Governor listens to argument for making it separate entity

Opinions vary on how to fix CPS

Gov. Janet Napolitano cupped her chin in her hand, listening intently Thursday night as one person after another took the microphone to tell her how to reform the state's child welfare system. Beside her, the new director of the Department of Economic Security, David Berns, listened, too, scribbling notes.
They'll do this twice more, in Prescott and Tucson, before releasing a final plan for revamping Child Protective Services, a division of DES that has come under fire for failing to protect children.
About 200 people gathered in the auditorium at Phoenix College, mostly foster parents, CPS caseworkers, police, lawyers, mental health professionals and other child advocates. One by one, for about two hours, they stood to talk.

Use advocacy centers
Bev Ogden, of the Arizona Family and Child Advocacy Center, urged Napolitano to expand the use of advocacy centers where young victims receive medical exams, counseling and meet with police and prosecutors, all in a child-friendly location. There are about a dozen statewide.
Kimberly Hughes of Chandler asked the governor to continue her support of Healthy Families, a state-funded child abuse prevention program that she says has made her a better mother to her twin sons.
And Janet Garcia, director of Tumbleweed Youth Development Center, said teenagers in foster care need more than food, shelter and clothing. They need adults who'll stick around, a good education and a chance to play sports and participate in other after-school activities.

Staffing difficulties
“You want them to have a normal home life, but (state) funding doesn't allow that,” said Jill LaRose, who runs a group home for 10 teenage girls in Peoria. She said it is difficult to keep staff because of the low pay and that it is hard to pay for things like after athletic equipment, after-school activities and new clothes. She lauded the governor's efforts and said she understands reform will take time. But, she asked, “What do we do in the meantime? What do I do tomorrow when the girls want to take dance classes?”
Foster parents have not received an increase in their monthly payments since 1996, said Carol Kamin, director of the Children's Action Alliance, a non-profit advocacy group in Phoenix. And, in the last year, there's been an 8 percent drop in the number of foster homes. In July, she said, 131 children needed a foster home and only 46 beds were available. Kamin also said that no reform would be effective until CPS caseworkers are well-trained and well-paid, their caseloads lightened to at least the national average.

CPS caseworkers have a 24 percent turnover rate
The hearings on CPS come after a June report by a governor-appointed commission on the reform of CPS. In all, the group made 25 suggestions on how Arizona can better protect its children.

Make CPS separate
Among the most hotly debated was whether exposing a baby to chronic alcohol or substance abuse constitutes neglect and whether CPS should be made its own state agency.
It has been a tumultuous two years for CPS, which has been accused of failing to protect children after the 2001 deaths of little Liana Sandoval, who was beaten to death, and baby Anndreah Robertson, who died of exposure to crack cocaine. Then, in June, 7-year-old Isaac Loubriel was found half-starved in a filthy closet in his parent's apartment. All three children had had prior contact with CPS.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0815cpsforum15.html

By Karina Bland
18 August 2003

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