Foster Care: State Efforts to Expedite Permanency Hearings and Placement Decisions
Released: 1997-02-27T00:00:00

Letter

Background

State child welfare systems consist of a complicated network of policies and programs designed to protect children. With growing caseloads over the past decade, the systems’ ability to keep pace with the needs of troubled children and their families has been greatly taxed. From fiscal year 1984 through 1995, the foster care population grew from an estimated 276,000 children to 494,000. In 1995, about 261,000 of these children were supported by federal funds through title IV-E of the Social Security Act.

The federal government plays an important role in financing foster care and establishes minimum procedural requirements for the placement process. As required by the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 (P.L. 96-272), states must make reasonable efforts to prevent or eliminate the need for removing children from their homes. Once a child is removed from the home, the state must also provide services to the family and the child with the goal of reuniting them. If reunification is not possible, the state is to find permanent placement for the child outside the family home.

To guide the permanency planning process by which a state is to find permanent placements for foster children, the act also requires that the state develop a case plan for each child. Each case plan must be reviewed at least every 6 months and, within 18 months, a permanency hearing must be held to determine the future status of the child. If a final decision is not made at this hearing, federal law provides that additional hearings must be held at least every 12 months. Options for the child’s future status can include, but are not limited to, reuniting the child with his or her family, placing the child for adoption, continuing temporary foster care, or continuing foster care permanently or long term because of the child’s special needs or circumstances. Increasingly, children are being placed with their own relatives, who then may sometimes receive foster care subsidies.

Several State Statutory and Policy Changes Require Permanency Hearings Sooner

The prolonged stays of children in foster care have prompted 26 states to enact laws or policies to shorten to less than the federally allowed 18 months the time between entering foster care and the first permanency hearing. Twenty-three of these states have enacted such laws, while three others have done so by administrative policy. A majority of these states require the hearing within 12 months. In two states, the shorter time frame applies only to younger children. Colorado requires that the permanency hearing be held within 6 months for children under age 6, and Washington requires the hearing to be held within 12 months for children aged 10 or younger. The remaining 24 states and the District of Columbia have statutes consistent with the federal requirement of 18 months. (For a description of the 26 state statutes, policies, and time requirements, see app. I.)

The state laws, like federal law, do not require that a final decision be made at the first hearing. Ohio and Minnesota, however, do require that a permanency decision be determined after a limited extension period. Ohio, for example, requires a permanency hearing to be held within 12 months, with a maximum of two 6-month extensions. At the end of that time, a permanent placement decision must be made. According to officials in Ohio’s Office of Child Care and Family Services, the requirement for earlier permanency hearings was made to expedite the permanent placement process and reduce the time children spend in foster care. State officials also believed, however, that this requirement may have unintentionally resulted in increasing the number of children placed in long-term foster care because other placement options could not be developed. State data, in part, confirmed this observation. While long-term foster care placements for children supported with state funds dropped from 1,301 in 1990 to 779 in 1995, long-term placements for children from low-income families who are supported in part with federal funds rose from 1,657 to 2,057 in the same period.

States Make Changes in Permanency Process With Some Promising Results for Foster Children

Although the states we reviewed did not systematically evaluate the impacts of their initiatives, they have implemented a variety of operational and procedural changes to expedite and improve the permanency process. The states reported that these actions have improved the lives of some children by (1) reuniting them with their families more quickly; (2) expediting the termination of parental rights when reunification is not feasible, making it possible for child welfare agencies to begin looking for an adoptive home sooner; or (3) reducing the number of different foster care placements in which children live.

New Service Strategies Help Reunification Process

Some states implemented low-cost, creative methods for financing and providing services that address specific barriers to reuniting families. Arizona’s Housing Assistance Program focused on families in which the major barrier to reunification was inadequate housing for the family. According to reports and data from the Arizona Department of Economic Security, between 1991 and 1995, as the result of the program, 939 children were reunited with their families, representing almost 12 percent of the children reunified during this period. State officials estimated that this program saved the state over $1 million in foster care-related costs between 1991 and 1995.

States Streamline Termination Procedures

Arizona and Kentucky placed special emphasis on expediting the process by which parental rights could be terminated. Arizona’s Severance Project focused on cases in which termination of parental rights was likely or reunification services were not warranted and for which a backlog of cases had developed. In April 1986, the state enacted a law providing funds for hiring severance specialists and legal staff to work on termination cases. The following year, in 1987, the state implemented the Arizona State Adoption Project, which focused on identifying additional adoptive homes, including recruiting adoptive parents for specific children and contracting for adoptive home recruitment services. State officials reported that the Adoption Project resulted in a 54-percent increase in the number of new homes added to the state registry in late 1987 and 1988. In addition, they noted that the Severance Project contributed to a more than 32-percent reduction in the average length of stay between entering care and the filing of the termination petition for fiscal years 1991 through 1995. children available for adoption rose, the state was forced to focus its efforts on identifying potential adoptive homes and shifted its emphasis to strategies to better inform the public about the availability of adoptive children.

