Child Welfare: More Information and Collaboration Could Promote Ties Between Foster Care Children and Their Incarcerated Parents
Released: 2011-09-26T00:00:00

Letter

Background

Foster Care Children and the Child Welfare System

A child generally enters foster care after a dependency court and a child welfare agency have determined that the child should be removed from his or her home, for reasons such as substantiated abuse or neglect. Children in foster care may be temporarily placed in various types of out- of-home care arrangements, including in a foster home with relatives, in a foster home with nonrelatives, or in a group residential setting. Federal law requires that state child welfare agencies consider giving preference to placing children with qualified relatives, if consistent with the best interest of the child. Approximately one-quarter of children in foster care in fiscal year 2009 lived with relatives, according to HHS data.

Federal law also requires child welfare agencies to make “reasonable efforts” to preserve and reunify families in most cases, but leaves it to states to define what these efforts entail, on a case by case basis. However, at a minimum, child welfare agencies must make a diligent effort to identify and notify all adult relatives shortly after the child’s removal from the custody of the parent. They must also develop a case plan for each foster care child which, among other requirements, must describe the services that will be provided to the parents, child, and foster parents to facilitate the child’s return to his or her own home or permanent placement, and address the child’s needs while in foster care. The plan may also specify goals for placing the child in a permanent home and the steps that a parent (or the principal caretaker) must take before a child can be returned home, if reunification is the goal.

In general, returning children to their home is the preferred goal of state child welfare agencies, but this goal is still dependent on various factors, such as the extent that a parent has completed rehabilitative treatment or maintained a meaningful role in the child’s life through visits or other forms of contact. In fiscal year 2009, about half of the nation’s children who exited foster care were reunified with their parent or primary caretaker (see table 1).

The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA) was passed, in part, in response to concerns about the length of time children were spending in foster care and included provisions to facilitate child welfare agencies’ ability to place children more quickly into safe and permanent homes. For example, the law requires child welfare agencies to hold permanency hearings within 12 months of the child’s entering foster care to determine the permanent placement for the child and requires child welfare agencies to file a petition to terminate parental rights when a child has been in foster care for 15 of the most recent 22 months (see fig. 1). However, states are not required to file for termination of parental rights if a child is in the care of relatives, the state has not provided necessary services to the family consistent with the case plan, or the state agency documents a compelling reason why filing for termination is not in the best interests of the child. These timelines and possible exceptions are relevant for incarcerated parents who have children in foster care, as 44 percent of inmates released from state prisons in 2008 served sentences longer than a year. Since the enactment of ASFA, the number of children in foster care nationwide has declined by more than 100,000, based on HHS data collected on children in care at the end of each fiscal year.

HHS administers federal grant programs and provides information, training, and technical assistance to state child welfare systems. It uses its Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) to capture, report, and analyze information collected by the states. On a semiannual basis, all states submit data to HHS concerning all foster care children for whom state child welfare agencies have responsibility for placement, care, or supervision. HHS also uses its Child and Family Services Reviews (CFSR) to regularly evaluate state child welfare systems’ conformity with federal requirements and help states improve their provision of child welfare services. These reviews examine a range of outcomes and actions to assess states’ performance and enhance their capacity to ensure children’s safety, permanency, and well-being. For example, among many other factors, HHS examines states’ attempts to preserve parent-child relationships and involve parents in discussions about the child’s case plan. To help states provide child welfare services, HHS offers states training and technical assistance through its Children’s Bureau, as well as through its regional offices and various National Resource Centers. HHS also provides information and resources through its website, “The Child Welfare Information Gateway,” which is meant to serve as a comprehensive information resource for the child welfare field.

Children of Incarcerated Parents and the Corrections System

Many children, not only those in foster care, have an incarcerated parent, and this number has grown over time. Since the early 1990s, the number of individuals in prison almost doubled from a little fewer than 800,000 in 1991 to more than 1.5 million in 2009. Many of these individuals have children. As of 2007, an estimated 1.7 million children under the age of 18 had a parent in prison—an increase of almost 80 percent since 1991 (see fig. 2). Fathers comprise more than 90 percent of the parents in prison and their numbers increased about 75 percent between 1991 and 2007. Meanwhile, the number of incarcerated mothers, who were more likely to be primary caretakers before incarceration, more than doubled during this time. Children who are minorities are disproportionately more likely to have an incarcerated parent than white children. In 2007, compared to non-Hispanic white children, non-Hispanic black children were more than seven times more likely to have a parent in prison and Hispanic children were more than two times more likely.

Incarcerated parents may have a history of complex problems, such as substance abuse, mental illness, or past trauma. For instance, in 2004, about two-thirds of parents in state prisons met clinical criteria for having substance dependence or abuse based on BJS’s most recent available estimates. The federal government supports a number of residential treatment programs that focus specifically on the treatment of parents with substance abuse problems. Although these programs may require parents with substance abuse problems to live away from home, they generally serve nonincarcerated parents. (See app. II for more information.) Mental health and medical problems were also common for incarcerated parents, although women reported these at higher rates. Incarcerated mothers were also much more likely than fathers to report past physical or sexual abuse (64 percent for mothers in state prison versus 16 percent for fathers).

The Second Chance Act of 2007 was enacted to, among other goals, reduce recidivism and provide for services to assist people transitioning back into the community from prisons and jails. The act amended existing federal grant programs and established new grant programs for state agencies and nonprofit organizations to provide a variety of programs or services that include employment assistance, substance abuse treatment, and help in maintaining or reestablishing family ties.

DOJ’s Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) oversees and establishes central policy for 116 federal prison facilities, but it does not have authority over or establish policies for state or local corrections agencies or facilities (see table 2). Nevertheless, DOJ provides assistance to these entities in the form of discretionary grants, technical assistance, and information.

Foster Care Children with an Incarcerated Parent Are Not a Well- Identified Population, but Available Data Suggest They Number in the Thousands

The complete number of foster care children with an incarcerated parent cannot be identified in the database that HHS employs as part of its oversight of state programs, but their numbers can be reasonably estimated as being in the many thousands. HHS has proposed changes to state reporting requirements that would shed more light on these children; however, the department is currently in the process of revising that proposal and officials had not yet determined if collecting additional data on incarcerated parents will be included in the new proposed requirements. Also, some states are attempting to better identify them and to determine their needs.

The National Foster Care Data System Offers Limited Information, but Shows Thousands of These Children Enter Foster Care Annually

HHS data provided by states identified at least several thousand children nationwide who entered foster care due to the incarceration of a parent in a recent year, but this does not include the total population of foster care children with incarcerated parents. Through its national data system, AFCARS, HHS collects information about the characteristics and experiences of children in the foster care system, such as their age, race, and the factors associated with their removal from the home and placement into foster care. One potential reason for a child’s removal, among many others listed in AFCARS, is the incarceration of a parent. From this information, it is possible to identify some foster care children with an incarcerated parent—those who have entered foster care solely or in part for the reason of parental incarceration—but it is not possible to identify these children in other circumstances (see figure 3). Our analysis of AFCARS information identified approximately 14,000 children who entered foster care at least partly because of parental incarceration in 2009 alone (about 8 percent of all children entering foster care in 2009); however, this is an undercount of foster care children with an incarcerated parent for several reasons. First, this number does not include children who enter foster care in other circumstances, such as:  When a parent is incarcerated sometime before the child enters foster care. For example, a child welfare official and a researcher told us that some children are placed with a relative when a parent is incarcerated, and then enter foster care when this relative-care situation places the child at risk of abuse or neglect.  When a parent is incarcerated sometime after the child enters foster care.  When an incarcerated parent, such as a noncustodial father, was not the child’s caretaker at the time of removal.

Researchers and local officials we interviewed noted that these circumstances were more common than placement in foster care specifically due to parental incarceration. While such additional information about a parent’s incarceration may be in the child’s individual child welfare case file, it is not reported in the data conveyed to HHS and incorporated into AFCARS.

