Hello, we’re Kathey and Rob Raskin of Las Vegas and studies throughout Arkansas are showing that there are far too many foster kids under the care of a single DCFS agent. Despite new improvements in Arkansas’s burdened foster care system, the state DCFS is struggling to minimize the average caseload of its field staff, as reported by DCFS monthly data.

A consequence of high caseloads is some foster children have little direct contact with their child welfare agent who would be responsible for their care. In the 2017 fiscal year, 28% of foster children didn’t get any face-to-face monthly time from their caseworker. Additionally, 13% of foster children didn’t get any monthly face-to-face contact from any DCFS staff, regardless of position or visit purposes. That’s a huge increase since 2014, when it was 4%. During that same time, the number of children in the system expanded from about 4,100 to roughly 5,100.

On Dec. 6, the face-to-face visit metrics were the focus of questions from state lawmakers following DCFS Director Mischa Martin presentation of the agency’s 2017 yearly report to the Joint Committee on Aging, Children and Youth.

“If someone is missed in one month, are they put in the front of the line for the next month — so that maybe in a two-month period, everyone gets visited?” asked Rep. Carlton Wing (R-North Little Rock).

“I wish I could say, ‘Absolutely, yes,’ but we started pulling data back in the spring … we saw kids on the list who hadn’t been looked at in 60 or 90 days,” Martin answered. The DCFS now makes local offices prioritize these cases. She said, “If you didn’t see them this month, you have to make it a priority to see them.”

Martin took over the DCFS last year, when the state foster care population was hitting record levels. She has tried to execute several reforms which could improve placement options and preserving staff.

Sen. Stephanie Flowers (D-Pine Bluff), who co-chairs the Children and Youth committee, asked whether the DCFS was failing to follow code by not seeing children face-to-face each month. Unfortunately, Martin said it was not a legal requirement however that federal funds are tied to compliance. Obviously, something needs to be done in Arkansas. Foster kids are at greater risks when someone isn’t checking on them personally each month. That’s when we see abuse and neglect skyrocket.

We, Kathey and Rob Raskin, aim to stop DHR corruption throughout the country. If you have a complaint, please log it on our main page right away.

We’re Kathey and Rob Raskin of Las Vegas and we care about foster children and the lives they lead. Dominique Bryant was homeless at 17. Now 23, Bryant was placed in foster care in New York right after birth. She was adopted at 10, but when she turned 17, the mother terminated her parental rights.

Bryant went to a psychiatric clinic for depression shorty after and when she wanted to return to her then foster family they didn’t want to take her back. She was near 18, and with little options was placed in a sobriety house, though she wasn’t an alcoholic.

Because of a missed meeting, which was a requirement for living there, she lost her place and spent four months homeless in the Charlottesville area. Unfortunately, scenarios like this aren’t uncommon.

A national survey from Child Trends for the Children’s Home Society of Virginia and Better Housing Coalition, found that 20% of the people who age out of foster care become homeless within two years. Also reported was that 25% are incarcerated, 42% drop out of school, and 71% of these women become pregnant by 21. The results of the survey also show that Virginia has one of the greatest percentages of youth leaving foster care due to aging out at 20%, compared to 9% across the nation.

The executive director of Micah Ecumenical Ministries, a faith-based nonprofit which assists the Fredericksburg area’s homeless, Meghann Cotter, stated she has seen the amount of homeless youth increase in the decade she’s worked there.

In fact, between July 1, 2015, and July 1, 2016, Planning District 16’s homeless services system, which includes Spotsylvania, Caroline, Fredericksburg, Stafford, and King George counties, saw 162 clients between 18 and 24, 12% of all those seen.

Cotter stated that many former foster care kids either age out or emancipate themselves at 18. She stated that research shows 85% of former foster-care youth have experienced a trauma. These children lack the life skills all 18-year-olds do, but they also must deal with a reduced amount of coping skills and no social support system.

Though 18 is legally adulthood, research from the CHS report displays that the brain continues to grow through 25. Today’s young adults rely on their parents for financial and emotional support well into their 20s. Without a built-in support system, moving from adolescence to adulthood is so much more difficult.

In 2016, 464 foster children aged out in Virginia. This can grow as well since the amount of children in foster care grew by 8% between 2011 and 2015 nationally. This could be due to the opioid epidemic, which was declared a “public health emergency” in October.

Chief advancement officer at Children’s Home Society, Bruin Richardson, stated there are several reasons why Virginia has higher numbers. “One is that we’re a county-administered system and that creates some barriers [regarding…] adopt[ion],” he stated. “Kids tend to be older when they [enter] the system […] than the national average. […T]hey may have more significant trauma and [… they become] teenagers before they [are] eligible […] adopt[ion]. And it’s harder to place those kids.”