Concurrent Planning Can Lead to Greater Efficiency

Some states are experimenting with concurrent planning. Under this approach, child welfare officials work toward reuniting a family while developing an alternate plan for permanently removing the child if reunification efforts fail. By working on the two plans simultaneously, caseworkers reduce the time needed to prepare the paperwork for terminating parental rights if reunification efforts fail. Under a concurrent planning approach, caseworkers emphasize to the parents that if they do not adhere to the requirements set forth in their case plan, parental rights can be terminated. Some state officials attributed obtaining quicker permanent placements in part to parents making more concerted efforts to make the changes needed to have their children returned home.

Colorado began using concurrent planning formally in 1994 for children under age 6 in conjunction with the implementation of the law requiring that for children under age 6, the permanency hearing must be held within 6 months of the child’s entering care. The program has been implemented in five counties. Preliminary data from an ongoing evaluation in Jefferson County shows that 65 out of 78 children, or 87 percent, achieved permanent placement within 1 year of initial placement as compared with 50 of 71 children, or 70 percent, in a control group. State Department of Human Services officials told us that concurrent planning was a key factor that contributed to the success of children’s being placed more quickly in permanent homes.

Streamlined Procedures Improve Court Functioning

All decisions regarding both the temporary and final placement of foster children come through states’ court systems. Therefore, Hamilton County, Ohio, juvenile court officials focused attention on the court’s involvement in achieving permanency more quickly by developing new procedures to expedite case processing. To do so, in 1985, they revised court procedures by (1) designating lawyers specially trained in foster care issues as magistrates to hear cases; (2) assigning one magistrate to each case for the life of that case to achieve continuity; and (3) agreeing at the end of every hearing—with all participants present—to the date for the next hearing.

According to court officials, the county saved thousands of dollars because it could operate three magistrates’ courtrooms for about the cost of one judge’s courtroom. Also, a report on court activities indicated that because of these changes, between 1986 and 1990, the number of children (1) placed in four or more different foster care placements decreased by 11 percent and (2) the percentage of children leaving temporary and long-term foster care in 2 years or less increased from 37 to 75 percent.

States Have Not Assessed the Impact of Initiatives

Our efforts to assess the overall impact of these initiatives were hampered by the absence of evaluation data. We found that the states generally did not conduct systematic evaluations of their programs, and outcome information was often limited to state reports and the observations of state officials. Although many of these efforts reported improvements, for example, in speeding the termination of parental rights once this goal was established, the lack of comparison groups or quality data from the period before the initiative made it difficult to reach definitive conclusions about the initiatives’ effectiveness.

Key Factors Essential for Meeting Goals of Initiatives

States increased their chances of successfully developing and implementing initiatives when certain key factors were a part of the process. When contemplating changes, state officials had to take into consideration the intricacies of the foster care process, the inherent difficulty that caseworkers and court officials face when deciding whether a child should be returned home, and the need, in some cases, for caseworkers and judges to recognize that termination of parental rights should be pursued.

When Kentucky officials, for example, initiated a project to shorten the process for terminating parental rights, they faced the challenge of changing the way caseworkers and members of the legal system had viewed termination of parental rights. Many caseworkers saw the termination of parental rights as a failure on their part because they were not able to reunify the family. As a result, they seldom pursued termination and instead kept the children in foster care. In addition, judges and lawyers were often not sufficiently informed of the negative effects on children who do not have permanent homes. Thus, as part of this project, newsletters and training were provided about the effects on children of delaying termination of parental rights.

Officials in the states we reviewed recognized that improving the permanency planning process requires concerted time and effort, coordination, and resources. These officials identified several critical, often interrelated factors required to meet these challenges. These included (1) long-term involvement of officials in leadership positions; (2) involvement of key stakeholders in developing consensus and obtaining buy-in about the problem and its solution; and (3) the availability of resources to plan, implement, and sustain the project.

Observations

With the expected rise in foster care caseloads through the start of the next century further straining state and federal child welfare budgets, increasing pressure will be placed on states to develop initiatives to move children into permanent homes more quickly. Many of these initiatives will need to address the difficult issues of deciding under what circumstances to pursue reunification and what time period is appropriate before seeking the termination of parental rights.

We found promising initiatives for changing parts of the permanency process so that children can be moved from foster care into permanent placements more quickly. Developing and successfully implementing these innovative approaches takes time and often challenges long-standing beliefs. To succeed, these initiatives must look to local leadership involvement, consensus building, and sustained resources.

