For foster youth, it's a state of chance
No refuge
A foster child living in Napa County is in greater
danger of being abused in foster care than anywhere else in the Bay
Area, according to a county-by-county comparison of various
quality-of-life measurements. A foster child in Contra Costa County has
the best chance of being adopted within two years of entering the
system. A child in Alameda County is least likely to receive regular
visits from a social worker.
In San Francisco -- where there are more children in
foster care per capita than anywhere else in the state -- a child
faces the grimmest outcomes. According to data compiled by the
National Center for Youth Law and previewed to The Chronicle, San
Francisco ranks 55 out of 58 counties when it comes to state and
national performance measures focused on safety and permanence.
These vast disparities underscore what is wrong with
the state's disjointed foster-care system. For the 80,000 young people
in foster care, the levels of care -- and hope for the future -- are
often a matter of geography. This benign neglect of state responsibility
to its foster children is a disgrace.
Child Welfare Services publishes and distributes these
data quarterly to the counties as a result of the Child Welfare System
Improvement and Accountability Act of 2001. The performance indicators
included the number of children in foster care, rates of abuse, length
of time for reunification with birth parents and adoption rates.
Children's need for a safe, stable and permanent home
does not change depending on where they live. But the state lacks a
fundamental commitment to such consistency. In fact, the report is
accompanied by an admonition by Child Welfare Services: "It is important
that counties not draw comparisons to performance in other counties or
even the state as a whole due to differences in demographics, resources,
and practice."
We beg to differ.
"Why gather data if you're not going to use it to
improve services?" asked Curtis L. Child, senior attorney for the
Oakland-based National Center for Youth Law. "The state and the counties
have never set out a comparison to see how counties are performing
between one another. This is exactly what you need to be using
performance outcomes for, to find out which youth you can expect to be
in safer conditions and which ones are at risk."
In the Bay Area, you can expect those in Contra Costa
County -- which ranks No. 8 overall -- to be far better off than those
in San Francisco, which is home to 2,107 foster youth. "San Francisco is
more urbanized and there's more of a concentration of severe urban
poverty than Contra Costa," said Frank Mecca, executive director of the
County Welfare Directors Association.
"Families in crisis in Benicia (in Solano County) are
different from families in crisis in the Bayview," said San Francisco
Human Services Director Trent Rhorer. "These are families that are
dealing with the stresses of community violence, crowded public housing,
drug trade, domestic violence and inter-generational poverty."
Everyone agrees that under-funding on the state and
federal levels is a problem, but there are counties that manage to
perform better with the same or even fewer resources than poorly
performing counties.
Los Angeles County, for example, which faces serious
issues of poverty and urbanization and has a far higher child
population, performs substantially higher than San Francisco in areas of
safety and permanence.
"If you have two kids, you don't turn to one and say,
'I don't expect you to graduate,' " said Jennifer Rodriguez, legislative
and policy coordinator for the California Youth Connection and a former
foster youth.
"As a parent -- and that's what the state is to these
kids -- you expect every child you raise to graduate and you make sure
that you do everything you can to make that happen. Here, it just all
depends on where you live, and that's not acceptable."
Recognizing San Francisco's dire need for improvement,
Mayor Gavin Newsom last week announced a plan to use a new $894,000
state grant to help foster families. The funds will be used to contract
with nonprofit agencies that will help each family deal with such issues
as drug abuse, alcoholism, unemployment and mental health.
San Francisco was also granted permission to spend
foster-care funds more flexibly. For example, $5,000 spent on placing a
foster child in a group home can now be spent on keeping the child at
home or with a relative and providing services to stabilize the family.
San Francisco Supervisor Sophie Maxwell last week
announced the formation of a foster-care task force in San Francisco and
a new ordinance that requires the group to meet with the Board of
Supervisors every six months.
"I'm not going to make excuses," said Newsom. "We've
got to do a better job. When I went into office, I focused on two
things: crime and homelessness. What I noticed in both areas was a high
number of foster kids.
"We've got get our house in order. It would be foolish
for us not to address this problem."
While Newsom's pledge to address San Francisco's
inadequacies is welcome, it's time for the state to dedicate the
resources -- and to install an overarching level of accountability -- to
give foster children throughout the state a safe and stable home and the
skills to succeed when they leave the system.
As a state, we may be divided by county lines, but
these children -- our children -- deserve our undivided attention.
Editorial
15 November 2005
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/11/15/EDG5PFN8V11.DTL