Second, state reporting on these children for AFCARS is not necessarily as complete as HHS requires. For example:  HHS’s AFCARS regulations require state child welfare caseworkers to report all applicable actions or conditions associated with a child’s removal from the home, but staff sometimes enter only one reason. One state official and one local official told us that, even if incarceration were involved, a case worker may opt for a more general reason, such as neglect.  New York, which has the second largest foster care population in the United States, has historically not reported data on any reasons for removal due to some localities’ older data systems, according to HHS officials.  Similarly, a few states can report information on only one reason for removal due to older data systems and, therefore, have not regularly reported instances in which a second reason might apply.

HHS officials noted that the department assists state efforts to comply with AFCARS reporting requirements in several ways. For example, HHS has assessed most states’ AFCARS information systems to determine states’ abilities to collect, extract, and transmit AFCARS data accurately, as well as to review the timeliness and accuracy of data entry by caseworkers. When an HHS review team determines that a state does not fully satisfy the AFCARS standards, the state must make corrections identified by that team. HHS regional offices also work with states to improve their reporting by implementing training, supervisory oversight, and quality assurance, according to HHS officials.

The fact that foster care children of incarcerated parents are not a well- identified population nationally precludes analyzing those children’s characteristics and experiences, or determining whether they differ from other foster care children in terms of their backgrounds, case management, or outcomes.

Acknowledging that much of AFCARS information on the family’s circumstances is gathered only at the time a child enters foster care— when child welfare workers know the least about the family’s situation— HHS, in January 2008, proposed changing its state reporting requirements to require both additional and more current information. Specifically, the department proposed collecting additional data on circumstances that affect the child and family, such as a caretaker’s incarceration, at multiple times throughout a foster care case. However, due to significant statutory amendments made in October 2008 to the federal foster care and adoption assistance programs, in 2010, HHS announced plans to publish a new proposal to revise AFCARS and solicited suggestions about what case-level data would be important for agencies to collect and report to HHS. HHS officials told us that they are currently developing the new proposal for reporting requirements and estimated that it would be issued for public comment in February 2012. Officials had not yet determined whether the new proposed rule would include the same requirements on gathering additional information on a caretaker’s incarceration at multiple times throughout the foster care case as had been included in the 2008 proposal. Officials also said that they did not know when a final set of reporting requirements would be issued, as such timing is, in part, dependent on the comments received in response to the proposed rule.

DOJ Survey Data Suggest Thousands of Foster Care Children Have an Incarcerated Parent

Although HHS data do not identify the complete number of foster care children with an incarcerated parent, BJS inmate surveys from 2004 and 2002—the most recent years available—suggest that there are many thousands of these children. Specifically, based on the 2004 survey of federal and state prison inmates, we estimate that about 19,300 inmates (about 13,700 men and 5,600 women) had at least one child in foster or agency care in 2004 and that the total number of these children likely exceeded 22,800. Similarly, a 2002 survey of inmates in local jails estimated that approximately 12,000 of these parents in jail had at least one child in foster care or cared for through an agency in 2002. These surveys asked a nationally representative sample of inmates about their children, the care arrangements for those children, and other questions regarding their families’ circumstances and experiences. The surveys also found that a higher percentage of mothers have at least one child in foster care; some state officials said that this is because fewer incarcerated mothers, compared to incarcerated fathers, have the option of having the other parent take care of the child (see figure 4). Nevertheless, close to 90 percent of all parents in state and federal prison (mothers and fathers) with a child in foster care reported that they had shared or had been providing most of the care for their child prior to their incarceration, based on the 2004 survey.

Estimates of the number of inmates with children in foster care may be a conservative indicator of the number of children of inmates that are in foster care settings. This is because the inmate surveys do not fully account for inmates who have more than one child in foster care. Also, some of the children reported as living with relatives may be in relative care that is supervised by the child welfare system, according to two researchers we interviewed. Finally, prisoners may be generally reluctant to report that they have children or provide information on their children for various reasons, according to DOJ and several state and local officials. On the other hand, it is possible that incarcerated parents surveyed could report on the same child, since both mothers and fathers were survey subjects, though DOJ officials overseeing the survey and data said this situation was probably rare.

Some States Are Gathering Additional Data to Understand the Population Better

Several state child welfare and corrections agencies are collecting additional data on foster care children with incarcerated parents to better understand such children and their parental circumstances. Officials from several states said that their state information is too limited to understand the population and that more data would be useful to help policymakers decide on policies or programs that might affect these children. Of the 10 state child welfare agencies we interviewed, three said they were collecting additional data not required by AFCARS that could help identify these children. For example, officials in New York’s child welfare agency said the agency has begun to collect more information in its state child welfare information system that would indicate whether the parent is in a correctional facility, based on the parent’s address. Moreover, officials at two corrections agencies in states we interviewed said they wer collecting information on inmates’ children and their care arrangements while the parent is incarcerated. Oregon’s Department of Corrections, for example, currently collects data on all prisoners regarding whether they have children and their children’s living arrangements, though this information is not housed in an automated system. Officials from e Oregon’s Department of Corrections said that, based on surveys and interviews of offenders in Oregon state prisons in 2000, 2002, and 2008, about 10 percent of incarcerated mothers and about 6 percent of incarcerated fathers had children living in foster care.

Child welfare officials from California informed us that they have done some limited analysis of the parental address information the state collects, in response to a request from the California legislature to provide numbers on the foster care children of incarcerated parents. At our request, California officials updated and expanded this research, and said that 2,288 of California’s 52,561 children in foster care (about 4 percent) had an incarcerated parent as of January 1, 2011. Of those children, 1,268 had an incarcerated father and 1,020 had an incarcerated mother, according to the California officials. Officials also said that children with a case plan goal of adoption were slightly more likely to have an incarcerated parent than children with a goal of reunification.

Strategies for Preserving Families Include Flexibility in Timelines for Terminating Parental Rights, Programs for Parents, and Interagency Collaboration

In our examination of 10 states and their child welfare and corrections agencies, we found states employed a number of strategies to support family ties for all children of incarcerated parents, including some strategies designed specifically for children in foster care. These strategies are intended to address some of the challenges incarcerated parents may face related to maintaining their parental rights and contact with their children or to aid caseworkers in managing such cases. While state and local officials discussed examples of these strategies, we did not review how widely these strategies were used in each state, nor did we evaluate the effectiveness of these strategies.

Several State Child Welfare Statutes Specifically Address the Special Circumstances of Incarcerated Parents

Termination of Parental Rights Provisions

Federal law allows for exceptions on a case-by-case basis to the requirement that states file to terminate parental rights when a child has been in foster care for 15 of the most recent 22 months. In addition to these federal exceptions, some of the 10 states included in our review have enacted explicit statutory provisions that could prevent or delay filing for termination of parental rights for incarcerated parents in certain circumstances. For example:  Nebraska prohibits filing for termination of parental rights solely on the basis that the parent is incarcerated.  California and New York require child welfare agencies and courts to consider the particular barriers faced by incarcerated parents—such as whether parents are able to maintain contact with their children or whether they lack access to rehabilitative services that would support reunification—when making certain decisions regarding termination.  New York and Colorado include provisions related to the requirement to file for termination of parental rights when a child has been in foster care for 15 of the most recent 22 months. New York allows child welfare agencies to delay filing for termination beyond standard timelines in certain cases where a parent is incarcerated. Specifically, in 2010, New York amended its statute to provide that the child welfare agency need not file for termination when a child has been in foster care for 15 of the most recent 22 months if, based on a case- by-case determination, the parent is incarcerated and maintains a meaningful role in the child’s life. Colorado does not require courts to consider the fact that the child has been in foster care for 15 of the most recent 22 months when deciding whether to terminate parental rights if the reason for the child’s length of stay is due to circumstances beyond the parent’s control, such as the parent’s incarceration “for a reasonable period of time.”

While many of the state child welfare officials we spoke to said that federal timelines were difficult to meet for parents serving lengthier sentences, many state and local child welfare officials as well as child advocacy representatives did not think that such timelines should be changed specifically for incarcerated parents. Officials we spoke with said these timelines are important for being able to place children, especially younger children, as soon as possible into permanent homes. On the other hand, several local child welfare officials and caseworkers in New York and California told us these exceptions can make the difference in whether some parents can meet requirements in a case plan needed to reunify with their children.

