Family Preservation Policies and Child Abuse

Introduction
Child welfare services have a complicated history in America and still today face a continual crisis. On the one hand, foster care requires resources from the state and breaks up families; on the other hand, implementing family preservation plans carries its own risk. This policy reform paper will examine the problem presented by The Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA), enacted as part of Public Law (P.L.) 115–123, also known as the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018. It will then provide analysis of the problem from the standpoint of historical, social, economic, and political perspectives. It will then examine the policy, evaluate it and discuss current proposals for reform.
Problem Overview
It is recognized that removing children from their families and placing them in foster group home services can be psychologically and emotionally damaging for the child (Ringel et al., 2018). However, leaving children in families where abuse is occurring or where parents are suffering from addiction can also lead to problems. The issue presented by the FFPSA is that it diverts funds away from foster group home services to family preservation services, which on the surface looks like a positive idea: after all, if families can stay together and work out their issues, there will be less need for foster group home care. However, even 12 months of care in a family preservation program might not be enough to give parents the support, counseling and assistance they need to be able to provide a safe and secure environment for their children (Patwardhan, Hurley, Thompson, Mason & Ringle, 2017). That means that funds that have been diverted to the family preservation program will have been used for naught, as the child ends up having to be removed anyway for his own protection and now there are fewer funds available for foster group home services, where the child will be placed.
Family preservation policy might preserve the family, but it does not necessarily preserve the safety of the child and by allocating finite resources to such a policy initiative as seen in the FFPSA, it makes it all the harder for social workers and the foster care system in general to address pre-existing challenges that still remain even after this new initiative is taken up, regardless of the good intentions behind it. That is the main problem with the policy. How to balance the needs of families that can potentially be preserved with the needs of foster group home services that will still continue on is the ultimate issue.
Historical Analysis
Child protective services have always had a controversial history going back to the 19th century in the US. Starting with the orphan trains organized by Rev. Charles Loring Brace, children who were in danger of being lost to the streets were taken up and sent westward ostensibly to be placed with a family where they could learn a trade and learn to take care of themselves as adults (O’Connor, 2001). The orphan trains largely sent city children from New York into the surrounding suburbs, but some of them ended up in the Midwest, working for people who exploited them for labor (O’Connor, 2001). Thus, in some cases the cure was as bad if not worse than the disease. The orphan trains continued for decades until the 1930s. After that period, foster group homes or orphanages became a norm in the US, typically run by religious organizations. However, as state regulations became more standardized in the latter half of the 20th century, these institutions began to change and foster group homes operated by the state and dependent upon state funds became the last refuge for children without anywhere else to go. Because most adoptive parents want to adopt a new baby, young children placed in foster group homes often spend their entire childhoods growing up in foster group care if they are unable to return to their own families. These children age out of foster group care and essentially enter into adulthood to fend for themselves, most of them having never learned the basic skills of survival and many of them dealing with their own addiction issues (Mallon & McHartt-Hess, 2013). Foster group care is obviously not the best solution to the problem of child welfare but it is often the only solution. Diverting funds away from foster group services can turn a bad situation into an even worse one.
Social Analysis
Obviously it is important for families to be preserved if at all possible. In some cases, families may be unaware that they are being abusive to children and all that is required is education for the parents. In other situations the parents may be overwhelmed and may lack a support system. Social workers can sometimes help and family preservation programs might provide the support required. However, in other cases, parents are dealing with substance abuse issues or mental health problems and these cannot be fixed in a short amount of time so as to ensure a safe environment for the child. Thus, realistically speaking, not every family is going to be one that can be preserved. This has to be acknowledged up front so that the issue of how best to provide for the child can be addressed. If the child’s best chances for safety and security are in foster group care services, then resources should be made available to these services to ensure that the child gets the education he needs to be able to age out of foster group services if necessary, continue his schooling in college, obtain gainful employment and housing on his own and have a stable life.
