African American Children in Foster Care: HHS and Congressional Actions Could Help Reduce Proportion in Care
Released: 2008-07-31T00:00:00

Letter

Background

African American children were more likely to be placed in foster care than White or Hispanic children in 2006, and at each decision point in the child welfare process the disproportionality of African American children grows. Nationally, although African American children made up less than 15 percent of the overall child population in the 2000 Census, they represented 26 percent of the children who entered foster care during fiscal year 2006 and 32 percent of the children remaining in foster care at the end of that year (see fig. 1).

There are various options for placing children in temporary and permanent homes through the child welfare system. Temporary options include foster care with relatives or nonrelatives—whether licensed or unlicensed—and group residential settings. According to HHS, approximately one-fourth of the children in out-of-home care are living with relatives, and this proportion is higher for Hispanic and African American families. For permanent placements, children can be reunified with their parents, or if reunification is not considered possible, children can be adopted or live with a legal guardian. Although both adoption and guardianship are considered permanent placement options under federal law, an important difference is that adoption entails terminating parental rights, while guardianship does not. Another difference is that some adoptions may be subsidized with federal funds.

Federal funds account for approximately half of states’ total reported spending for child welfare services, with the rest of funding coming from states and localities. In fiscal year 2004, total federal spending on child welfare was estimated to be $11.7 billion based on analysis of data from more than 40 states. Titles IV-E and IV-B of the Social Security Act are the principal sources of federal funds dedicated for child welfare activities. Title IV-E supports payments to foster families, subsidies for families who provide adoptive homes to children who states identify as having special needs that make placement difficult, and related administrative costs on behalf of children who meet federal eligibility criteria. Title IV-E payments for foster care maintenance are open-ended entitlements. Title IV-B authorizes funds to states for broad child welfare purposes, including child protection, family preservation, and adoption services; these funds are appropriated annually. Federal block grants, such as the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG), provide additional sources of funds that states can use for child welfare purposes. States have discretion to provide direct social services for various populations, including child welfare families, the elderly, and people with disabilities.

In 1994, the Congress authorized the use of demonstration waivers to encourage innovative and effective child welfare practices. These waivers, typically authorized for 5 years, allowed states to use Title IV-E funds to provide services and supports other than foster care maintenance payments. For example, four states had completed demonstrations that involved subsidized guardianships, and, as of May 2007, seven states had active guardianship demonstrations and one state had not yet implemented its guardianship demonstration. Demonstration waivers must remain cost-neutral to the federal government, and they must undergo rigorous program evaluation to determine their effectiveness.

States Report Poverty and Difficulty in Finding Permanent Homes Are among Major Factors Influencing African Americans Entry and Length of Stay

A complex set of interrelated factors influence the disproportionate number of African American children who enter foster care, as well as their longer lengths of stay. Major factors affecting children’s entry into foster care included African American families’ higher rates of poverty, difficulties in accessing support services, and racial bias or cultural misunderstanding among child welfare decision makers, as well as families’ distrust of the child welfare system. Factors often cited as affecting African American children’s length of stay in foster care included the lack of appropriate adoptive homes for children, parents’ lack of access to support services needed for reunification with their children, and a greater use of kinship care among African American families. (See fig. 2.)

In our survey, 33 of the 48 states from which we received responses reported that high rates of poverty in African American communities and issues related to living in poverty may increase the proportion of African American children entering foster care compared to that of children of other races and ethnicities. Across the nation, African American families were nearly four times more likely to live in poverty than White families, according to U.S. Census data. Since foster care programs primarily serve children from low-income families, this could account for some of the disproportionate number of African American children in the foster care system. In addition, child welfare directors in 25 states reported that the greater number of African American single-parent households contributed to African American children’s entry into foster care. According to the most recent National Incidence Study, children of single parents, who are also more likely than married couples to be poor, had a 77 to 87 percent greater risk of harm than children from two-parent families. Across the nation, 34 percent of African American family households with children under 18 years of age were headed by single females compared to 9 percent for Whites and 19 percent for Hispanics, according to U.S. Census data.

Moreover, families living in impoverished neighborhoods often do not have access to the kinds of supports and services that can prevent problems in the home from leading to abuse or neglect, according to states we surveyed and other research. Such supports and services include affordable and adequate housing; substance abuse treatment; access to family services such as parenting skills workshops and counseling; and adequate legal representation. Also, there is some evidence that African American families, in particular, are not offered the same amount of support services when they are brought to the attention of the child welfare system.

