehensive and timely services

including prevention and early intervention that addresses the needs of children

and families in the child welfare system.

State Partnerships

Collaborative efforts also are underway at the state level.

• Iowa. For example, in my home state of Iowa, we provide AOD training for our

child protective staff—including indicators, screening, relationship to abuse, and

interventions. In addition, Iowa has used some of the Promoting Safe and Stable

Families funding as well as local ‘‘decat’’ funding (flexible state child welfare funding), to develop strategies for serving this population, such as child welfare/AOD liaisons/coaches and support groups (e.g., Moms Off Meth). The Department of Public

Health also funds several residential programs for moms and their children, but not

near enough.

At the local level, child welfare and AOD practitioners in several communities are

developing joint strategies and partnerships.

Next month, my Department of Human Service and Department of Public Health,

which contains Iowa’s AOD agency, are holding a statewide interactive audio-visual

conference which will include all our local offices, local child welfare providers, and

substance abuse providers. The goal is to make sure everyone has same baseline information and a shared understanding of the issues, and to foster these types of

partnerships and planning for next steps across the state.

• Connecticut. A good example, Madam Chairman, is your home state of Connecticut. Last November, I had the opportunity at the HHS Stakeholders Meeting on

Substance Abuse and Child Protection to hear about Connecticut’s Project SAFE

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(Substance Abuse Family Evaluation). In this project, parents or guardians with

substance abuse problems who are in the child welfare caseload are given priority

access to drug testing, substance abuse evaluations, and outpatient treatment services. In its first four years, Project SAFE made 23,000 referrals for substance abuse

evaluations. Approximately two-thirds of the families were evaluated. About 60 percent of the assessments resulted in treatment referrals, but only a smaller percentage of those, 35 percent, kept the treatment appointments. When the alcohol and

drug and child welfare agencies examined this further, they discovered that the outpatient treatment traditionally provided was not meeting the needs of the families

in the child welfare system. In Phase 2 of the project, just underway, new treatment

options including residential treatment are being provided. A related pilot project,

Supporting Housing for Recovering Families, offers housing and intensive case management to the families in treatment who are preparing to return to the community.

• Federal IV–E Waivers. Four states, Delaware, Illinois Maryland, and New

Hampshire, are implementing federal waivers to use their federal Title IV–E foster

care funds to hire alcohol and drug counselors, special family support teams, or recovery coaches to assist child protection staff and families so appropriate follow-up

and treatment can be provided. It is believed that these supports will help ensure

prompt and appropriate treatment, which then speeds the process of determining

whether or not children can stay with their families. In Delaware, which began its

demonstration in 1996 and is furthest along, the counselors help get families into

treatment and also provide counseling throughout the process. Preliminary evaluation results show that to date they have been successful in connecting more families

to treatment, and in reducing the length of time that children remain in care by

just over one third.

Local Partnerships

In some cases, individual counties also have taken important steps to promote

local partnerships between the public child welfare and alcohol and drug agencies.

• In Sacramento County, California, the Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Initiative (AODTI) has been in place since 1993. It was established by the Sacramento

County Department of Health and Human Services to incorporate substance abuse

services as an integral part of its service delivery system, including child welfare.

It is a good example of how child welfare and AOD service providers can effectively

work together to lessen the gap between those that need services, and those who

receive services. Training has been an important part of Sacramento County’s initiative. It developed a 3-tiered AOD training component that introduced all staff to

basic AOD terms and basics around identification; provided staff who carry caseloads training in advanced assessment and intervention, and offered this last group

more specialized group treatment skills. An evaluation of the training showed improved staff attitudes in working with AOD clients, greater confidence among staff

in the effectiveness of treatment modalities, and increased staff’s ability to assess

child safety issues, especially in regard to AOD issues.

The initiative yielded a significant increase in the number of child welfare workers who conducted AOD assessments with families. The initiative also spawned the

development of pretreatment groups being run by social workers and/or AOD counselors. These groups immediately engaged clients that are believed to be in need of

treatment—the antithesis of the typical practice of referring clients with AOD problems to ‘‘a waiting list’’ at a treatment program. In some cases the pretreatment

group proved sufficient to address the families’ needs; for high-risk families the

groups provided an important interim service while waiting for a more intensive

treatment slot to open.

• In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Project S.T.A.R.T. (Sobriety Treatment and Recovery Teams) employs and trains Family Advocates—women who have been in recovery at least five years and often have been previously involved in the child welfare

system—to work alongside social workers. Mothers in the program begin treatment

within 24 hours of their first meeting with the program staff. S.T.A.R.T. staff work

closely with the treatment providers and the families, monitoring the children and

the mother’s progress in treatment. Child safety is the top priority.

• In Cook County, Illinois, the state Department of Children and Family Services

funds a Juvenile Court Assessment Unit on site at the Cook County Juvenile Court.

Judges can refer parents appearing at temporary custody hearings and others directly to the unit for an alcohol and drug abuse assessment and an immediate sameday referral to treatment, if warranted. Judges and caseworkers receive feedback on

the results of the assessment by the next business day at the latest and are electronically tracked in the assessment unit’s data base to keep track of the parents’

status and progress.