Federal law requires that child welfare agencies make reasonable efforts to reunify foster care children with their families before filing for termination; however, these efforts are subject to certain exceptions. In managing a foster care case involving an incarcerated parent, child welfare agency staff may work with both the parent and corrections officials at several junctures, as shown in figure 5.

Federal law does not define what constitutes “reasonable efforts,” leaving it to states to define, on a case-by-case basis. Among our selected states, California and New York specify in statute what such efforts may entail with regard to incarcerated parents, such as:  Maintaining the parent-child relationship. New York law directs the child welfare agency to arrange for transporting the child to visit the correctional facility, if it is in the best interests of the child. California law provides examples of services that may be provided to incarcerated parents, which may include such things as facilitating parent-child telephone calls and transportation services, where appropriate.

Involving the parent in the child’s case. Both states have statutes that may permit the use of videoconference or teleconference in certain circumstances, when such technology is available. In New York an incarcerated parent may use such technology to participate in developing the family service plan, including the child’s permanency plan. In California, courts may allow incarcerated parents to use it to participate in certain court hearings.

Identifying rehabilitative services for the parent or documenting if such services are not available. New York requires child welfare agencies to provide incarcerated parents with information on social or rehabilitative services, including wherever possible transitional and family support services in the community to which they will return upon their release. California requires the caseworker to document in the case plan the particular barriers faced by incarcerated parents in accessing court-ordered services (such as counseling, parenting classes, or vocational training).

In 2008, California amended its law to allow courts to extend court- ordered services for recently released parents who are making significant progress in establishing a safe home for the child, if there is a substantial probability that the child will be returned to the parent within the extended period or if reasonable services were not provided to the parent. A few caseworkers we spoke to considered this extension unfair to parents who had not been incarcerated. On the other hand, a dependency court judge we interviewed did not consider the law a “free pass” for incarcerated parents, since her decision would, as in other foster care cases, balance the likelihood that a parent could improve over time with a child’s immediate need for stability.

Some State Agencies Provide Guidance and Training, and Some Local Agencies Make Additional Efforts to Involve Parents in the Case or Contact Their Children

Agency Guidance and Training

Five of the 10 state child welfare agencies we spoke to have developed either statewide guidance or training on managing cases with children of incarcerated parents. California and New York officials said their general statewide training includes specific information for caseworkers on how to work with incarcerated parents in accordance with their state laws. New York officials said they also recently provided training on the new law that excuses filing for termination of parental rights under the standard timelines for certain incarcerated parents. Additionally, Michigan and Florida state child welfare officials said that new guidance to local agencies had resulted from recent state court cases involving incarcerated parents who had successfully appealed the termination of their parental rights. For example, Michigan officials reported holding a statewide webinar and providing information to local agencies after the Michigan Supreme Court reversed the termination of parental rights for an incarcerated parent because, among other reasons, the child welfare agency failed to provide sufficient reunification services.

State and local officials we interviewed reported a number of local initiatives that have been undertaken by child welfare agencies, dependency courts, and correctional facilities to address the logistical barriers, expense, and disincentives involved when including an inmate in a child’s foster care case. For example, when the prison facility is located far from a county dependency court, transportation can be costly and require an extended absence from the facility. In the latter case, the parent can lose certain privileges or programming opportunities, according to child welfare and corrections officials. To address these barriers, dependency courts and several state prisons in Los Angeles, California, initiated, under a recently enacted state law, a pilot program that allows an inmate to participate in certain child welfare hearings via videoconference. Additionally, a few counties in Florida and Pennsylvania, while not guided by legislation, have begun to hold child welfare hearings via video or telephone for incarcerated parents, according to state officials. State officials we interviewed in Nebraska, Florida, and Michigan and local officials in California also described holding a child’s case planning meetings at the jail or including the parent by phone in some situations. Further, to address some of the logistical barriers to contact between these parents and their children, several local child welfare agencies in New York and California said they used assistants to help drive children to prisons or to supervise parent-child visits. State child welfare officials in a few other states also said that they had policies to provide prepaid phone cards to incarcerated parents or policies to accept collect calls from the parents to discuss their child’s case.

Corrections Agencies Provided Programs and Facilitated Parent-Child Visits and Communication

Parenting and Rehabilitation Programs

Officials with correctional departments we interviewed offered a range of services to their general inmate populations relevant to parent rehabilitation, such as parenting programs and substance abuse treatment. However, the extent of such services varied among states and facilities. Officials at all 10 state departments of correction we interviewed reported having parenting classes in at least at a few facilities, although most said such classes sometimes had wait lists and some were only at women’s facilities. These parenting classes have been aimed at the general inmate population, although officials from a few facilities we visited told us that their parenting classes have covered the topic of parental rights, which may be more applicable to parents with children in foster care. Further, state corrections officials from Nebraska and Oregon told us that their agencies had taken steps to align their parenting curricula to meet child welfare standards and prevent parents from having to retake these classes to satisfy child welfare requirements upon release.

Some corrections agencies we interviewed also administered treatment programs that allow incarcerated mothers to live with their young children who were not in foster care. For instance, some BOP facilities allow incarcerated women who are pregnant and meet certain criteria to go to a community program outside the facility for 3 months after the child is born in order to promote bonding and parenting skills. Likewise, officials in five states reported having in-prison nurseries or similar programs in at least one of their correctional facilities. In these programs, mothers live with their infants at the facility for a period of time after birth, up to 18 months, often receiving treatment and services, such as pre- and post-natal care, parenting classes, and counseling. Eligibility criteria for mothers may include being classified as a low security risk or having a limited amount of remaining time on their sentence. A state prison official commented that their facility’s 18-month nursery program affords mothers time to make amends with family members who may be more willing to care for the children while the mother completes her sentence. According to this official, most of these mothers give their infants to family caregivers without involving the child welfare system. In addition, state corrections agencies in California and Nebraska have allowed young children to live with their parents in residential drug treatment programs as an alternative to incarceration. For example, since 1999, California’s corrections department has administered the Family Foundations Program which provides substance abuse treatment and other services to mothers with nonviolent convictions and sentences of 36 months or less.

Some corrections agencies had general policies or programs to mitigate the distance between prisoners and their families. Experts, advocates, and officials from both child welfare and correctional agencies we interviewed noted that the distance between incarcerated parents and their families was a major challenge for preserving family ties, particularly as prisons tend to be located far from urban areas. State corrections agencies in California, Pennsylvania, and Florida have formal policies to consider the location of an inmate’s family when assigning the inmate to a facility. Circumstances such as mental health or security needs take precedent over proximity to family, according to officials, and such policies were generally not realizable for women due to the limited number of female prison facilities. In addition, some corrections agencies provided free bus transportation for families to visit inmates. For example, New York and Pennsylvania’s departments of correction provide free or subsidized bus transportation between large cities and prison facilities hours away for children and adults visiting inmates.

The Osborne Association (Osborne), a nonprofit community provider, working with the New York Department of Corrections recently set up video conferencing for children to ‘visit’ with their incarcerated parents. Osborne currently has an agreement to conduct tele-visits with one state women’s prison. Fifteen to 20 children from 2–17 years of age currently participate to varying levels in tele-visits lasting 45 minutes to an hour, according to Osborne staff. During visits, parents and children usually participate in activities or crafts together similar to an in-person visit.

Further, because on-site visits were not always possible, a few correctional facilities in California, New York, and Pennsylvania were starting to use technology so that incarcerated parents could visit virtually with their children. Children participate through video equipment located at community service organizations or other sites such as local parole offices.

Also, most corrections agencies had strategies to make visiting prisons more comfortable for children, sometimes specifically for foster care children. Officials representing seven different state departments of correction, as well as federal BOP officials, said that some of their facilities (often at least half) had special child-friendly visiting areas— particularly for women’s facilities. Several corrections agencies also had special procedures and trained staff to meet visiting children at the correctional facility entrance and guide them through a separate screening process. Also, corrections agencies in New York, California, Nebraska, and Colorado had specific policies for caseworkers and foster care children, such as visiting hours on weekdays in addition to usual weekend visitation so that caseworkers can transport the children.