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.

At Kathey and Rob Raskin of Las Vegas the care of this country’s children is the #1 priority. And Indiana is facing some serious issues. Lawmakers there want to know why there are so many children in state care compared to some of its neighbors.

House Speaker Brian Bosma stated last week, among many other lawmakers, that there is something wrong with how Indiana administers its foster care system.

The Indianapolis Star reported that the state had almost 30,000 children in foster care during the 2016 fiscal year, much more than every other neighboring state, including Illinois and Ohio which both have greater populations.

Since former director Mary Beth Bonaventura wrote a resignation letter to Governor Holcomb last month, focused attention is on the Indiana DCS. In the letter, Bonaventura stated that cuts and management alterations are “all but ensur[ing] children will die.”

She wrote in the letter, “I choose to resign, rather than be complicit in decreasing the safety, permanency and well-being of children who have nowhere else to turn.”

Governor Holcomb responded by hiring an Alabama-based non-profit Child Welfare Policy and Practice Group to complete a thorough evaluation of the DCS.

Statehouse Democrats have demanded hearings regarding the state of the DCS. House Minority Leader Terry Goodin wrote to Holcomb asking for the investigative team to include members of the General Assembly.

Goodin wrote, “This request is one of sincerity [to] resolve the issues […] plaguing [the] DCS.”

Supermajority Republicans are battling the calls for a simultaneous legislative investigation of the child welfare agency however.

Senate President Pro-Tempore David Long (R-Fort Wayne) told the media, “I think as long as we have an open and fair and transparent and very public vetting of what this group [determines…] that we will accomplish the same goal.”

Bosma states that since the legislature has added $600 million to the DCS budget for the current 24-month budget, it is not an issue with funding. “We have a systemic issue,” he says.

If you’ve seen a child care problem, anywhere in the foster care system, report it on the Kathey and Rob Raskin Stop DHR webpage. Do so now, and do your part to get your state officials to give our children the best chance at life. You can contact your representatives here.

We’re Kathey and Rob Raskin of Las Vegas and we care about foster children in this country. Clint Blansett’s son, Caleb, who was just 10 years old, had been dead a few days when a social worker from the state can knocking. She wanted him to sign a form saying he wouldn’t discuss his son’s death or the Kansas Department for Children and Families. He wasn’t to comment about the agency’s relationship with the family before Caleb’s mom smashed his head with a rock while he slept and then stabbed him seven times.

Blansett said it was a gag order. He stated, “She was there to ensure […] I wouldn’t speak to the press. That was her only concern.”

Other parents and Kansas legislators say they’ve battled this for years, an agency charged with protecting children instead concerned only with protecting itself. An agency where a former high-ranking DCF supervisor stated to The Star she was not to document anything following a child’s death and to shred notes following meetings to keep them out of the hands of attorneys and reporters.

Even lawmakers insist DCF officials are deliberately confusing them and offering information the Legislature doesn’t have confidence in.

Kansas children continue to perish without a public review of which state social workers were with which families or whether they did enough, or whether policies and procedures were adhered to.

Dianne Keech, who served the DCF as a deputy director for two years says, “Secrecy is killing children.” said. Keech left the agency when she was told to shred notes following meetings about critical cases. She also stated she couldn’t execute a system-wide review of abuse and neglect cases. Administers supposedly said they didn’t want mistakes in writing.

In an investigation into the secrecy in the Kansas government and how it harms residents, it was found that an inescapable effort inside the DCF to hide behind privacy laws and internal procedures to keep info away from the public, especially when children are seriously injured or killed by parents and guardians known to the agency.

Over the course of the past year, the DCF has declined to answer questions on subjects ranging from open records and the death of certain children to foster care runaways.

Social workers in the field state they know how important image is to the DCF. Sarah Coats a social worker for one of Kansas’ top child welfare contractors for several years said she was fired when she tried to create a union and leaked data regarding high caseloads.

This must end.

Our foster homes and systems must be held accountable, especially when children’s lives are at stake. Silence is killing our nation’s children. On our Kathey and Rob Raskin Stop DHR webpage, you can report complaints. Please do, you can save lives.

Hello, we’re Kathey and Rob Raskin of Las Vegas and we care about what happens to children throughout the foster care system.