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A Federal Child Protection/AOD Partnership

The examples of partnerships mentioned above demonstrate the commitment by

state and local agencies to address these issues. And while states have been creative

in leveraging funding for these activities, there nevertheless remains a significant

unmet need. As part of APHSA and NASADAD’s joint activity related to addressing

the need for additional resources at the federal level, our two associations joined together with several other national organizations with long traditions of involvement

in child welfare and alcohol and drug reforms, who also provided leadership on the

need for partnerships between these two systems. These organizations are the Child

Welfare League of America, the Children’s Defense Fund, and the Legal Action Center.

• The Child Welfare League of America in 1997 developed a survey to find out

what policies, protocols and programs state agencies have in place to support chemically affected children and families involved with the child welfare system. Through

this original research, CWLA identified numerous policy and programmatic gaps.

CWLA is working to close these gaps by recommending actions that professionals

from child welfare, alcohol and other drug prevention and treatment, health, mental

health and welfare can take to develop and implement responsive policies and programs. Toward that end, CWLA produced Responding to Alcohol and Other Drug

Problems in Child Welfare: Weaving Together Practice and Policy written by Nancy

Young, Sid Gardner and Kimberly Dennis. In addition, CWLA is in the final stages

of development of an assessment tool and decision making guidelines that front-line

child welfare and substance abuse treatment providers and supervisors can use to

determine how alcohol and other drugs are impacting child safety, family functioning and assist workers in determining the most appropriate intervention options for

each family. CWLA provides ongoing support to member (and non-member) agencies

which includes research and information dissemination, resource referrals, training

seminars, and working with agencies, other service institutions and their communities to facilitate communication and enhance service delivery.

• The Children’s Defense Fund published Healing the Whole Family: A look at

Family Care Programs in the Fall of 1998. Healing the Whole Family reported on

CDF’s survey of 50 residential care programs for women and children around the

country, half of which served families where substance abuse was the primary problem. The report outlines through examples the key components of comprehensive

service programs for families with substance abuse problems whose children come

to the attention of the child welfare system. Particular emphasis is given to the programs’ services to the mother, the child and the parent and child together. The

study laid the foundation for CDF’s continuing work to expand attention to and

treatment for the needs of families with alcohol and drug problems that come to the

attention of the child welfare system.

• The Legal Action Center, the only not-for-profit law and policy organization

working at the critical intersection of welfare, addiction and crime, has published

two important publications which detail ways to address alcohol and drug problems

among women with children who are receiving welfare. Tools for Confronting Alcohol and Drug Problems Among Welfare Recipients discusses the extent of the alcohol

and drug abuse problems and strategies for responding to them. Steps to Success:

Helping Women with Alcohol and Drug Problems Move from Welfare to Work profiles

a number of treatment programs that effectively address the needs of women on

welfare and their families through a comprehensive array of treatment, health, education, employment training and social services. The Legal Action Center also offers

training and policy advocacy support to 25 state associations of addiction service

providers and provides direct legal assistance to individuals and families with alcohol and drug histories.

Recognizing a shared goal, these organizations together with APHSA and

NASADAD have worked to explore and promote opportunities for expanding activities to achieve improved collaboration and cooperation between the child welfare

and alcohol and drug systems. In the Spring of 1999, representatives of these organizations, joined by the General Accounting Office, presented a briefing for congressional staff on the problems of alcohol and drug abuse among families in the child

welfare system and effective strategies for responding to these problems to ensure

safety and permanence for them.

The APHSA/NASADAD Workgroup and the staff from the organizations also developed the general outline of a federal partnership grant program that, if funded,

could support and enhance child welfare and alcohol and drug prevention and treatment agencies’ efforts to partner to address the impact of alcohol and drug abuse

on children and families in the child welfare system.

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Last week, APHSA’s policy-making body, the National Council of State Human

Service Administrators, adopted a policy resolution to address the serious problem

of substance abuse and its impact on children and families in the child welfare system. The council’s policy asks Congress to consider the creation of a child welfare

and substance abuse initiative to enhance state agency capacity to collaborate on

the development of a comprehensive system of services to address the prevention

and treatment needs of families with substance abuse problems who come into contact with the child welfare system. Such an initiative should be developed in consultation with the states. We support additional federal funding for this critical

area, however, we must emphasize that new federal funding for this initiative

should not come at the expense of other human service programs. In addition, the

resolution urges Congress to maintain core funding for current critical public human

service programs.

In recognition that collaboration is a critical component of achieving positive results in this arena, we believe the initiative should promote state child welfare and

substance abuse agency partnership in applying for and administering the new program funds. The program should provide states with maximum flexibility to use

funding for a full range of joint service and capacity building activities such as 1)

screening, assessment and referral to services; 2) comprehensive prevention, early

intervention, treatment and after care services in home-based, outpatient, and residential settings; 3) engagement and retention strategies; 4) joint training of child

welfare and AOD agency staff, judges and court staff; 5) enhancement of data collection efforts to monitor progress and evaluate outcomes; 6) evaluation strategies to

identify effective treatment approaches; and 7) technical assistance.

