A frightened boy of 12 is left to live in a closet. A child is supposed to spend no more than 18 months in foster care before being adopted or returned home. In South Florida, children typically spend three years or more. . . Sometimes counselors don't visit the homes for months. When they do visit, the workers are often too harried to spend more than a few minutes. . .
Turnover is so high that . . .
Today, some South Florida counselors have 71 cases. In 1997, Broward County reached a point of near-crisis, with turnover among its foster care workers at 85 percent. By 1998, attorneys from the Youth Law Center were calling its foster care system one of the most dangerous and over-crowded in the nation, threatening that a lawsuit loomed imminent. In some jurisdictions, caseloads have reached 100 cases per caseworker, well above the 25 per caseworker recommended by the National Association of Social Workers. In New York City, annual turnover rates for caseworkers have been as high as 75 percent, so that each year most foster children, who have suffered from unstable families, get a new caseworker.