Extended visitation programs that allow parents and children to visit within the prison for longer periods of time, such as a full day or week, were offered in at least a few facilities within 8 of our 10 states. Some of the programs have bonding activities where parents work on reunification and parenting strategies with their children. For example, corrections officials from 3 of our 10 states told us that the Girls Scouts Beyond Bars program occurred in one or more of their women’s prisons. This program, originally developed by DOJ, typically provides regular visits and interaction between incarcerated mothers and their daughters.

Some Corrections and Child Welfare Agencies Have Collaborated to Align Their Program Requirements and Assign Liaisons

State Level Collaboration

Child welfare and corrections officials in 6 of our 10 states collaborated at the state level to clarify policies, develop procedures, and provide information to staff. For example, in response to a recent state supreme court case reversing the termination of parental rights for an incarcerated parent, Michigan’s child welfare agency worked with state corrections officials to draft a memorandum to prison supervisors on ways to support child welfare staff who are working with incarcerated parents. Specifically, the memorandum required that corrections staff allow inmates to participate via phone in court hearings and planning meetings with child welfare officials, when requested, and any programs that will help improve their parenting skills. In New York, according to state officials, the recent legislation on filing for termination of parental rights for incarcerated parents was, in part, the impetus for the joint development of protocols for ways state corrections and child welfare agencies should coordinate. Per these protocols, child welfare staff must contact corrections staff to schedule meetings with parents and arrange children’s visits while corrections staff should return such calls within one week. The agencies also collaborated to develop training on the protocols for their respective staffs. New York’s state child welfare office also developed materials on the legal rights and responsibilities of parents that child welfare staff can use with incarcerated parents (see fig. 6).

In some instances, state legislation directed government agencies to collaborate to meet the needs of children with incarcerated parents. In Oregon, according to officials, legislation passed in 2001 led corrections and child welfare agencies to collaborate to gather and share data, conduct joint training and outreach sessions, and better coordinate services for released inmates. More recently, officials from Pennsylvania told us about a 2009 legislative resolution that directed the creation of an advisory committee to study children of incarcerated parents and recommend ways to assess their needs, the services available to them, and the barriers to accessing those services.

Many of the child welfare caseworkers we interviewed cited difficulty reaching staff at correctional facilities and navigating prison or jail policies as a challenge. However, we were told in interviews about examples of liaisons, in 5 of our 10 states, who facilitate communication between the agencies. These liaisons understand the procedures and operations of both agencies and work with officials to navigate each system and serve as a single point of contact. For example, in California, Texas, and Alabama, one or more state women’s prisons have employed a social worker who helps child welfare caseworkers locate offenders or helps inmates enroll in classes or services that the child’s case plan requires. More commonly, we heard of examples of cooperation between county jails and local welfare agencies due to their shared county jurisdiction and being geographically close. For example, in San Francisco, California, a liaison based at a county jail was responsible for notifying parents about their case; facilitating parent-child visits; and providing updates to parents, child welfare caseworkers, and jail staff about the visits. On a larger scale, staff of New York City’s Children of Incarcerated Parents Program, supported by the city’s child welfare agency, facilitate visits to 24 correctional facilities within New York. Such staff also prepare child welfare staff and foster parents for visits with incarcerated parents. Officials from agencies with liaison-type positions noted that they found the relationship helpful.

HHS and DOJ Provide Some Relevant Information and Assistance, but State Agencies Are Not Always Aware of These Resources

HHS and DOJ each provide information and assistance to child welfare and corrections agencies related to children with incarcerated parents, albeit not usually focused on foster care children in particular. In the course of its on-site reviews of state and local foster care systems, however, HHS assesses whether state agencies have taken steps to work with incarcerated parents. Both HHS and DOJ post information on their websites relevant to practitioners working with children or their incarcerated parents. However, some state child welfare and corrections agencies we interviewed were not necessarily aware of these resources or told us that more information would be useful. Although the Second Chance Act gives DOJ discretionary authority to collect and disseminate information on best practices in collaboration between state corrections and welfare agencies, DOJ has not taken initiative in this area.

HHS Encourages Child Welfare Agencies to Work with Incarcerated Parents but Has Not Promoted Available Information about Such Families

HHS examines how state and local child welfare agencies work with incarcerated parents in the course of its regular and recurring state performance reviews, the CFSRs. For instance, one of HHS’s CFSR instruments assesses whether agencies have “encouraged and facilitated contact with incarcerated parents (where appropriate) or with parents not living in close proximity to the child,” as part of its examination of a state’s effort to strengthen parent-child relationships. HHS’s most recent CFSR reports for our 10 selected states (conducted between 2007 and 2010) also afford evidence of this oversight. For three states, HHS reviewers cited instances in need of improvement, such as when child welfare agencies in the state had not tried to facilitate visits between parents and their children or needed to improve their efforts to locate and involve a noncustodial incarcerated parent in case planning. HHS reviewers commended agencies in six states for their efforts to work with incarcerated parents, citing agencies in New York for facilitating parent- child visits, in Pennsylvania for enabling incarcerated parents to participate in group decision-making meetings by phone, and in Alabama for coordinating with other government agencies to help incarcerated mothers reenter communities and reconnect with their children.

Most of HHS’s support for foster care children with incarcerated parents is in the form of informational resources across multiple websites that are not centrally organized. HHS’s Child Welfare Information Gateway posts reports under topic areas labeled “Children in Out-of-Home-Care With Incarcerated Parents” and “Services to Children & Families of Prisoners.” When we reviewed these websites, most publications listed under these topic areas were from prior to 2006. Further, these topic area websites did not cross-reference other HHS-supported websites with more recent information. For example, HHS’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation has a list of citations on its website under “Research and Promising Approaches” for families with incarcerated parents. Additionally, the HHS-funded National Resource Center for Permanency and Family Connections posts research studies as well as various state-produced resources on how to work with foster care children of incarcerated parents. Although the Gateway is meant to serve as a comprehensive informational resource for the child welfare field, its relevant topic areas, such as “Children in Out-of-Home-Care With Incarcerated Parents,” did not cross-reference these other websites where we found more recent information.

Moreover, we found that some of the state child welfare agencies we interviewed were not aware of the HHS resources for working with foster care children and their incarcerated parents. Officials from few of our 10 selected states had used or were aware that the Child Welfare Information Gateway website had relevant information. Officials from four states said that, while they had used this website for other resources, they were not aware that it had any information about working with children in child welfare and their incarcerated parents. Additionally, state child welfare officials in 8 of the 10 states said they would like to have more information for working with incarcerated parents. In particular, officials from several states said that they would like examples of what might constitute “reasonable efforts” with such parents. Similarly, a number of state child welfare officials we interviewed said that they would like to know of promising practices used by other states or localities such as how to better work with corrections agencies.

DOJ’s National Institute of Corrections is developing a “Gender Informed Practice Assessment” designed to help correctional facilities develop policies and practices that are appropriate for female offenders; improve the safety and welfare of women; and, ultimately, reduce recidivism. Several items in the assessment recognize the role of children in female offenders’ lives such as designing visitation areas that are friendly and respectful to families, providing programming that facilitates healthy parent-child relationships, and informing women of their legal rights, including those involving custody of their children. According to the National Institute of Corrections, the assessment was developed based on evidence-based practices, standards in the field, and expert recommendations. The institute is developing the assessment in collaboration with the Center for Effective Public Policy, a nonprofit organization that provides training and technical assistance to practioners in criminal and juvenile justice issues.

HHS has also administered two discretionary grant programs aimed at all children with incarcerated parents or the incarcerated parents, themselves. One is the Mentoring Children of Prisoners program, authorized in 2002 in response to the growing number of children with an incarcerated parent. Through one-on-one community-based mentoring, the program was intended, in part, to help alleviate some of the behavioral and academic risks that these youth face, as a result of their parent’s incarceration and other related factors. Until fiscal year 2010, HHS received about $50 million annually to administer grants to public and private entities operating the mentoring programs. However, this program was not funded for fiscal year 2011, according to HHS officials. The other program, known as the Healthy Marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood grant program, funds some projects which offer parenting and family strengthening services for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated fathers and their partners. HHS is currently evaluating 12 such grant projects for incarcerated fathers to determine their effectiveness on outcomes such as marital stability, recidivism, and family financial well-being.

