Many need mentors, but the waiting lists are months long, and male mentors are so few that they often cannot be obtained. Many of the children I represent also need comprehensive services and independent living programs when they become 18 years old, but the wait for placement at times can be four to six months. When children have been victimized or neglected, sometimes they must wait months for counseling. And if they enter the system at the end of the fiscal year, their wait can be as long as it takes for the annual budget battles in Congress to be resolved. Court-appointed attorneys face a similar plight, many times having to borrow in September and October in order to continue serving the poor.
Money again is the problem.
Special-needs children need specialized school placements. Many times, children who are abused and neglected could have been placed in schools that address their needs, especially those children with Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder. But the funding for educational advocates has been reduced greatly. The Adoption and Safe Families Act, signed into law in 1997, ironically may in the end work against its stated intentions. It reduces the time parents have to work toward reunification at the same time that the services needed for reunification have been cut or are nonexistent.