Pennsylvania’s Auditor General has a report about fixing the state’s broken child welfare system. In September, Auditor General Eugene DePasquale issued a “State-of-the-Child” report which found Pennsylvania’s child welfare system is sorely lacking. The report found caseworkers, who are frequently on the front lines of the health and safety of endangered children, are shorthanded, overworked, and lack the resources required to do their jobs well.

DePasquale visited many social services offices to determine how to remedy the situation. Some Northampton County case workers shared their experiences and stated the opioid crisis is adding to the problem.

Kevin Dolan, Administrator at Northampton County’s Children and Youth Division, stated, “We started going [areas in the] county we never went to before. Bethlehem Township, Palmer Township…areas where there is an upper income level but their [parents] are using.”

DePasquale stated, “Children are being horribly abused and neglected […] every day. In recent months, we’ve heard of toddlers being kept in cages, newborns left […] alone and starving school-age children locked in filthy rooms.”

“Yet, all told, Pennsylvania spent [over] $1.8 billion in 2016 to protect children,” he went on, “When I audited ChildLine, the state’s child-abuse hotline, […] found massive problems [which] required immediate action, I knew I needed to look further into how the entire child-welfare system was operating.”

DePasquale stated the results of that review are astounding.

“We spent [almost] $2 billion dollars in 2016, yet 46 children died and 79 [almost] died from abuse…” he stated. “What really disturbs me is […] nearly half of the children who died were in families that were already known to CYS.”

DePasquale also said, “We discovered, […], that York County had 90% turnover in its caseworkers in a 24-month period. Ninety percent. How do you have any continuity of care for these vulnerable kids and families? The answer is you don’t — and the kids suffer because of it.”

DePasquale stated it’s too late to concentrate on past mistakes which led to today’s unhinged system. He’s looking to the future, providing 17 recommendations for changes to remedy some of the deficits in the system.

“Child welfare […] is administered through a piecemeal system that doesn’t receive adequate resources from state or county governments. It’s not only a matter of providing adequate funding and resources but also […] of using the resources [they] have efficiently and effectively.”

His major suggestion is for DHS to craft an independent child protection “watchdog” position so one person within the department will oversee advocating for the state’s at-risk children. Other suggestions include refurbishing necessary training, minimizing paperwork, and evaluating whether using new technology could help caseworkers spend more time in the field.

According to DePasquale, “As a society, our goal must be clear. No child should ever be mistreated, because one abused child is one too many.”

We, Kathey and Rob Raskin, aim to stop DHR corruption in this country to protect our kids. If you have a complaint, go to our homepage and report it immediately. Then, contact your local representatives here to make a greater impact.

We’re Kathey and Rob Raskin of Las Vegas and we care about our nation’s children. And Iowa needs to do better. The deaths of two teenage girls there caused the investigation of Iowa’s DHS, an investigation they requested themselves.

Results from the Child Welfare Policy and Practice Group were released, and the 106 pages show the world of overworked, under-trained employees and low department morale. Media outlets have interviewed a former DHS employee who agreed with the results. Amy Sacco was the case worker for one Natalie Finn. Sacco was fired by the DHS when Finn starved to death in October of 2016.

She stated, “This is a horrific thing […], and DHS is really good at sweeping things under the rug, […] firing myself was their answer […] we’ll fire Amy Sacco and maybe […] it will show […] we did something.”

The CWP study shows child abuse evaluations in Iowa have increased 43% compared to the previous year. Sacco stated this was not difficult to believe, remarking that employees typically receive at least one new case every day. In a month that could be 20 cases and sometimes it could even be up to two a day. According to the report, over 20 cases per month is common in Iowa counties such as Polk and Linn.

The investigation also revealed that the DHS staff believe their training is inadequate. Sacco agrees with that and stated that she wonders if additional training could have saved Natalie Finn’s life.

She stated, “I couldn’t get direction […], so I had this court order, and no one was trained on it. I would ask my supervisor, […] she would say […] get this served and keep going out to the home.”

This all created poor moral within the DHS. The report faults “… legislative changes in collective bargaining, budget cuts, workload, and a culture [which] seems […] compliance focused.” The new DHS director, Jerry Foxhoven, has stated that improving moral is one of his chief priorities. He has not remarked directly on the report which is imperative to the DHS.

Our foster homes and systems must do better. One child dying is too many. On the Kathey and Rob Raskin Stop DHR site, you can report complaints. Please, do so. They can save lives like Natalie Finn’s.

We are Kathey and Rob Raskin of Las Vegas, and we believe the care of our country’s children is the #1 priority. Clear progress within the Oklahoma Department of Human Services Child Welfare Division has been made, but it’s not the lasting effect the system and culture needs.