DOJ Provides Some Assistance and Information to Corrections Agencies to Help Families, but Not on Ways to Work with Child Welfare Agencies

DOJ’s relevant information and assistance to corrections agencies largely focuses on all offenders and their children. The department’s National Institute of Corrections has provided information and technical assistance to state corrections agencies, for example, on setting up in-prison nursery programs, developing corrections training curricula about offenders’ children and families, and developing practices specifically for female offenders, according to DOJ and state officials we interviewed.

Officials with 8 of the 10 corrections agencies we interviewed reported using the National Institute of Corrections’ general resources related to offenders with children. In addition, the National Institute of Justice— DOJ’s research, development, and evaluation branch—has published and funded research on children of incarcerated parents, some of which has looked specifically at children in foster care.

DOJ has engaged in some activities related to children of incarcerated parents under the Second Chance Act. For example, according to DOJ officials, the department administered about $7.4 million in grants in fiscal year 2010 to state and local government agencies serving incarcerated adults to incorporate family-based treatment practices in their facilities. A local sheriff’s department in California, for instance, reported using grants from this program to support its jail-based parenting class program among other activities to promote family relationships for incarcerated parents who will reenter their communities. DOJ has also led the Federal Reentry Interagency Council that supports reentry efforts by enhancing communication, coordination, and collaboration across the federal government. Other federal departments represented on the council include HHS and the U.S. Departments of Labor, Education, and Housing and Urban Development. The council recently undertook an education campaign to clarify federal policies regarding the families of incarcerated or formerly incarcerated individuals, by producing one-pagers entitled, “Reentry Myth Busters.” One such leaflet, developed through collaboration between HHS and DOJ, cites as “myth” the belief that child welfare agencies are required to terminate parental rights for incarcerated parents and explains that federal law gives child welfare agencies and states “discretion to work with incarcerated parents, their children and the caregivers to preserve and strengthen family relationships.” (See figure 7.)

However, beyond this activity, DOJ has not taken initiative to act on a provision of the Second Chance Act that authorizes DOJ, at its discretion, to collect and disseminate information on best practices for collaboration between child welfare and corrections agencies to support children of incarcerated parents, including those in foster care, and to support parent-child relationships, as appropriate. According to officials from the National Institute of Justice, which would be responsible for implementing this provision, no specific activities are planned. Officials said that no funds have been appropriated specifically for this provision, and although DOJ did receive a $10 million research appropriation in fiscal year 2010 that could have been used to fund activities under this provision, that money was primarily used to fund three evaluation research grants related to reentry programs. These officials maintained that the National Institute of Justice has long supported research on children of incarcerated parents, typically in collaboration with HHS; nevertheless, neither it nor the National Institute of Corrections has taken steps to identify and disseminate examples of successful collaboration between child welfare and corrections agencies, as authorized by the act.

BOP has also not developed any protocols to the federal prisons under its own jurisdiction for working with child welfare agencies and their staff. BOP has established some national standards and protocols for all of its facilities, such as for parenting classes and visiting areas. However, it has not set such protocols for how its facilities should deal with child welfare agencies trying to meet the needs of inmates with children in foster care, according to officials from BOP’s Central Office. Although we found a few state and local corrections agencies that had taken initiative to facilitate communication with child welfare agencies, such as by having a designated point of contact, we did not find these efforts in the two federal prisons we visited. Moreover, a number of child welfare officials, local caseworkers, and dependency court judges told us that it can be particularly difficult to establish appropriate contact with federal prisons and several said that more collaboration from federal prisons would help facilitate their work with foster care children with incarcerated parents. Several judges we interviewed said that it could be difficult to have federal inmates participate in child welfare dependency hearings, for example, because prison officials were unresponsive. Several local child welfare officials said that it was challenging to reach staff at a federal prison to get information on an incarcerated parent. Neither of the two federal facilities we visited had a designated staff position or a process for handling child welfare inquiries. Officials from one facility said that, at any one time, a different official might field questions from child welfare workers or inmates with children who are involved in child welfare. A few incarcerated mothers with whom we spoke said corrections staff vary as to how helpful they are, and they expressed the view that a designated position would be helpful. Further, BOP Central Office officials said that establishing protocols on how its facilities should deal with child welfare agencies could enhance or facilitate communication between the two parties. This is in keeping with one of BOP’s strategic planning goals that aims to build partnerships with other entities to help improve the effectiveness of its services and promote reintegration of offenders into communities.

Moreover, among the officials from the 10 state corrections agencies and the BOP who we interviewed, 8 said that additional information from DOJ on how child welfare and corrections could better collaborate to address these children and their families would be very useful. Officials said that corrections agencies would benefit from practices that could improve prison visits for foster care children, tools that could facilitate communication between child welfare and corrections staff, and ways to share their data on affected families. State corrections and BOP officials we interviewed told us that they could use additional information from DOJ on other practices, programs, or policies that would support family ties between offenders and their children. (See fig. 8.)

Conclusions

For children in foster care with an incarcerated parent, reunification is often not possible or appropriate, especially if the prison sentence is long or the parent-child tie is already compromised by abuse, neglect, or other complex problems such as substance abuse. Yet, for children and parents who have the potential for reunification or who would benefit from maintaining their parent-child ties, the lack of information about these cases may affect policymakers’ decisions and limit opportunities to improve these families’ outcomes. Given concerns about whether incarcerated parents can maintain their parental rights under federal child welfare timelines, as well as state legislation to address the special circumstances of children with incarcerated parents, the lack of complete data leaves legislators less able to assess the impact of these policies on this group of children.

Meanwhile, although not seemingly widespread, pockets of activity among child welfare agencies, corrections departments, courts, and community providers are occurring that may support children in foster care and their incarcerated parents. As evidenced by the Second Chance Act, there is growing attention in the field of corrections on keeping offenders connected with their families to facilitate reentry and, ultimately, lower recidivism. Many parties may be interested in learning about new ways to serve the often invisible children in child welfare with incarcerated parents and to help address some of the serious challenges that these children face. Given fiscal constraints and competing demands placed on agencies at every level, however, initiatives made on behalf of these families are likely to be hindered without information about existing practices and available resources that they could leverage. Moreover, while this group of children and their parents are likely a relatively small part of the larger systems of child welfare and corrections, they are greatly affected by these systems and their practices. Without more proactive efforts to create awareness and share information about these families, opportunities to improve their future may be easily overlooked.

Recommendations

We are making two recommendations to the Secretary of Health and Human Services: 1. To better understand the magnitude of the population and inform federal or state initiatives that affect children in foster care with incarcerated parents, the Secretary of HHS should identify ways to strengthen the completeness of state-reported data on those children. For example, in implementing new reporting requirements for the AFCARS system, the agency could take into consideration its 2008 proposed changes in which states would be required to provide additional information on each foster care child and his or her family circumstances, including a caretaker’s incarceration, at several times during the child’s stay in foster care and not only when a child first enters care. 2. To improve outcomes for these children, the Secretary of HHS should take steps to more systematically increase awareness among state and local child welfare agencies about available resources for children in child welfare with incarcerated parents. For example, HHS could take steps to update and more centrally organize relevant information posted on the Child Welfare Information Gateway, which is meant to serve as a comprehensive information resource for the child welfare field, such as by regularly updating the information listed under the Gateway’s relevant topic areas (e.g., “Children in Out-of-Home-Care With Incarcerated Parents”) with links to more recent material posted on other HHS-supported websites; identify or provide additional information on promising approaches, such as those listed by the Office of Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation;  use relevant findings from the CFSR process as an opportunity to remind states about available resources and post information on promising approaches identified in the reviews; or facilitate awareness among all child welfare agencies about HHS’s available resources through an e-mail or a teleconference/webinar that would allow state and local agencies to share information on practices or strategies.