Coupled with African American parents’ greater distrust of the child welfare system, racial bias or cultural misunderstanding among decision makers also emerged in our survey as major factors contributing to the disproportionate number of African American children entering foster care. According to state child welfare officials and some researchers we interviewed, African American families’ distrust of the child welfare system stems from their perception that the system is unresponsive to their needs and racially biased against them. This perception can shape the families’ dynamics in their initial contacts with mandated reporters, caseworkers, and judges, which can increase the risk the child will be removed from the home. In our survey, state child welfare directors also reported that they considered racial bias or cultural misunderstanding on the part of those reporting abuse or neglect---such as teachers, medical professionals, or police officers, as well as among caseworkers---as factors in the disproportionate representation of African American children entering foster care. In support of this view, some studies have found that medical professionals are more likely to report low-income or minority children to child protective services. Although research on racial bias or race as a predictor for entry into foster care is not always consistent, a recent review of the current research concluded that race is an important factor that affects the decision to place children into foster care.

Among factors cited as affecting African American children’s longer lengths of stay in foster care, officials from 29 states cited an insufficient number of appropriate adoptive homes as a key factor. African American children constituted nearly half of the children legally available for adoption in 2004, and they waited significantly longer than other children for an adoptive placement. Factors that make finding adoptive families for African American children challenging include the difficulty many states have in recruiting adoptive families of the same race and ethnicity as the children waiting for adoption and the unwillingness of some families to adopt a child of another race. In addition, states we surveyed reported that African American children waiting to be adopted were older, and prospective adoptive parents are more inclined to adopt younger children. (See fig. 3.)

Additionally, the belief that African American children are more likely to be diagnosed as having medical and other special needs, which may contribute to their longer lengths of stay in foster care, was reported by state officials. In fact, African American children in foster care in 2004 were only slightly more likely to have been diagnosed as having medical conditions or other disabilities (28 percent) than White children in foster care (26 percent), according to HHS data. However, 23 percent of African American children who were adopted out of foster care had a medical condition or disability, compared to 31 percent of White children in the same category.

Some of the same factors that states view as contributing to African American children’s entry also contribute to their difficulties in exiting foster care and being reunified with their families. In our survey, nearly half of the states considered the lack of affordable housing, distrust of the child welfare system, and lack of substance abuse treatment as factors contributing to African American children’s longer lengths of stay. The lack of such supports and other services in many poor African American neighborhoods contributes to children’s longer stays in foster care because services can influence a parent’s ability to reunify with their child in a timely manner, according to our survey, interviews, and research.

States also reported that the use of kinship care was a factor contributing to longer lengths of stay in foster care for African American children. African American children are more likely than White and Asian children to enter into the care of relatives, which is associated with longer lengths of stay. Relatives may be unwilling to adopt the child because it would require termination of their relative’s parental rights or because they might lose needed financial support they receive as foster parents. However, despite the longer lengths of stay, child welfare researchers and officials we interviewed consider these placements to be positive options for African American children because they are less stressful to the child and maintain familial ties.

States Reported Implementing Strategies Considered Promising for Addressing Disproportionality but Also Reported Needing More Technical Assistance

Researchers and child welfare administrators we interviewed stressed that no single strategy could fully address disproportionality in foster care, partly because so many interrelated factors contribute to it. According to our survey, the strategies that states implemented tended to focus on addressing racial and cultural bias in decision making, families’ problems in accessing support services, and agencies’ challenges in finding permanent homes so that children can exit foster care more quickly. In addition, data collection and analysis were considered essential for identifying problems and devising strategies to address them, but states reported needing additional assistance in this area.

To help mitigate bias and cultural misunderstanding among decision makers, states reported implementing a range of strategies, such as including family members in case planning; providing training to strengthen caseworkers’ competency in working with families from various cultures; reaching out to ensure that public officials are not inappropriately referring families for abuse and neglect through mandated reporting; and implementing the use of certain tools to help caseworkers make more systematic decisions regarding the level of a child’s risk. (See fig. 4.) According to an evaluation in Texas, for example, for African American families who participated in case planning that included family group decision making, 32 percent of the children returned home—more than twice as many as in families who received traditional services.

To improve families’ access to services, states reported collaborating with neighborhood-based support organizations, establishing interagency agreements to improve access to these services, and implementing an alternative approach to the assessment process that emphasizes helping families obtain needed supports and services, instead of removing children from their families. For example, in Los Angeles County, child welfare officials went door to door in minority neighborhoods to find service providers beyond those with whom they historically contracted. This collaboration helped build trust between the community and the child welfare agency and increased families’ use of the services provided.