Recently, the monitors of the Pinnacle Plan released a bi-annual report of the agency’s reform endeavors, which launched in 2012. These efforts were begun following a settlement in a federal class-action lawsuit which alleged foster care abuses.

The three-person panel traces 31 foster care system areas including shelter use, foster home recruitment, child placements, and maltreatment. The report indicates that the DHS made good-faith efforts to reach or sustain goals in 24 of those areas. It withheld judgment in seven others which fall into the categories of shelter use, therapeutic foster care, and placement stability. The DHS has met the goal in seven areas and reached continued, positive trending position in 14.

The report is mostly positive while cautioning how the ongoing state budget crisis would set back improvements and hinder future reforms.

Oklahoma faces a budget hole of $215 million in the present fiscal year. The DHS, Oklahoma Health Care Authority, and the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services are all straining under this weigh, and this follows several revenue failures which triggered previous cuts.

The report states, “The advancements made to date are fragile, […], particularly with respect to manageable caseloads and an adequate array of placements… Budget pressures loom large […], and threaten the […] progress of the […] reform effort at a critical time. DHS […] efforts to maximize available resources will continue to be […] important to ensure […] gains […] are not lost.”

The panel recommends the continuance of funding the core approaches in the DHS to help “the state’s most vulnerable children,” including supports to foster homes and efforts to maintain controllable caseloads.

“A material reversal […] is likely to compromise the still tenuous foundation [the] DHS has sought to build this reform, and undermine […] years of public investment,” according to the report.

Of great concern was a fall in therapeutic foster homes, which care for kids with special needs. Since the start of the reform work, monitors have noted the difficulties in meeting goals in this area. However, the agency had developed new approaches in December of 2016 concerning directed recruitment via partner organizations, lessening of maltreatment in care, and improvements in personalized services for children.

In regard to the need of therapeutic homes, the report states, “Given the [ongoing] struggle to recruit or achieve net gains in new homes, DHS must […] assess not only the recruitment capacity of the agencies but also additional approaches to ensure […] children in need of family-based behavioral and mental health services receive quality therapeutic services.”

Unfortunately, all the work they’ve done could fall to the wayside if the department is hit with another round of cuts. The state needs to invest in children, not reduce the funding of these already overburdened facilities.

When you see an issue with foster care, report it on the Kathey and Rob Raskin Stop DHR webpage. Then, do your part to get your state officials to give our children a fighting chance. Contact your state representatives here.

Ohio’s foster care system leaves a lot to be desired. Kathey and Rob Raskin of Las Vegas here, we’re reporting that one thousand more Ohio children will be spending the holidays in foster care in 2017 compared with last year as the opioid crisis continues to wreak havoc and break up families in the state.

Ohio’s foster-care system is overly stuffed with a disturbing trend of abused and neglected children who only with to be adopted throughout the holidays.

According to the report by the Public Children Services Association of Ohio, more than 15,500 children are in the custody of Ohio’s child-service agencies. The organization’s assistant director, Scott Britton, says that’s a 23 percent increase over 2016.

If the course remains, we’re looking at likely having 20,000 children in agency custody by the year 2020. This will explode the state’s children’s services agencies budget, and it will be the children themselves who suffer.

Across the state, more than 50% of the cases of children being removed from their parents in 2016 was due to parental drug use. Ohio has dedicated $30 million in new revenue for child services through 2019 however it’s still shadowed by the $175 million needed, if the trend persists.

It’s difficult for a child to navigate through this beleaguered foster-care system, dealing with issues that can range from simple to extreme. A better scenario is kinship care, where the child is housed with a close relative. However, that option is occasionally just as problematic with this increasing generational addiction to opioids.

Many close relatives are also addicted and even when family is found there is a great deal of stress on these grandparents or relative who are living on fixed budgets, or who are already taking care of their own children.

While the state has done good work in assisting to grow kinship care, a lot more needs to be done to overcome the general upsetting trend in the foster care system including growing funding for foster-care placement costs and the recruitment of additional foster and adoptive homes.

Our foster homes and departments can and must do better. On the Kathey and Rob Raskin Stop DHR site, you can report complaints and we encourage you to do so. They can save lives.

We are Kathey and Rob Raskin of Las Vegas, and the care of our nation’s children is our top priority. Claims against Missouri are surviving challenges in federal court. They are alleging that the state has unconstitutionally failed foster children by administering psychotropic drugs.

In a news release from St. Louis University School of Law, a group of plaintiffs on behalf of “all minor children […] in Missouri foster care” are welcoming a federal court judge’s choice to uphold some of their claims, while rejecting others.