We are also making two recommendations to the U.S. Attorney General: 1. To better address the needs of children with incarcerated parents, including those in foster care, the U.S. Attorney General should consider including—among DOJ’s ongoing and future information collection and dissemination efforts—activities that would assist state and local corrections agencies share promising practices for these children, including those that involve communication and coordination with child welfare agencies. For example, using some of the informational resources it already makes available to state and local corrections agencies, DOJ could compile and publicize examples of successful collaboration between corrections and child welfare agencies. 2. To improve collaboration between federal correctional facilities and state and local child welfare agencies and help federal inmates maintain important family relationships, the U.S. Attorney General should direct BOP to consider developing protocols for facilities regarding offenders who have children in the child welfare system. These protocols could include: responses/actions when child welfare agency workers contact BOP facilities to confirm an inmate’s location, request to communicate directly with inmates, or inquire about inmates’ current or future participation in programs or services that may be part of a child welfare case plan;  processes for responding to requests for inmates’ participation in child welfare hearings or ways to facilitate participation when desired by the inmate, such as setting up teleconferencing abilities; or  whether facilities could designate a specific staff position to address all such inquiries or questions, including those from child welfare agencies, dependency courts, or offenders.

If developed, these protocols could be shared with states and local corrections agencies as examples.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

We provided a draft of this report to HHS and DOJ for review and comment. HHS’ comments are reproduced in appendix IV. DOJ did not provide written comments; however, in an e-mail dated September 13, 2011, from the agency liaison, DOJ agreed with our two recommendations for the department. HHS and DOJ also provided written technical comments which we incorporated as appropriate.

In its comments, HHS concurred with our two recommendations for the department. Specifically, HHS agreed that it was important to better understand the circumstances and needs of foster care children with incarcerated parents and would consider our recommendation on strengthening state-reported data in developing the final rule for AFCARS. HHS also agreed with our recommendation to more systematically increase awareness of available resources to improve outcomes for these children. For example, HHS said it would take steps to update and more centrally organize relevant information posted on the Child Welfare Information Gateway, as well as facilitate awareness among child welfare agencies and states about available resources, such as through newsletters or links to new information. HHS also agreed that it would use relevant findings from the CFSR process as an opportunity to remind states about available resources and post information about promising approaches.

Finally, both HHS and DOJ noted that, as part of their participation on the Federal Interagency Reentry Council, they would continue to collaborate to clarify policies, remove barriers, and promote promising practices in order to help ex-offenders reintegrate into their communities. Both agencies noted that addressing issues on children and families with an incarcerated parent was a core part of this collaboration and that they would work together to help criminal justice and child welfare systems make well-informed decisions for affected families.

We will send copies of this report to appropriate congressional committees and the Secretary of HHS, the U.S. Attorney General, and other interested parties. The report also will be available at no charge on the GAO website at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-7215 or brownke@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. Key contributors to this report are listed in appendix VI.

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

To address the objectives of this study, we used a variety of methods. Specifically, we  examined pertinent data from two federal data sources; conducted phone interviews with 10 state child welfare and corrections agencies and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), and reviewed relevant state laws and policies pertaining to children in foster care with incarcerated parents; conducted site visits in 4 of the 10 phone interview states; and conducted interviews with federal agencies, as well as professionals from a range of national organizations, including family resource centers, corrections associations, and child welfare organizations.

HHS and DOJ Data Sources

To examine the extent to which the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) collects information on the number of foster care children with incarcerated parents, we reviewed relevant national data on children in foster care from HHS’s Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS). HHS uses AFCARS to capture, report, and analyze information collected by the states concerning all foster care children for whom the state child welfare agency has responsibility for placement, care, or supervision, and all adopted children who were placed by the state agency or for whom the state agency is providing adoption assistance, care, or services. We looked at the AFCARS variable that denotes “parental incarceration” as a reason for a child’s removal from the home and entry into foster care, which is the only variable in AFCARS that captures information about parental incarceration.

We reviewed AFCARS data for all cases that were active in fiscal year 2009 and had useable information on reason codes (615,040 in all), the most recent data available, and identified cases in which children had been removed from their home and entered foster care for reasons including a reason of parental incarceration. For all of these cases active in 2009—regardless of when the child most recently entered foster care— 42,890 cases (about 7 percent) were children who were removed solely or in part due to the incarceration of a parent. We analyzed active 2009 cases by the year that the child entered foster care, to get an indication of how prior years’ cases that involved an incarcerated parent as a reason for entry could accumulate. (See table 3.)

We excluded from our analyses any case that did not contain data on the reason the child was removed from the home, those cases with problematic entry dates (such as entry dates occurring subsequent to exit dates), and data from three states that contained almost no cases that identified “parental incarceration” as a reason. Taken together, we excluded about 11 percent of all cases from our analyses. To confirm the reliability of these data, social science methodologists at GAO reviewed documentation about the collection and reporting of AFCARS data and conducted electronic testing of AFCARS data. We also interviewed relevant HHS officials to clarify data elements, procedures, and reasons for missing information. The AFCARS data were found to be sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this engagement.

In addition to our review of the AFCARS data, we also reviewed relevant national data on incarcerated parents and their children from surveys of inmates in state and federal prisons and local jails, administered by the Department of Justice (DOJ) through its Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). We used these surveys to estimate inmate characteristics, such as the percentage of inmates with minor children reported to be in foster care or in other placement settings. Specifically, we estimated numbers and characteristics of inmate populations using the 2004 Survey of Inmates in Federal Correctional Facilities, the 2004 Survey of Inmates in State Correctional Facilities, and the 2002 Survey of Inmates in Local Jails.

We also used these surveys to estimate a conservative lower bound on the number of children of inmates who are in foster care. Based on our analysis of the 2004 surveys, we are 95 percent confident that the number of state and federal inmates’ children in foster care in 2004 exceeded about 22,800. Further, based on the 2002 survey of jail inmates, we are 95 percent confident that between 4,634 and 19,060 inmates had at least one child in a foster care setting in 2002. While the jail inmate survey covers a different time period than the federal and state inmate survey, it does provide an indication that additional children of inmates (beyond what was found in the state and federal inmate surveys) may be in foster care settings.

In addition, for background purposes, we present BJS published estimates of the number of inmates and children of inmates for 1991, 1997, 2004, and 2007. Although the BJS report describes its estimation methodology and several adjustments that were made to produce estimates that would be comparable over several years, it does not include estimates of sampling error for those estimates. However, we were able to calculate and report the confidence intervals for other estimates produced from the 2004 surveys elsewhere in this report. Since the 1991–2007 estimates are based on similar surveys and on information developed from the 2004 survey, we report these BJS estimates for background purposes only and without accompanying confidence intervals.

BJS data are limited because they do not distinguish between children’s temporary or permanent living arrangements, including various types of relative care, such as relatives who provide foster homes overseen by the child welfare system, relatives who are informally caring for children with no involvement of the child welfare system, and relatives who serve as permanent legal guardians. BJS data also do not fully distinguish children’s current living arrangements when inmates are reporting on multiple children. Additionally, as noted in this report, some prisoners may be inclined to under report how many minor children they have for various reasons, such as avoiding having to pay child support, according to several state and DOJ officials we interviewed. Finally, BJS surveys are conducted intermittently, limiting our ability to compare results across years. A GAO social science analyst with expertise in survey methods and a statistician reviewed the methods and survey design used in these studies and, through interviews with knowledgeable DOJ and BJS officials and our own analyses, we determined that the data we used were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this engagement.

State Phone Interviews

We administered structured telephone interviews to both the state child welfare and corrections agencies in 10 selected states. We selected these states based on several criteria (see table 4). First, states were selected to represent nearly half of the total foster care and prison populations in the United States (47 and 48 percent, respectively). We selected the six states with the largest child welfare population, which are also among the highest in terms of state prison populations. Other states with smaller populations of foster care children and prisoners were selected for variation. Additionally, selected states differed in their geographic location and whether child welfare services in the state were administered at the state or local level. Finally, some states were selected because they were identified in our interviews with researchers and professionals knowledgeable on these topics as having policies, programs, or practices aimed at supporting parent-child ties at the state level or in localities within the state. We also administered the corrections phone interview to officials from BOP’s Central Office.

