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INDIANA: CASEWORKERS' DILEMMA
More caseworkers won't solve problems
with system
Gov. Mitch Daniels and Department of Child Services
Director James Payne should thank the jury that acquitted former state
employee Denise Moore of felony neglect. A guilty verdict would have
made reform of Indiana's child protection system nearly impossible. The
last thing Indiana needs is caseworkers so terrified of doing the wrong
thing that they become paralyzed. We've got too many of them already,
which is why children drift through foster care for years, neither
returning to their biological families nor being placed into loving
adoptive homes. A system hoping to reform itself cannot succeed with
employees who are risk-averse.
Moore was the caseworker for twins Anthony and Latoya
Bars of Indianapolis. Anthony died in 2002 and Latoya suffered
developmental delays after being beaten and denied food and water by
their adoptive parents, Latricia and L.B. Bars. A jury found Moore
guilty Saturday of lying to the judge who approved the adoptions but
acquitted her of two more serious neglect counts stemming from her acts
as a caseworker in the Marion County Office of Families and Children.
Prosecutors blamed Moore for the tragic outcomes because she failed to
conduct background checks prior to the adoption. Such checks would have
uncovered three incidents of abuse and Mr. Bars' 1987 battery conviction
for beating his biological daughter with an extension cord. Moore
clearly didn't do her job right. According to court records, she cut
corners, lied and failed to follow procedures. But a guilty verdict
could have stopped reform in its tracks. Why? The child protection
system requires the best of caseworkers — acting as the state — to take
risks every step along the way.
When a caseworker removes a child from his home, he
takes a chance the child will be emotionally scarred and family bonds
damaged irrevocably. Yet this is the risk caseworkers are most apt to
take because it's safer — and easier — than trying to keep a troubled
family intact. Removal is the best option when a child is in imminent
physical danger. But experts say one-third to half of the children in
the system are removed for reasons of family economics, such as
unsuitable housing or lack of day care while the mother works. When a
child is put in foster care, the state is gambling that he will thrive,
or at least be better off than in his biological family. The Institute
for Evidence-based Social Work looked at numerous studies to see if
foster care helped abused children overcome academic deficits and found
“overwhelming transnational evidence that youth who are leaving foster
care remain seriously behind the norms.” Foster care itself is no
guarantee of safety as the rate of abuse in foster care is higher than
in the general population. Every adoption is a risk, for both parties.
Studies are conclusive that a loving adoptive family is the next best
thing to a healthy, biological family for children. But, after years of
emotional or physical suffering, some children can't adapt. Or, as in
the case of the Barses, some adoptive parents are bad people who become
abusers.
Returning a child to his biological home is a risk.
Even after extensive treatment, some families can't break abusive
patterns. Aggravating that risk for caseworkers is the fear of negative
news headlines should a child be killed. Hiring 800 new caseworkers, as
Gov. Daniels proposed Jan. 12, will not eliminate risks, and it could
backfire if it adds capacity to a system whose preferred response is to
avoid the toughest calls, like family preservation or adoption.
“If you simply throw more caseworkers into a system whose guiding
principle is 'take the child and run,' then instead of lowering
caseloads you will simply widen the net of needless coercive
intervention, leaving you with the same lousy system only bigger,” says
Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child
Protection Reform in Alexandria, Va.
Indiana removed 6,179 children in 2003, up 28 percent
from 1999. In comparison to other states engaged in child welfare
reform, the numbers are going in the wrong direction. Indiana needs to
build a new child protection system based on successful models of
prevention, family preservation and, in rare cases, removal and
adoption. It will be risky and caseworkers will make mistakes. The
alternative is the low-risk, low-success system we've got now. And as
the trial of Denise Moore made clear, that's risky, too.
Andrea Neal
26 January 2005
http://www.indystar.com/articles/2/212302-6072-024.html
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