For African American children who cannot ultimately be reunified with their parents, states also reported devising strategies to increase the number of permanent homes available to them. To increase the options for African American children, 46 states reported making diligent searches for fathers and other paternal kin who can care for these children—not a routine practice until recently. Additionally, a federal law passed in 1994 and amended in 1996 require states to diligently recruit potential foster and adoptive families that reflect the ethnic and racial diversity of children in the state who need foster and adoptive homes. Likely in response to these laws, states have adopted various strategies to recruit greater numbers of African American adoptive parents, such as contracting with faith-based organizations and convening adoption support teams. However, despite these efforts, the number of African American children adopted by African American parents has not increased in recent years. In addition, HHS’s 2001 to 2004 review found that only 21 of 52 states were sufficiently recruiting minority families, and one report found that the recruitment of minority families was one of the greatest challenges for nearly all states.

Using subsidized guardianship as an alternative to adoption may hold particular promise for reducing disproportionality, and more than half of the states surveyed reported using this strategy. African American children are more likely than White children to be placed with relatives for foster care, which is generally a longer-term placement, and these relative caregivers are also more likely than nonrelative foster parents to be low- income. They may be unwilling to adopt because they may find it difficult financially to forego foster care payments or because adoption entails terminating the parental rights of their kin. However, subsidized guardianship programs provide financial support for foster parents (often relatives) who agree to become legally responsible for children but are unable or willing to adopt. When Illinois and California implemented two of the largest of such programs, they subsequently saw an increase in permanent placements for all children. After instituting their subsidized guardianship programs, more than 40 percent of children who were in long-term relative foster care in both states found permanency. In Illinois, this decrease also coincided with a reduction in disproportionate numbers of African American children in foster care.

In addition to these types of strategies, child welfare administrators and researchers told us that data collection, analysis, and dissemination are needed to inform attempts to address disproportionality. These data can include not only disproportionality rates but also information that identifies the extent to which disproportionality occurs among different age groups, at different stages in the child welfare process, and in different locations. For example, a California researcher used state data to show that African American infants enter foster care at a much higher rate than infants of other races or ethnicities and that this disproportionality grows as children get older because African American children are also less likely to exit foster care. Such data analyses help states and localities devise strategies to address the issue and can also be useful for building consensus among community leaders and policymakers for action. However, some state and local agencies have limited capacity to do this. In responding to our survey, 25 states reported that receiving technical assistance from HHS in calculating disproportionality rates and tracking it over time would be useful. California state child welfare officials told us that without the aid of a university researcher, they would not have the ability to help counties that lack the capacity to collect and analyze their data. Despite the importance of data analysis, 18 states reported that they were not regularly analyzing or using data in their efforts to address disproportionality.

HHS has made technical assistance and information on disproportionality available to states at conferences and through various HHS Web sites. In addition, the agency is compiling an inventory of tools and best practices for addressing disproportionality. Despite these efforts, states report that they need further information and technical assistance to strengthen their current efforts in addressing disproportionality. Accordingly, in our July 2007 report, we recommended that HHS take certain actions to further assist states in understanding and addressing the nature and extent of racial disproportionality in their child welfare systems. In its comments, HHS noted that our recommendation was consistent with its efforts to provide technical assistance to states for addressing disproportionality, but the department did not address the specific actions we recommended. We continue to believe that it is important for HHS to take these actions to help states address this complex issue.

States Reported That More Flexibility to Use Federal Funds for Prevention Services and Subsidized Guardianship Could Help Reduce Disproportionality

While states viewed some federal policies as helpful for reducing the proportion of African American children in foster care, they also expressed concerns regarding policies that limit the use of federal funds to provide preventive services and support legal guardianship arrangements. As an alternative to adoption, states considered subsidized guardianship as particularly helpful in enabling African American children to exit foster care but noted that while they can use federal child welfare funds to pay subsidies to adoptive parents, they cannot do so for guardians.

At least half the states we surveyed noted that the structure of federal child welfare funding may contribute to disproportionality by favoring foster care placements over services to prevent the removal of children from their homes in the first place. Of particular concern to 28 states in our survey were the caps on funding for preventive and family support services under Title IV-B, and 25 states expressed concern about their inability to use foster care funds under Title IV-E for purposes other than making payments to foster care families. A recent GAO report similarly found that preventive and family support services were the services most in need of greater federal, state, or local resources. According to California and Minnesota officials, because the majority of federal child welfare funds are used for foster care payments instead of preventive services, federal funding policies did not align with states’ efforts to reduce the number of children entering foster care by serving at-risk children safely in their homes. However, states do have the freedom to use other federal funds, particularly TANF block grants, to provide preventive and supportive services to families, and 23 states reported that the ability to use these funds contributes to a reduction in the proportion of African American children in foster care. States face competing priorities for the use of their TANF block grant funds, and not all states use them for child welfare activities.