For our interviews, we developed two structured protocols—one for child welfare officials and one for corrections officials. Using these protocols, we asked officials about the extent their agencies track whether foster care children have an incarcerated parent or whether inmates have children and if their children are in foster care. Additionally, we asked about relevant statewide policies, challenges to supporting family contact or reunification, and strategies employed in their state that may help address challenges. Last, we inquired about relevant types of federal assistance received and areas in which additional assistance might be useful. We developed our protocols by interviewing researchers, professionals, and associations, as well as reviewing their documents and other literature. In addition, we asked several researchers and professionals we interviewed to review our protocols and pretested these protocols with child welfare and corrections officials in one state. We asked these parties for input on the clarity and objectivity of the questions and whether respondents could provide the information we sought and revised the protocols, accordingly.

In addition to our interviews with state officials, we reviewed selected child welfare statutes and policies of our 10 selected states. For example, we examined whether state child welfare statutes related to federal requirements, such as efforts to reunify children in foster care with their families and timelines to file for termination of parental rights, included specific guidelines for incarcerated parents. Our review was limited to state child welfare statutes pertaining to termination of parental rights and reasonable efforts to preserve and reunify the family; we did not examine other statutes, regulations, or case law, unless specifically identified as relevant by state officials or other experts. See appendix III for summaries of the selected provisions of the 10 states’ child welfare statutes and more detailed information on our methodology in conducting and verifying this research. We also verified other relevant corrections and child welfare policies identified through our state phone interviews by reviewing agency documents.

Site Visits

To gather more in-depth information from local child welfare agencies, correctional facilities, and others, we conducted site visits to four of the ten states we interviewed: California, New York, Oregon, and Texas. We selected these states because they capture a large portion of the foster care and prison populations nationally, represent geographic variation, and include some states with promising or innovative strategies at the state or local level, as identified by researchers and professionals knowledgeable on the subject. We also based these selections on the type of child welfare program administration (state administered and locally administered with state supervision); the number of children in foster care; the number and security level of inmates in the facility; and recommendations from experts we interviewed.

In each state, we spoke with local child welfare officials from at least two localities, one large urban area and one non-urban county when possible. Specifically, we met with local child welfare officials and staff in San Francisco and Stanislaus counties in California; Dutchess county and New York City in New York; Marion, Multnomah, and Washington counties in Oregon; and Bell and Harris counties in Texas. During these interviews, we collected information on state and local processes for collecting and reporting data, policies and procedures, and challenges and strategies related to cases specifically involving children in foster care with incarcerated parents. We also interviewed several dependency court judges, attorneys, and community organizations that provided services for foster care children. Across the states, we interviewed officials at nine state prisons (seven women’s and two men’s), two federal women’s prisons, and three local city or county correctional facilities or jails. At most correctional facilities we were able to tour the facility, and in a few instances we observed their implementation of strategies such as nursery programs and parenting classes. At a few facilities, we also interviewed inmates about contact with their children and, if children were in foster care, their interactions with child welfare agencies or the courts.

On the basis of our site visit information, we cannot generalize our findings beyond the states or localities we visited. Information we gathered on our site visits represents only the conditions present in the states and local areas at the time of our site visits. We cannot comment on any changes that may have occurred after our fieldwork was completed.

Interviews with Agencies, Researchers, and Others

We interviewed officials from HHS and DOJ about their programs pertaining to foster care children with incarcerated parents, and reviewed relevant federal laws, regulations, guidance, and other agency documentation. Additionally, we interviewed researchers and professionals from a variety of national organizations, including family resource centers, corrections associations, and child welfare organizations, and reviewed available literature from these groups. These included the American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law, the American Public Human Services Association, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the National Association of Social Workers, American Correctional Association, the National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, the National Resource Center for Children and Families of the Incarcerated, National Resource Center on Permanency and Family Connections, the Rebecca Project for Human Rights, and the Sentencing Project, among others. We also interviewed two former foster care youth whose parents had been incarcerated. In addition, two analysts, one with specialized expertise in social science, reviewed several studies (one unpublished) and found them to be sufficiently reliable for our purposes.

Children with Parents in Residential Drug Treatment Programs

To describe the approaches and outcomes of residential drug treatment programs that may support family reunification presented in appendix II, we interviewed staff from four family-centered residential drug treatment programs. We conducted site visits to three of the programs and their community partners in Maryland and Illinois and interviewed officials with the fourth program in California via telephone. During the site visits, we toured program facilities; spoke with representatives from the programs’ community partners, such as social services agencies and transitional housing providers; and also spoke with some program clients. In selecting these four family-centered residential drug treatment programs, we considered criteria including expert recommendations, receipt of federal grants, and geographic location. We obtained expert recommendations on specific programs to interview from a number of federal and nonprofit organizations. Those organizations include several offices within HHS— such as the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE)—and nonprofit organizations, such as the Rebecca Project for Human Rights. Staff with SAMHSA, ACF, ASPE, and the Rebecca Project for Human Rights provided examples of family-centered treatment programs that emphasized family reunification or program evaluation. In addition, during our interviews with officials from SAMHSA, ACF, ASPE, and the Rebecca Project for Human Rights, we discussed the practices of family-centered residential drug treatment programs and federal efforts to fund and evaluate them.

We reviewed relevant HHS reports on substance abuse and child welfare, family-centered treatment for women with substance abuse disorders, and best practice guidance for substance abuse treatment. We reviewed grant documentation for two federal grant programs that fund and evaluate family-centered residential drug treatment programs: the Services Grant Program for Residential Treatment for Pregnant and Postpartum Women administered by SAMHSA and the Regional Partnership Grant Program administered by ACF. We chose to focus on these programs because they target family-based treatment for parents and their children, as opposed to other grant programs that provide funds for different treatment types and populations. To describe the outcomes that these programs track and assess, we reviewed grant documentation, including the notices of funding availability, grant evaluations, and the Regional Partnership Grant program’s First Annual Report to Congress. We also reviewed documents from the four residential treatment programs that we contacted, which included descriptions of program rules, practices, and outcome studies.

We conducted this performance audit from July 2010 through September 2011 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Appendix II: Children with Parents in Residential Drug Treatment Facilities

HHS estimates that approximately one-third to two-thirds of children involved in the child welfare system have at least one parent with a substance abuse problem, such as alcohol abuse or drug addiction. In addition, a study of 2,639 clients from 44 drug treatment programs in California reported that 29 percent of these parents had one or more children removed from their custody by child welfare services. Children whose parents have substance use disorders may experience parental neglect and be at risk of social, emotional, and behavioral disorders. Parents with substance use disorders, including those who come to the attention of the child welfare system—predominately mothers—may face additional challenges such as co-occurring mental disorders and involvement with the criminal justice system. Successfully addressing the multiple needs of these parents and their children takes time, which, as with children with incarcerated parents, can conflict with the timelines set by the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 to make decisions about a child’s permanent placement and to file for termination of parental rights.

Historically, women with children have faced barriers to entering substance abuse treatment programs. In our past work, we noted that state child welfare directors were dissatisfied with the low level of services, including substance abuse treatment services, provided to at- risk families in the child welfare system. In addition, we noted that, according to state child welfare directors, families living in impoverished neighborhoods often do not have access to substance abuse treatment services, which can in turn influence their children’s entry into the child welfare system. HHS has funded programs that allow eligible parents with substance use disorders to bring their children into treatment with them, such as SAMHSA’s Services Grant Program for Residential Treatment for Pregnant and Postpartum Women (PPW). According to SAMHSA officials, this program is designed to expand the availability of sustainable, comprehensive quality treatment, recovery support, and family services for pregnant and postpartum women and their children age 17 and under. This program, which SAMHSA funds and oversees, is implemented by private nonprofit and public drug treatment providers and targets low-income women.

