Hello, we’re Kathey and Rob Raskin of Las Vegas and we care about what happens to children in the foster care system. The Family First Act can cause problem for our kids.
Attached to a bill to circumvent another government shutdown was a child welfare finance reform measure referred to as the Family First Prevention Services Act. The bill was believed to be dead, killed last year by a reformer who renovated his own institution years ago. He called the group home industry, and their public sector allies, a group of private agencies generally paid for every day they keep foster children in the worst form of care, group homes, and institutions.
Unfortunately, it’s now law.
One might expect advocates of family preservation to rejoice, and some will. The bill allows some federal funds once restricted to go to foster care. In theory, it limits federal funding for group homes and institutions.
Some child welfare reformers favor the bill, such as Jeremy Kohomban. But we disagree. The range of prevention services which can be funded under the Family Frist Act is quite small, and there are tight restrictions on which programs can receive federal aid. And instead of limiting group homes and institutions, it could actually have strengthened them.
In 2016, the Congressional Budget Office projected that only $130 million in increased federal funds would go to prevention each year, a small amount compared to the billions spent on foster care. CBO also projected that the proportion of foster children in group homes and institutions wasn’t likely to see great change, moving from 14% to 11% over ten years.
What the bill actually does is set prevention up to fail because when these minor changes don’t fix needless foster care placements, the rejecters of prevention will sight it as an example.
Unfortunately contained in the bill is a provision (Section 2661) which allows money from a much smaller existing “family support service” programs to be redirected to “supporting and retaining foster families for children.” Additionally, states can delay the smaller limits on money for group homes and institutions for two years. It could be nearer a four-year delay. The provisions regarding group homes don’t take effect until October 1, 2019. States opting to delay would see them starting October 1, 2021.
This gives the group home industry a great deal of time to weaken the law further.
The alternative is to stop taking in so many children needlessly. But, many frame any effort to diminish the use of mass care in terms of only group homes vs. foster homes and family preservation is not an option. The fact that some in the group home industry claim this law is overly tough just shows how spoiled they’ve become after years legal neglect.
We know the foster care system isn’t perfect and changes must be made. But the law can do better. We, Kathey and Rob Raskin, aim to stop DHR corruption throughout America. If you have a complaint, log it on our home page now. Then, contact your local representatives here to make a greater impact.