State human service administrators are committed to accountability in operating

these joint programs, and are interested in working to develop performance measures to assess state performance in implementing such an initiative. These measures should be developed in consultation with state and local public officials responsible for administering child welfare and AOD programs. New measures should be

consistent with the federal outcome measures developed for ASFA and for the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant.

Information sharing among substance abuse, child welfare agencies and the courts

is critical to making permanency and safety decisions for children and to achieving

positive service outcomes. APHSA is committed to examining the barriers that federal confidentiality statute and regulations pose to states, educating key stakeholders on these issues, and to recommending statutory, regulatory and/or practice

changes that would better facilitate sharing and disclosure of information between

the two systems. We believe sharing of information is especially critical around assessing progress in treatment, assuring safety and making informed decisions regarding permanency.

Furthermore, APHSA urges Congress and the Administration, to the fullest extent possible, to increase the flexibility of IV–E, Medicaid and the Substance Abuse

Prevention and Treatment Block Grant. Increased flexibility would enable funding

to be used to provide a variety of substance abuse treatment and prevention services

to the families who come into contact with the child welfare system.

We believe that realization of these recommendations will provide states with the

needed resources and capacity to promote safety, permanency, well being and parental recovery in families who come to the attention of the child welfare system.

your testimony. One of the things that comes through loud and

Thank you.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Thank you very much for

f

clear in different ways from your testimony is the need to use the

money in a way that meets the needs of the child or family.

I think it is fair to say that the evidence shows that recovery

from drug addiction can take years, and most of our programs are

months or a year. So if we pour a lot of money from the Federal

level into substance abuse treatment, as opposed to giving States

more money to treat families, you know, you run the risk of focusing those dollars on the months or the year as opposed to a system

that supports identification and treatment and support and development thereafter.

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So while I see over and over again that need for flexibility, for

coordination, for money to follow need, I am a little concerned

about spelling out in public law exactly what the nature of the

interagency collaboration ought to be and exactly precisely what we

are going to fund, because even though it will be on a broader

scale, look what we did just a few years ago with great good intent

in the Adoption and Safe Families Act. We completely ignored the

court system. So here we are with a great system forcing the agencies into these timetables, and we don’t have the rest of the system

in place.

So I know the waiver that we have in Connecticut, I have read

the minutes of these meetings. The barriers to really integrated action are just so systemic and so State- and Federal-based that it

does worry me to start a whole new piece of legislation as opposed

to new money and pursuing—and this will take a long time to figure out, but we are going to meet with people who have done waivers. We are going to get into that in a seminar setting so we can

understand what is happening with the waivers. But, Ms. Saler,

you mentioned that your money ends up getting identified and that

limits your approach

Ms. SALER. Right, because we have treatment funds, but even

when the treatment dollars are available, we have serious infrastructure problems in the whole treatment system in establishing

enough services. And as you said, one of our major issues is many

of the children who come into our program have serious developmental delays, which we know are a precursor to them following

the pattern that their mothers have taken. We don’t have the

money from the children’s service side to actually treat them while

they are with us, to begin the treatment for those problems.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. For instance, educational

problems and behavioral problems.

Ms. SALER. Right.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Kristine, in your joint effort

here, how are you making sure that the full scope of services gets

focused on the needs of this family?

Ms. RAGAGLIA. Well, perhaps I should start and let my partner

finish the answer because he is more the expert in the actual treatment modalities.

I think the first step has really been identifying the issue that

we didn’t have the right treatment modalities available in terms of

women and their children and trying to address all the numbers

of issues and looking at this from a real family-focused approach.

One of the things that we have discussed is that we really need to

have our Department of Social Services at the table with us because they have some added components, you know, and having

our Department of Mental Retardation would give us some of the

early childhood developmental delay kind of money at the table as

well.

I don’t think it is that hard, quite frankly, for commissioners to

sit down and work together and figure out how to do it together.

But it really takes a commitment on the part of the people who

lead the agency to do that.

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Now, we can do that legislatively, but the question will be, when

we force it that way, will that be effective, either? You know, a

marriage—

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. I don’t want to pay you to

work together. I mean—

Ms. RAGAGLIA. That is what I—

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. You ought to be working together. I don’t mind paying you for—

Ms. RAGAGLIA. It is a marriage by consent—

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut.—service money out there,

but—

Ms. RAGAGLIA. Yes. Well, a marriage by consent I think works

better, and I think it was our agency’s realization that we needed

to partner that led us to where we are today. At the same time,

I think that what you heard from Deputy Commissioner Kirk’s testimony was that because the client population that we are talking

about and that we are identifying through Project SAFE is different from what already exists out there, there are issues about

appropriate services being available in terms of marijuana treatment, which is something that is very different from what presently exists out there. And I will actually defer to my colleague on

that in particular.