Once children are removed, states reported that federal policies promoting adoption were generally helpful; however, states’ views were mixed on certain requirements specifically intended to eliminate race-related barriers to adoption. Policies that promote adoption of African American children were generally viewed as helpful, such as allowing states to classify African American children as having “special needs,” which allows them to provide subsidies to adoptive parents, according to our survey results. However, views of other requirements were mixed. Although 22 states reported that the federal policies requiring states to diligently recruit ethnically and racially diverse adoptive families would help reduce disproportionality, 9 states reported the federal requirements had no effect, and 15 states reported that they were unable to tell.

States continue to face challenges in recruiting adoptive families---such as a shortage of willing and qualified parents, especially for older African American children, or a lack of resources for recruiting initiatives---and more than half of states are not meeting HHS performance goals in this area. Over the last 5 years, African American children and Native American children have consistently experienced lower rates of adoption than children of other races and ethnicities, and since 2000, adoption rates have reached a plateau, according to HHS data and other research.

As an alternative to adoption, many child welfare officials and researchers we interviewed considered subsidizing legal guardianship a particularly important way to help African American children exit foster care. However, there are no federal subsidies for guardianship similar to those available for adoption, which constrains states’ ability to place children in these arrangements. Seven states have a federal demonstration waiver, which allows them to use Title IV-E funds for subsidized guardianship. All states did so in a cost-neutral manner, as required by the waivers. In California and Illinois, subsidizing these legal guardianships has been found to reduce the number of children in foster care, including African American children. In addition, guardianship and adoption both have been found to provide comparable levels of stability for children and show similar outcomes in terms of emotional and physical health, according to an evaluation of Illinois’s guardianship program. Because of the challenges states face finding adoptive homes for many African American children and because legal guardianship may offer a more suitable alternative for families who want to permanently care for related children without necessarily adopting them, we recommended, in our 2007 draft report, that HHS pursue specific measures to allow adoption assistance payments to be used for subsidizing legal guardianship. In its comments, HHS disagreed with our recommendation, stating that its proposal for restructuring child welfare funding, known as the Child Welfare Program Option, would give states the option to do this. However, HHS has presented this option in its budget proposal each year since 2004, but no legislation has been offered to date to authorize it. Moreover, even if enacted, it is unknown how many states would choose to implement this funding structure. Because the viability of HHS’s proposal is uncertain, in our final July 2007 report, we suggested that Congress consider amending current law to allow adoption assistance payments to be used for legal guardianship. To date, the House of Representatives has passed a bill with a provision to allow states to use federal funds to subsidize legal guardianship for relatives, and the Senate has introduced a bill with a similar provision.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I would be pleased to respond to any questions you or other Members of the Subcommittee may have.

GAO Contacts and Acknowledgments

For further information about this testimony, please contact me at (202) 512-7215 or brownke@gao.gov. Individuals making key contributions to this testimony include Kim Siegal, Theresa Lo, Deborah A. Signer, Gale Harris, and Charlie Willson.

Related GAO Products

Disconnected Youth: Federal Action Could Address Some of the Challenges Faced by Local Programs That Reconnect Youth to Education and Employment. GAO-08-313. Washington, D.C.: February 28, 2008.

African American Children in Foster Care: Additional HHS Assistance Needed to Help States Reduce the Proportion in Care. GAO-07-816. Washington, D.C.: July 11, 2007.

Child Welfare: Improving Social Service program, Training, and Technical Assistance Information Would Help Address Long-standing Service-level and Workforce Challenges. GAO-07-75. Washington, D.C.: October 6, 2006.

Child and Family Services Reviews: Better Use of Data and Improved Guidance Could Enhance HHS’s Oversight of State Performance. GAO- 04-333. Washington, D.C.: April 20, 2004.

HHS Actions Could Improve Coordination of Services and Monitoring of States’ Independent Living Programs. GAO-05-25. Washington, D.C.: November 18, 2004.

Child Welfare: Enhanced Federal Oversight of Title IV-B Could Provide States Additional Information to Improve Services. GAO-03-956. Washington, D.C.: September 12, 2003.

Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice: Federal Agencies Could Play a Stronger Role in Helping States Reduce the Number of Children Placed Solely to Obtain Mental Health Service. GAO-03-397. Washington, D.C.: April 23, 2003 (reissued on August 11, 2003).

Foster Care: Recent Legislation Helps States Focus on Finding Permanent Homes for Children, but Long-Standing Barriers Remain. GAO-02-585. Washington, D.C.: June 28, 2002.

Foster Care: Kinship Care Quality and Permanency Issues. GAO-99-32. Washington, D.C.: May 6, 1999.

Foster Care Implementation of the Multiethnic Placement Act Poses Difficult Challenges. GAO-98-204. Washington, D.C.: September 14, 1998.

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