Troubled youth

Helping their families help them works better than institutionalization

Monroe County is smart to try to double the size of the Youth and Family Partnership program. Keeping troubled youths out of the foster care system by providing them with counseling and other assistance at home is a strategy that makes sense.
Though the expansion has taken longer than expected, the county Department of Child and Family Services plans to meet its goal of enrolling 100 kids by the end of the year. It's important that it does.
Children with problems are more likely to thrive in a safe family environment. Yet, last year the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care reported that states continue to rely much too heavily on expensive institutional foster care when alternative programs are often better at keeping children healthy and safe, without breaking up families.

Youth and Family Partnership, which helps parents help their children, is one of those programs. Of the children who participated in Youth and Family Partnership last year, only about 6 percent ended up requiring 24-hour supervision in residential foster care facilities.
That's good for the children and it's good for the county budget. Keeping a young person in a foster care institution costs the county almost $100,000 a year, while a year in the Youth and Family Partnership program costs only about $36,000. Because hiring and training delays slowed the expansion of this program, the county is spending about $3 million more than expected on institutional care this year.

Now that Youth and Family Partnership has the staff to help more young people, the committee in charge of finding alternative solutions for troubled youths should make sure this style of care is used, whenever appropriate.
Keeping troubled young people with their families is better for them and for the community.

23 June 2005

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050621/OPINION04/506210317/1041/OPINION

home / Previous viewpoint