Mr. KIRK. Let me just make a couple points. One of them is—

and Kristine mentioned at the time—that the Governor established

something known as the Connecticut Alcohol and Drug Policy

Council about 5 years ago because he said that he has 15 different

agencies that are all somehow involved with substance abuse and

they don’t necessarily collaborate with one another.

The legislature went ahead and put the council into statute. So

each year in Connecticut, we produce a master report. But one of

the things that came from that effort was that we came up with

the concept of what we call ‘‘client-based models,’’ and in my testimony we attached a profile of what we call the client-based model

for women and children. Basically what it says is ‘‘stop paying so

much attention to who is funding the service and give me a picture

of what the services are that these women and children need.’’

I think the second piece that stands out—and Nancy Young has

really driven this home to us in her work with us—is joint accountability. Each of us as agencies are involved with the same family,

but when we sit with our providers, historically we had different

outcomes for each agency. And so that from a system point of view,

we as two state agencies holding the provider responsible for the

care produced joint accountability. The system historically has been

a fragmented kind of system. And that is the world we live in. But

the reality is there are clearly mechanisms available in terms of accountability and in terms of a funding system that would make

more sense.

Ms. YOUNG. May I respond also? You said something to the effect

of not paying the agencies to work together. Well, the reality is

that the work that goes on after those collaborative meetings is

what the funding—is one of those funding gaps. I mentioned it as

the workers who can work across systems. Those workers are those

kind of boundary-spanning positions. Who understands the other

system enough to be able to look at what they are trying to create

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and make it work? And those positions are not in the systems, generally, and they are always the positions that go quick. When there

is a funding cut, those are the ones that get cut back.

So someone in the previous panel referred to it as—or I guess the

Senators from the quilting bee area referred to it as stitches. We

refer to it as the glue. You can’t have collaboration unless you have

glue that holds it together. The outcomes might be the final thing

that is the final glue, but you have got to have some personnel that

understand enough of the other system to be able to work together

to get there.

So when you say you don’t want to fund systems to work together, there has to be the directive, the willingness to make that

happen, but there also has to be the personnel power to implement

it and to make it happen not just at the administrative level but

when we go into States or into counties, there may be the will at

the top level. Getting that down to the line is a whole other deal,

and you can’t do that unless you have dedicated staff to keep that

going.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. I hear what you are saying.

We did have a very interesting study done the first round of welfare reform, and what was fascinating was that the States had just

bit the bullet and cross-trained the front worker so they could do

all the eligibility stuff and all the job training stuff. They were the

ones where the success rate was the fastest, where you still had

to—as you still do in Connecticut—go from DSS to Department of

Labor, even if they are in the same building, it is a different person, there isn’t a holistic approach, and there isn’t the system

knowledge.

My experience with the kind of person you describe is that not

only are they the first to go when there is a budget cut, but depending on the character of the commissioners, they may or may

not have any influence.

Ms. YOUNG. That is true.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. So I worry about—I mean, I

think we need to give this a lot of thought. How do we leverage

this level of collaboration? Do we require a client-based model and

you can’t do it without this? You know.

Ms. YOUNG. Right.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. And joint accountability

mechanisms, do we look at that kind of thing? Then we recognize

that there has to be some cross-training money. We are going to

need a lot of help with this one.

Ms. YOUNG. In looking at the resources that are in the system,

the only data that I have seen looked at how many of the States

actually put some of their TANF money into substance abuse treatment found that 18 States put TANF funds into treatment. That

was about in 1997 or so that survey was done.

In my own State, in California, we did allocate TANF dollars to

go to substance abuse treatment, and the counties have gotten very

creative on how they can use those funds for families that are in

the child welfare system. But it counts towards participation in our

State, but our State gets nothing out of the Federal work participation rate. We are almost penalized by having looked at that as a

support service that needed to be in place in order for women and

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their families to get ready to enter work. We can do that within

our State, but our State doesn’t get anything on the Federal work

participation requirements.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. That is an interesting point.

Ben?

Mr. CARDIN. Thank you.

As was pointed out, my State along with others have had waivers

in which they tried to provide for substance abuse to the people

within the welfare system. I am curious as to—we have been talking a little bit about that during this panel, but whether you could

perhaps summarize what you think the do’s and don’t’s we’ve

learned from that experience, if we are going to establish a national funding source for people within the welfare system to deal

with substance abuse, what have we learned from the State waivers as to what works and what doesn’t work?

Ms. YOUNG. I think HHS would probably have to answer it as

far as what they have learned from the waivers. I think there is

only one State so far that has evaluation data in, and that was the

first State that addressed substance abuse specifically. That was

Delaware. The other States, there are three others that have waivers that are specific to substance abuse, and they are just really

beginning—Maryland, Illinois—

Ms. NELSON. New Hampshire.