As these initiatives become a part of the complex child welfare system, however, they can also create unintended consequences. Identifying appropriate cases for the expeditious termination of parental rights and processing them faster—thereby making more children available for possible adoption—can create difficulties if efforts to develop more adoptive homes have not received equal emphasis.

We also observed that a critical feature of these initiatives was often absent: Many of them lacked evaluations designed to assess the impact of the effort. The availability of evaluation information from these initiatives would not only point to the relative success or failure of an effort but also help identify unintended outcomes. The lack of program and evaluation data will continue to hinder the ability of program officials and policymakers to fully understand the overall impact of these initiatives.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my formal remarks. I will be happy to answer any questions you or other members of the Subcommittee may have.

Contributors

For more information on this testimony, please call Gale C. Harris, Assistant Director, at (202) 512-7235. Other major contributors are David D. Bellis, Social Science Analyst; Shellee S. Soliday and Octavia V. Parks, Senior Evaluators; Julian Klazkin, Senior Attorney; and Rathi Bose, Evaluator.

States That Require a Permanency Hearing Earlier Than the Federal Requirement of 18 Months (as of December 31, 1996)

Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann., Section 8-515.C.(West Supp. 1996)

Colo. Rev. Stat., Section 19-3-702(1)(Supp. 1996)

Conn. Gen. Stat. Ann., Section 46b-129(d),(e) (West 1995)

Ga. Code Ann., Section 15-11-419 (j),(k)(1996) 705 Ill. Comp. Stat. Ann., 405/2-22(5)(West Supp. 1996)

Ind. Code Ann., Section 31-6-4-19(c)(Michie Supp. 1996)

Iowa Code Ann., Section 232.104 (West 1994)

Kan. Stat. Ann., Section 38-1565(b),(c)(1995)

La. Ch. Code Ann., Arts. 702,710(West 1995)

Mich. Stat. Ann., Section 27.3178(598.19a) (Law Co-op Supp. 1996)

Minn. Stat. Ann., Section 260.191 Subd. 3b(West Supp. 1997)

Miss. Code Ann., Section 43-21-613 (3)(1993)

New Hampshire Court Rules Annotated, Abuse and Neglect, Guideline 39 (Permanency Planning Review)

N.Y. Jud. Law, Section 1055(b)(McKinney Supp. 1997)

Ohio Rev. Code Ann., Sections 2151.353(F) 2151.415 9 (A) (Anderson 1994) 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann., Section 6351(e-g)(West Supp. 1996) (continued)

R.I. Gen. Laws, Section 40-11-12.1(1990)

S.C. Code Ann., Section 20-7-766(Law. Co-op. Supp. 1996)

Utah Code Ann., Section 78-3a-312, (1996)

Va. Code Ann., Section 16.1-282(Michie 1996)

Wash. Rev. Code Ann., Section 13.34.145(3)(4) (West Supp. 1997)

W. Va. Code Sections 49-6-5, 49-6-8(1996)

Wis. Stat. Ann., Sections 48.355(4); 48.38; 48.365(5)(West 1987)

Wyo. Stat. Ann., Section 14-6-229 (k)(Michie Supp. 1996)

Michigan’s time frame to hold the permanency hearing was calculated by adding the days needed to conduct the preliminary hearing, trial, dispositional hearing, and the permanency hearing.

Virginia’s time frame to hold the permanency hearing was calculated by adding the number of months required to file the petition to hold the permanency hearing plus the number of days within which the court is required to schedule the hearing.

Related GAO Products

Child Welfare: Complex Needs Strain Capacity to Provide Services (GAO/HEHS-95-208, Sept. 26, 1995).

Child Welfare: Opportunities to Further Enhance Family Preservation and Support (GAO/HEHS-95-112, June 15, 1995).

Foster Care: Health Needs of Many Young Children Unknown and Unmet (GAO/HEHS-95-114, May 26, 1995).

Foster Care: Parental Drug Abuse Has Alarming Impact on Young Children (GAO/HEHS-94-89, Apr. 4, 1994).

Residential Care: Some High-Risk Youth Benefit, But More Study Needed (GAO/HEHS-94-56, Jan. 28, 1994).

Foster Care: Services to Prevent Out-of-Home Placements Are Limited by Funding Barriers (GAO/HRD-93-76, June 29, 1993).

Foster Care: State Agencies Other Than Child Welfare Can Access Title IV-E Funds (GAO/HRD-93-6, Feb. 9, 1993).

Foster Care: Children’s Experiences Linked to Various Factors; Better Data Need (GAO/HRD-91-64, Sept. 11, 1991).

Child Welfare: Monitoring Out-of-State Placements (GAO/HRD-91-107BR, Sept. 3, 1991).

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