In contrast to corrections facilities, some residential drug treatment programs allow mothers to bring at least some of their children to live with them during treatment. Some of these programs employ a family- centered treatment approach, more formally known as the Comprehensive Substance Abuse Treatment Model for Women and their Children, which SAMHSA describes as:  often long-term and residential; focusing on an individualized treatment plan for each woman;  addressing the full range of each woman’s needs, in addition to focusing on the relationships in the woman’s life, including her role as mother; including a wide variety of integrated services, some of which may be available to children and other family members; and sensitive to culture and gender.

Family-centered residential drug treatment programs use a variety of approaches to strengthen and reunite families. Officials from four family- centered residential drug treatment programs we interviewed told us that these programs help strengthen and reunite families by, among other things:  Allowing children to reside with their mothers. According to drug treatment program officials, the possibility that women can bring at least some of their children with them removes a significant barrier to treatment: reluctance to enter treatment if their children do not have a safe place to stay. In addition, some women are reluctant to enter treatment because they fear that as a result of doing so, they will lose custody of their children. Having them close by, such as at an on-site childcare center, decreases these fears and makes it more likely that a woman will stay in treatment and overcome her substance abuse, according to program officials.  Focusing on long-term recovery. In contrast to short-term drug treatment programs, which may consist of a brief, hospital-based inpatient phase and some outpatient follow-up, family-centered residential drug treatment programs can last up to 24 months. During this extended time, the programs attempt to address long-term, underlying issues in an effort to foster lasting recovery and thus heighten the chances of family reunification. In this effort, these programs aim to help women build new coping strategies and social networks, as well as strengthen their relationship with their children by teaching them parenting skills. By recognizing that addiction is cyclical and chronic, these programs help women learn how to overcome relapses and move toward long-term recovery. In addition, once the women graduate, some programs continue to provide extended assistance to help them transition out of the program, such as temporary housing or access to ongoing support networks and therapy.  Addressing mental health needs, including trauma. Extensive mental health services offered by the family-centered treatment programs we examined better position women for the work needed to help them recover and rebuild their families, according to program officials. For example, such programs help women identify, acknowledge, and appropriately respond to traumatic events in their lives. According to treatment program staff and federal officials, many women in long- term residential drug treatment have experienced some form of trauma or suffer from other mental health problems, which in turn can influence their substance use. Programs may also help children, who may also be traumatized from living in an environment where there is substance abuse or from having been removed from their homes by child welfare officials.  Offering a variety of supportive services to children and other family members. According to federal and drug treatment program officials, offering a variety of services to family members can help promote a more stable recovery since a woman’s recovery is often dependent on the health of her family, broadly defined. Some programs offer services specifically aimed at children, such as early intervention programs for preschool children and parenting programs that enable both mothers and fathers to hone their parenting skills. Other services, such as education and employment programs, aim to help families by making family members stronger and more self-sufficient.  Collaborating extensively with other state and local agencies. Because family-centered residential drug treatment programs collaborate extensively with other agencies and organizations with which women come into contact (see fig. 9), they are able to better address complex family needs, according to program and federal officials.

According to an official from one treatment program, the program’s collaboration—joint monitoring and assessment of women’s progress— with a local family dependency court helps heighten the prospects for family reunification. Drug treatment program staff and state officials also told us that drug treatment programs and child welfare agencies frequently collaborate, and that child welfare and court officials tend to view a woman’s participation in the family-centered treatment programs positively for the woman. In addition to collaborating around the needs of the women and their children, treatment programs may work closely with child welfare agencies to educate them about the nature of substance abuse and to provide insight into the extent to which a woman’s relapse may endanger her children. Finally, program officials told us that their collaboration with other service providers, such as the public school system and agencies specializing in children’s developmental disabilities, also helps them better leverage their own skills and resources to support the whole family.

Outcomes for Women in Residential Drug Treatment Programs

The federal government has funded a number of grants that support and assess family-centered residential drug treatment programs. For example, SAMHSA’s PPW grants support the development of treatment programs, including residential treatment programs, to serve mothers with substance use disorders and their children aged 17 and under. In the PPW program, grantees are required to track information about, among other things, the woman’s substance use, involvement with the criminal justice system, mental health, and living arrangements. Grantees also collect limited information on the women’s children, including the total number of children per woman, the number of children living with someone besides the woman due to a child protection order, and the number of children for whom the woman’s parental rights have been terminated.

SAMHSA funded a cross-site analysis of the PPW program and an earlier grant program, the demonstration grant program for Residential Treatment for Women and Their Children (RWC), that examined data collected from 1996 to 2001 from more than 1,000 women at 50 RWC and PPW programs. To assess the treatment outcomes, the study compared women’s responses at admission interviews to their responses at follow-up interviews, which were administered 6 months after their treatment ended. The study found that 6 months after treatment ended women reported fewer instances of substance use, fewer arrests, fewer mental health problems, and higher rates of employment. Regarding child outcomes, the study found fewer children living in foster care and that most of the children who accompanied their mothers to the RWC or PPW programs were still living with their mothers 6 months after treatment. Although these findings suggest that RWC- and PPW-funded drug treatment programs may lead to some positive outcomes for women and their children, according to study’s authors, the cross-site study was not designed to demonstrate that the treatment actually caused those effects.

In 2006, ACF began implementing the Regional Partnership Grant (RPG) program, which provides 3- or 5-year grants to support partnerships among child welfare and other organizations, including drug treatment agencies, to increase well-being, enhance safety, and improve permanency outcomes for children placed in or at risk of being placed in out-of-home care because of a parent’s substance abuse. Among the 53 partnerships that received RPG funding in 2007, 21 include programs that provide family-centered residential drug treatment services. The drug treatment programs that received RPG funding must also collect information related to a subset of 23 performance indicators pertaining to the women, children, and families in their programs (see table 5). HHS uses those performance indicators to gauge grantees’ progress on meeting their programs’ intended goals.

HHS requires RPG grantees to conduct evaluations to determine program outcomes, and most grantees designed evaluations that use treatment and comparison groups, allowing them to compare outcomes of families in family-centered residential treatment to outcomes of families in other forms of substance abuse treatment. Of the 21 RPG grantees that provide family-centered residential drug treatment services, 16 designed evaluations that use treatment and comparison groups. Since the grant period for the RPG program began in 2007 and may last up to 5 years, ACF officials anticipate that all RPG grantees will submit final evaluation results by December 31, 2012. Subsequently, the agency plans to present the evaluation results in a series of reports to Congress.

Appendix III: Provisions from Selected State Statutes on Termination of Parental Rights and “Reasonable Efforts” That Specifically Address Incarcerated Parents

This appendix provides summaries of selected statutory provisions that specifically address termination of parental rights and reasonable efforts to preserve and reunify families for child welfare cases involving incarcerated for the 10 states included in our study. The 10 selected states were Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The information contained in this appendix is not intended to be an exhaustive summary of all laws, regulations, or case law related to children in foster care with incarcerated parents for these states.

To compile this appendix, we searched legal databases for state statutes on termination of parental rights and reasonable efforts that specifically refer to incarcerated parents. The provisions we identified are summarized briefly in tables 6 and 7. These summaries may omit some details from the cited provisions and are not intended to reflect all aspects of state law. In addition, these summaries do not reflect the federal requirements for states that receive federal child welfare funding. They also do not include the requirements of other state statutes, regulations, or case law that may directly or indirectly apply to families with incarcerated parents. We provided these summaries to knowledgeable state officials in each state for their verification, and the information in this table was verified to be accurate as of August 2011.

Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of Health and Human Services

Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Staff Acknowledgments

Gale Harris, Assistant Director, and Theresa Lo, Analyst-in-Charge, managed this assignment. Sara Schibanoff Kelly and Eve Weisberg managed the portion on residential drug treatment centers presented in appendix II. Analysts Miriam Hill, Melissa Jaynes, Andrew Nelson, and Rebecca Rose made important contributions to this report. James Bennett and Mimi Ngyuen provided graphic assistance, and Susan Bernstein and David Chrisinger provided writing assistance. Kirsten Lauber, Jean McSween, Mark Ramage, Beverly Ross, and Shana Wallace provided data analysis and methodological assistance, and Sarah Cornetto provided legal assistance.