Ms. YOUNG. New Hampshire. Thank you. And there are different

models that have been created in each of those, and some—

Mr. CARDIN. That is the concept of waivers so that we can get—

Ms. YOUNG. Right. But I think one of the common threads is to

be able to jointly plan for the case. They are doing it in different

ways, but there is a partnership that is created between the substance abuse treatment agency and the child welfare agency. It

might be that they are carrying the case jointly. It might be that

substance abuse specialist is out stationed in a regional office and

they provide assistance to the child welfare agency. There are different ways that people across the country, not just in the waiver

States, are approaching the issue, but at its core it is how to bring

together the professionals in a way that is looking at the family as

a whole instead of you do this part and we will do this part and

instead are jointly planning together what is going to happen at

the service end and what happens at the administrative end.

Ms. NELSON. I think Delaware does have some preliminary results that do show they are, through these partnership efforts and

through the joint training and the kinds of things Nancy talked

about, where they are being able to get more families connected to

treatment so they are successfully accessing the treatment and

they are actually reducing length of stay for the kids that are outof-home.

Mr. CARDIN. Ms. Saler?

Ms. SALER. Yes, with the waiver in Maryland, one of the things

that we have been able to do is access multiple sources of funding,

including increasing the participation of DSS and child welfare in

substance abuse treatment. Right now, if we look at the funding

sources that are allowing us to expand our services for women and

children in Maryland, they would include the State appropriation

that we got, but also the fact that we are able to receive Medicaid

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payments for the treatment for the families, and we are receiving

what is referred to in this State as 512 money, which is monies

that are appropriated for treatment of women whose children test

positive at birth for drugs.

So with all of it and the increasing awareness, we have been able

to access and use more dollars.

Mr. CARDIN. Dr. Kirk, I am struck by the relationship between

substance abuse and domestic abuse. Throughout all of your testimonies, there is a high percentage of individuals who had been

abused that will have a substance abuse problem themselves. It is

more likely that their children will have suffered from some form

of domestic abuse. And, Dr. Kirk, I noticed in your testimony you

bring out those high percentages, but it seems like you are implying that the current funding sources do not permit you to deal with

the domestic abuse issue. Or maybe I am reading your testimony

incorrectly there.

Is this something we should take into consideration? If we are

going to be able to provide for comprehensive help, do we also have

to have a component here that deals with domestic abuse?

Mr. KIRK. Yes, let me answer that because it ties to something

that Madam Chair indicated. One of the things that is unique

about this population—and I have worked in this area for 20 years,

but I am learning new things the last 5. When you are working

with this particular population—Madam Chair, you made the distinction—you talked about recovery. And what I would urge us all

to think about is the difference between what I call treatment and

recovery, and also pre-treatment.

We will have, because of domestic violence situations, for example, an engagement specialist who will work with a woman for

weeks or months before she actually goes into treatment. Why? Because she doesn’t trust the system. The precise cases you are talking about from the clinical point of view, one of the after-effects,

post-traumatic stress disorder or whatever you want to call it, is

a great deal of distrust. The difficulty in getting this woman to

come into the system when clinically she distrusts the relationships

involved is very, very strong.

That is why you see, when you look at this client-based model—

we have a whole range of services we call pre-treatment. Medicaid

and general assistance and these other traditional payor sources—

they don’t pay for pre-treatment services. That is different.

Secondly, what I tell our clients as well as people we are involved

with, is the following ‘‘you will be in treatment for a defined period

of time; you will be in recovery for a longer period of time.’’ And

one of the challenges with the relationship with the child welfare

agency is to get everybody to accept that while the person is in active treatment, you may not want to go for reunification. You may

be very concerned about the risk to the child. Once the person is

stable in recovery, then that is perfectly fine because the family

stability is likely to be there.

Please distinguish between an intensive treatment phase where

the risk relative to the child is far greater than once they go into

recovery. But the domestic violence piece, it is not so much the domestic violence itself as much as it is what does that mean in

terms of the impact on the individual person.

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Mr. CARDIN. And I very much agree with you. Domestic violence

causes major trauma scars as well as a challenge to prevent in the

future domestic violence. So we have to deal with both aspects of

it.

I guess my point is that in developing perhaps a new Federal

role in dealing with vulnerable families on substance abuse, should

we also include in that the flexibility to deal with domestic violence?

Mr. KIRK. Yes, yes. Let me add one quick point. One of the

pieces, the Federal group just came out with something from

SAMSHA called ‘‘Substance Abuse Treatment for Persons, Child

Abuse and Neglect.’’ And one of the interesting things they point

out is that if during the substance abuse screening the history reflects history of domestic violence or child sexual abuse in the person’s background, one of the things that should occur is a mental

health comprehensive evaluation.

Well, our typical substance abuse providers, whether State-operated or private, do not typically have that resource available to

them. So when you talk about these additional resources, it is not

building on top of a stable base. It is broadening the base so that

the kinds of things that are provided are responsive to precisely

what you are talking about here.

Mr. CARDIN. Ms. Ragaglia?

Ms. RAGAGLIA. And if I may actually add to that, an additional

component that is not necessarily at this point in time available to

our adult substance abuse providers is the role of the child, because

the impact of a child living in a home where the parent is a substance abuser is a significant one. And if we are not using the opportunity for the parent who is in treatment to also address the impact of all of that on the child, we have lost a major long-term prevention activity which probably isn’t going to cost a whole lot more,

but if we can figure out a way to do that—and that is one of the

things that we have been talking about—that is a key component.