Filed in June by Children’s Rights, National Center for Youth Law, the St. Louis University School of Law Legal Clinics, and global law firm Morgan Lewis & Bockius, the defendants include officials within the Missouri Department of Social Services.

US District Judge Nanette K. Laughrey chose not to dismiss claims alleging Missouri may be violating foster children’s 14th Amendment due-process rights regarding medical records and prescription drug information. The first hearing is scheduled for Jan. 14, 2019.

Laughrey stated, “There are […] plausible allegations that [Missouri…] knew of the serious risk of harm. Yet they have not adopted any systematic administrative review because [they] can’t [locate] the medical records of the children. […T]he absence of the medical records itself creates an unreasonable risk of harm and the defendants are aware of that risk.”

Laughrey did however dismiss some claims related to informed consent procedures and alleged violation of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act. Those allegations stated that Missouri’s 13,000 foster children are continually exposed to unnecessary risk of serious physical and psychological harm because of a failure to sustain adequate oversight systems to assure psychotropic medications are dispensed safely and only when required.

A teenager among the plaintiffs alleges he was prescribed up to seven psychotropic medication at one time during his two-and-a-half-year stay in the custody of Missouri’s Children’s Division. He also alleges some serious side effects.

Laughrey also wrote that another plaintiff, who was 12, was allegedly placed on up to five medications at a single time. Her caregivers “had three […] understandings of what daily dose of a particular […] medication she was to receive. [T]hey had no medical records to resolve the confusion.”

Following a prescription change, the girl “… began acting angry, aggressive, and violent” and began getting into fights, Laughrey wrote. The judge also wrote that her caregivers “failed to note the correlation between [the] behavior and the medication change.”

A volunteer contacted the girl’s physician, according to Judge Laughrey and when the girl was taken off the medication, “[the] aggressive behavior ceased.”

The story of another 12-year-old girl was also presented. Plaintiffs stated she spent six years in Missouri’s custody. During that time, her medical and mental health history supposedly had “become fragmented and dispersed between her assigned caseworker, foster caretakers, and health providers.”

Allegedly, she was brought to a facility by a foster parent, who failed to provide any medical records or prescription data. Consequently, the girl was hospitalized for nearly a week following a “severe reaction” to taking the incorrect amounts of medication.

Two additional plaintiffs are toddlers who, at the ages of 3 and 2 years old, were allegedly on psychotropic medications while being placed in several foster homes.

Among the material the plaintiffs cite is Missouri’s own report to the federal government where they admit to management issues with psychotropic drugs, including antipsychotics and antidepressants.

Missouri’s report states, “[Several] foster […] children are prescribed multiple psychotropic medications without clear evidence of benefit and with inadequate safety data. The use of multiple medications […] creates the potential for serious drug interactions.”

Children can also be especially vulnerable to harmful side effects because of using psychotropic medications, and those harms could be made worse by inadequate prescription practices, wrote Judge Laughrey. The judge notes, “the full risk posed to children by psychotropic [medications] is not yet […] fully understood.”

Earlier, lawyers in Attorney General Josh Hawley’s office stated the difficulties going along with the state’s efforts to obtain comprehensive medical records and criticized physicians for allegedly offering ill-timed, poor-quality records in response to state inquiries.

The state argued, “These unsuccessful efforts are not the equivalent of criminal recklessness, particularly when the cause of failure was physician non-compliance… attempts to twist these efforts into evidence of deliberate indifference strains common sense and raises the […] possibility that state agencies [would] forego attempts to systematically improve for fear of constitutional liability should they not immediately succeed.”

Court documents filed by the state say the Missouri Children’s Division has access to a web-based tool that allows workers to track prescription drug history for foster children.

Hawley’s office also contended there was inadequate evidence that Missouri’s foster children are exposed to more damaging prescribing practices within the state than they would have undergone outside of it, and doubted the state’s alleged faults regarding foster children cited by the plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys argue that this is the first 14th Amendment case to effectively challenge a state’s “failure to oversee the administration of […] psychotropic medications to children in foster care.”

A statement from the attorneys reads, “[C]hildren continue to be prescribed powerful and potentially dangerous [medications], often with unacceptable dosages and at alarming rates, without the proper oversight and coordination. Even worse, these medications are prescribed as a [cure-all] for difficult behavior, rather than out of medical [necessity]. We are continuing to build our case and are prepared to protect these vulnerable youth at trial.”

When you see a problem with foster care, regarding medications or any other issue, report it on our Kathey and Rob Raskin Stop DHR webpage. You can also do your part to get your state officials to give our children fighting chance. Contact your state representatives here.