If we can hit it at that point in time, then we have made a huge

long-term impact on the issue in general.

Mr. CARDIN. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. I hope you will read—we

didn’t have the details of Senator Rockefeller and Senator

DeWine’s bill, but I am sure it will be on the Internet at some time.

But I am concerned about isolating out a problem, even a problem

as big as substance abuse, and treating families with substance

abuse through a different program. And certainly, you know, I

would rely on your long experience and professional guidance and

others out there. I am not in a position to make that judgment, but

it does worry me. I have just seen all too often well-intentioned

programs become straitjackets in 5, 6, 8, 10 years.

So certainly the more holistic approach to the family and getting

some of the barriers out of the way that you brought up, like the

work rules and the fact that treatment doesn’t fit in, even the

timelines in our Adoption and Safe Families Act, if the family is

serious about treatment, you know, do we need to recognize that

may rightly influence the 15-month line? So I think we need to

think through a lot of these issues.

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I did want to just ask you if you are running into privacy issues,

into data issues as you try to work interagency. And is there a difference between the privacy rules for children and adults?

Ms. YOUNG. My experience has been that people talk about that

as being one of the major barriers, and there are some people in

the field who feel like it is the major barrier. My experience has

been, in working with probably 20 jurisdictions across the country

in the last 3 or 4 years, it is something that has to be dealt with,

but it is not something that is a barrier that can’t be dealt with.

It needs the discussion. It needs the work-through. It has to go

through their county councils, their State attorneys, and then they

get it and have the opportunity to be able to work through it. Others probably don’t share that same view.

Mr. CARDIN. If the Chair would yield on that, I take it is different in every State.

Ms. YOUNG. Well, the Federal regulations related to confidentiality are not, but being able to figure out how to make that work at

the local level on how they are going to exchange information, it

is unique to your own system of how they make it work.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Did you want to comment,

Ms. Saler? You looked like it. [Laughter.]

Ms. SALER. I was nodding because that is very much our experience. The Federal confidentiality requirements for substance abuse

are very strict. On an individual basis, we are very much able to

find ways to work with the system, and also, we make it very clear

to women who come to us that we will always act first to protect

the child. And that is a given. It is told to them. It is given to them

in writing. They understand that we will do that and that we intend to, and we ask them to sign releases for us to talk to the child

welfare agencies that their children might be involved with. So we

do that up front.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. How do you overcome their

fear at that? This is what I hear from my Head Start friends, that

they can see there is a problem, they can encourage them, they can

quietly try to get them to services, but everybody, including their

friends, you know, are hoping that they can work this out because

they are terrified. And the irony is that then we can’t get them in

early.

Ms. SALER. That is right. The women—

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. They need counseling and

some more modest approach to that. So I don’t know whether there

should be some sort of 6-month immunity or something if somebody

really gets in there and does it, then—I don’t know. This is something you need to help us with.

Mr. CARDIN. Madam Chair, before you adjourn, I just want to

ask unanimous consent that my opening statement be put in the

appropriate part of the record.

Chairman JOHNSON of Connecticut. Yes, I would be happy to accommodate. I did offer him the opportunity, but it is hard once we

get rolling.

I also want to say in closing that it is very nice to have a State

as progressive as Maryland nearby and to have a ranking member

that is as knowledgeable about the services available in a State

and who has worked as closely with as many providers because it

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does give us the chance often to have people from the front line in

Washington, and that isn’t always easy. I appreciate the distance

that some of you have come and your willingness to prepare testimony and to take thoughts away about what has gone on that will

enable you to give us continued input over the months ahead.

Thank you very much.

[Whereupon, at 3:23 p.m., the hearing was adjourned].

[Submissions for the record follow:]

Statement of Child Welfare League of America

The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) welcomes this opportunity to submit testimony to the Subcommittee on Human Resources for the hearing on child

protection issues.

CWLA is an 80-year-old national association of over 1,100 public and private voluntary agencies that serve more than two million abused and neglected children

and their families. CWLA member agencies provide the wide array of services necessary to protect and care for abused and neglected children, including child protective services, family preservation, family foster care, treatment foster care, residential group care, adolescent pregnancy prevention, child day care, emergency shelter

care, independent living, youth development, and adoption.

CWLA is pleased that the committee will be hearing from such a distinguished

panel on the devastating impact on substance abuse on the children and families

involved in the child welfare system. We especially applaud Senator Rockefeller for

his leadership on a new initiative to improve our systems of care and to respond

more effectively to the needs of children and families. Mary Nelson, Administrator

of the Division of Adult, Children and Family Services, Iowa Department of Human

Services, is testifying today on the challenges in addressing child protection and permanency issues among families with alcohol and other drug (AOD) problems. Her

testimony reflects the concerns and suggestions that CWLA and others have put

forth to enhance the capacity of our systems of care to respond more appropriately

and effectively and to improve results for the children and families involved.

CWLA takes this opportunity to provide comments on the second subject of the

hearing, the challenges for state courts under ASFA and how pending legislation

will help address them.

New Demands on State Court Resources

The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA, P.L. 105–89) imposed new requirements for state abuse and neglect courts, but did not provide any new resources for

courts to handle the additional responsibilities. Courts are now expected to decide

early in the case whether reunification services are required. Courts must conduct

a permanency hearing at 12 months, rather than at 18 months, as under previous

law. Courts must also process the petitions to terminate parental rights, which

states are required to initiate for children who have been in foster care 15 out of

the most recent 22 months. Under ASFA, courts must also adopt procedures to ensure the participation of foster parents, preadoptive parents, and relative caretakers

of abused and neglected children.

CWLA strongly supports legislation introduced in the Senate by Senator DeWine

and others that will provide state abuse and neglect courts with additional resources

to be better equipped to handle their new responsibilities. This legislation, (S. 708)

the Strengthening Abuse and Neglect Courts Act, supports grants to courts to reduce pending backlogs of abuse and neglect cases so they can hire additional personnel, extend court operating hours or conduct night court sessions so that more cases

can be handled in a timely manner. The legislation also authorizes additional training for judges, abuse and neglect attorneys, and court personnel and provides funding for courts to improve their automated data collection system.

The House is already on record in support of a provision of that bill that allows

Title IV–E training funds to be used to train court personnel in matters related to

the court’s role in expediting adoption procedures, implementing reasonable efforts,

and providing for timely permanency planning and case reviews. CWLA supported

that effort and encourages Congress to take action this year to pass legislation to

provide courts with the resources they need to be able to make more timely decisions about permanency options for abused and neglected children so that more children can move to permanent homes.

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Enhanced Resources and Options for Child Welfare Training

The focus on these key training issues as they pertain to the courts also allows

important consideration of other critical aspects of training that require clarification

and enhancement to resolve current and future problems. ASFA’s emphasis on better and faster permanency decision making also fundamentally requires well trained

caseworkers.

In recent years, some states have experienced significant problems in accessing

and utilizing Title IV–E training funds to support appropriate and needed training

for staff in private agencies that are state approved and meet federal eligibility criteria as child care institutions. The law outlines that short-or long-term training at

educational institutions is reimbursable at the 75 percent match rate for such training of state agency and local public agency staff. The statute also prescribes that

short-term training of current or prospective foster or adoptive parents and private

agency staff can be reimbursed at a 75 percent federal match. Federal regulations

to implement these provisions narrow the focus of allowable activities, limiting the

availability and accessibility of these critical training resources.

One commonly confronts differing interpretations of what is allowable, which entities are eligible, and what is the level of reimbursement. Various states, private

agencies, and others have reported widespread difficulties in accessing this critical

training resource. The difficulties have grown with the continued lack of clarification as well as inconsistency in guidance given to the states. States, as a result, differ considerably on what they do and what they have been told they can or cannot

do. In the end, public and private agencies have had to cobble together strategies

to support needed training.

As we seek to expand appropriate training opportunities to court personnel and

others involved in child welfare decision making and services, the current difficulties will only be compounded in absence of addressing the inconsistencies in current

program directives and operations.

CWLA urges you to resolve these problems to permit equitable access to Title IV–

E incentives for training parent caregivers; direct care workers, case managers, and

others in the broad array of child welfare services in public and approved private

child welfare agencies; and, those in critical areas of decision making, including

court personnel and special advocates. In addition, reimbursable activities should include full menu of training that can enhance capacity to improve outcomes and are

consistent with the state plan to achieve safety, permanency, and well-being.

Outcomes for children and families improve when those involved in making decisions and providing services and supports have been well trained in good practice.

Appropriate access to the Title IV–E training resource will help assure that.

In sum, we commend this Subcommittee for continuing to investigate ways we can

better address the needs of abused and neglected children and their families. We

look forward to continuing to work with you to help protect our most vulnerable

children.

Re: ‘‘Square One’’ Training for all in Child Protection Claims

Statement of Barbara Bryan, National Child Abuse Defense and Resource

Center, Roanoke, VA

f

As the only child/family volunteer advocate to regularly attend my state’s Social

Services State Board meetings (first in 1986), I recognize ‘‘training’’ as part of the

child protection lobby’s mantra: ‘‘More money, more workers, more training.’’ None

has, will, or can work unless and until there is training in recognition of false allegations of child abuse and neglect: mistaken, mischievous, and malicious, however

they originate.

Training system employees or adjunct volunteers—whether judges, court, CASA

or other caseworkers, and alleged experts on child protection—to move children

more swiftly through the system per ASFA/CIP and Adoption 2002 provisions, has

created a counterproductive effort funded by Congress and operating under color of

law.

Failing after the initial allegation to catch OR QUESTION reality of an allegation, ‘‘trained’’ personnel procedurally rush children from natural protectors per labels and ‘‘diagnoses’’ of never scientifically validated theories such as mythical Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy and variant names. That there is NO peer-reviewed

professionally published journal article showing MSbP and variants EVER has been

subjected to any scientific methodology in replicated research, COURTS are CRUCIBLES for ‘‘acceptance.’’

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Using MSbP’s attached myths, now that ‘‘safety’’ trumps extended family in

ASFA/CIP, children are kept from extended family, ‘‘fast track’’ adopted out in

record time, ‘‘legally’’ and tax subsidized. That is hardly an admirable ‘‘Adoption Option.’’

Leader among states in getting training on MISTAKEN CLAIMS OF CHILD

ABUSE is Virginia. Official representatives have attended NCADRC’s International

Conference since 1995. Generally the Governor selects appointed members of the

VDSS State Board as his eyes and ears. Anyone whose judgment is valued by a

Governor should hear the law and science which those receiving millions of federal

dollars may prefer are untold. Too often, ‘‘abuse’’ is the excuse for organizational

and ‘‘training’’ funding but NOT for child protection. Too many innocents have ‘‘days

in CLOSED DOOR courts’’ where hearsay from third party financially interested

witnesses becomes ‘‘evidence.’’

For more information on both September’s 9th International Conference and also

on MSbP and how its misuse is fracturing families, please see the sites: www.stopabuse-org click on Plug, and www.falseallegation.com (still under construction).

Too little has changed since our participating in an April 4–5, 1990 hearing of this

same Subcommittee when similar underlying issues of child removal/foster care

were discussed and predicted horrors of crack cocaine babies were offered. Please

return to Square One ‘‘training’’ for abuse/neglect allegations with something like

SWAP. That is our Social Work Again Proposal vs. unchecked actions of child protection caseworkers.

Thank you, Barbara Bryan, volunteer, Communications Dir., National Child

Abuse Defense & Resource Center (Toledo-based), at: P.O. Box 8323, Roanoke, VA

24014 Phone: 540/345–1952 Fax: 540/345–1899 Email: ‘‘mailto:BHBryan@aol.com

BHBryan@aol.com

needs adoption organizations, welcomes this opportunity to submit testimony on the

Voice For Adoption (VFA), a group of more than 70 national and local special

Statement of Voice for Adoption

f

child protection issues related to the training needs of court personnel and the extent of substance abuse in child protection.

Founded in 1996, VFA participants include professionals, parents, and advocates

committed to securing adoptive families for America’s waiting children. Our distinguished board of directors is made up of recognized leaders in the field of adoption.

Organizations on VFA’s board include: the Adoption Exchange Association (AEA) in

Colorado, Children Awaiting Parents (CAP) in upstate New York, Child Welfare

League of America (CWLA) in the District of Columbia, Institute for Black Parenting in California, National Adoption Center (NAC) in Pennsylvania, North American

Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC) in Minnesota, Spaulding for Children in

Michigan, Family Builders Adoption Network in California, and The Adoption Exchange (TAE) in Colorado. The mission of VOA is to ensure to ensure permanent,

nurturing families for our nation’s most vulnerable children and to strengthen support for families who adopt.

Our nation has seen a dramatic increase in child abuse and neglect cases over

the past twenty years. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Serivces reported that in 1997 approximately 2,980,000 children were reported to state and

local agencies due to someone’s concern about their safety. The courts were able to

substantiate approximately one third of these cases.

Congress passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA, (P.L. 105–89) in 1997

to ensure that all decisions regarding the permanency options for children in the

child welfare system be made more swiftly. This law has placed new requirement

on our nation’s abuse and neglect courts. ASFA requires the courts in abuse and

neglect cases to decide whether reunification with the child’s birth family is possible

or whether the court should terminate parental rights within 15 months. Yet ASFA

does not provided additional resources for the courts. Today, there are over one-half

million children in the foster care system. In 1998, there were approximately 36,000

adoptions from the foster care system, up from 31,000 in 1997 and 28,000 in 1996.

While states have increase their finalized adoptions in the past two years since

ASFA, many of these children were legally free and part of a backlog of children

that found permanent families.

The Brianna case here in nation’s capital illustrates the need for training and increased financial resources. On December 22, 1999, D.C. Superior Court Judge Evelyn E.C. Queen ordered a 22 month old little girl named Brianna Blackmond back

to her mother’s care. Weeks later the child was dead from blows to the head in the

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home of her mother. The Judge had not seen the report from Brianna’s caseworker

that urged the judge not to send her back. Also, Judge Queen made the decision

without holding a hearing on the subject. Due to confidentiality rules, many of the

case’s facts have not been brought to light. However, it is clear that with more training and resources the court decision might have been different and Brianna still

alive today.

VFA endorses legislation introduced by Senator DeWine (S. 708), the Strengthening Abuse and Neglect Courts Act. W e strongly urge Congress to pass this vital

legislation this session. The bill will improve training and resources for our nation’s

court system. Most importantly, the bill will improve the lives of many children by

moving them through the court system in a more timely manner, and finding them

permanent loving homes more quickly.

Æ