With this FFPSA, one can see that social injustice issues can continue to be an issue, in spite of the fact that the policy does focus on prevention. In short, it is not a completely successful policy because there are gaps that go unaccounted for—such as what happens to group care services? Just as the orphan trains were sometimes a cure that was worse than the disease, this policy can potentially be the same kind of thing. The fact is that being a foster child is not like being an ordinary child. Being transferred from one’s home to a group home and then placed with an alternate family can be traumatic in and of itself. It is not as though the child does not notice what is happening, yet bureaucrats in the nation’s capital do not think of the reality of what life is like for these children. They pass laws meant to prevent children from ending up in foster care in the first place, but they do not take into consideration what the best course of care might actually be for children who have no choice but to end up in foster care. Sometimes a group home is the best available option for kids—but to be the best it needs funding and support.
Economic Analysis
While the idea of FFPSA is good from the perspective of keeping families together, the reality of the policy is that it makes it harder for states to look after foster children in group homes. Group homes are already faced with funding crunches, and the FFPSA does not help their situation at all. As Wiltz (2018) notes, the Act “prioritizes keeping families together and puts more money toward at-home parenting classes, mental health counseling and substance abuse treatment — and puts limits on placing children in institutional settings such as group homes.” States like New York and California may find that they have many counties that simply cannot fund their group homes because of federal caps. What then does this mean for foster children who cannot stay with their biological families? It means that these children are not going to have any easier time in foster group care because these group homes are going to see their own funding slashed.
Many parents struggling to provide for their children require welfare support from the state. The same is true for group homes. If parents see their welfare funding taken from them, their situation could quickly spiral out of control. Economically, the plan for a family preservation policy is like trying to stretch a single family’s income to cover for two families. Both families end up being underserved in the process.
Additionally, the economy in the US appears to be eroding under the feet of the middle class, quite rapidly now that the long-term effect of COVID closures has become more than evident. Businesses have disappeared, jobs have been lost permanently, and half the working population now makes poverty level wages for a family of five. The bottom has truly fallen out of the economy, although one would not think it if one were measuring economic strength by the performance of the S&P 500. Most people in need of family preservation support are nowhere near having any idea what the S&P 500 is doing. They are trying to make ends meet and are failing even at that. That is why their children are at risk of being removed from their care. The economic problems plaguing America are only going to get worse in the coming years, and that means the family preservation policy could be little more than an idealistic attempt to do the impossible. As families begin to feel the pain more and more, it will mean more and more children being at risk of abuse. If there are no more funds for group homes, where are these children going to go? Will the orphan train program be resurrected?—because the reality is that the US is about to begin seeing more and more children living on the streets, as was the case 100 years ago.
Political Analysis
Politically speaking, the idea of separating families is a controversial one, as the recent eruption of political invective over the immigration policy under President Trump has shown. Kirstjen Nielsen, for example, was a policy and legislation writer for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) prior to becoming Secretary of Homeland Security in December of 2017 (Definitive Contract, 2016). Her resignation in April of 2019 came after some intense attention was given to border security. Although Secretary Nielsen had insisted upon a tough stance on border security and had even advocated for President Trump’s divisive policy on family separation of immigrants, she was replaced in 2019 (Reid, 2019). Nielsen supported the zero tolerance policy that, she argued, was simply a continuation of an Obama-era policy (Reid, 2019). However, she later stated that she resigned because she was not comfortable implementing some of the Trump Administration policies and was reported to state that “saying no” was not enough and thus she felt compelled to resign (Behrman, 2019).
The issue over family separations of immigrants served as the main reason for her departure. Nielsen stated that she did not regret signing the memo that implemented the same strict enforcement that had been followed under the Obama Administration; rather, what she objected to was the lack of protocol in reuniting families. “What I regret is that that information flow and coordination to quickly reunite the families was clearly not in place,” she argued (Behrmann, 2019). Yet, the practice of separation was indeed ended by President Trump via Executive Order.
Nielsen’s replacement Kevin McAleenan lasted even less time in the post than Nielsen did: he endured the scrutiny and pressure for only six months; whereas Nielsen held the post for nearly a year and a half (Berhmann, 2019). In the end, it appears that the media focus, the scrutiny, and the controversy of implementing a strict border security policy under President Trump was just not something Nielsen or McAleenan for that matter was willing to endure for very long. After all, these are people with careers to consider, and it is not like they want such a controversial stain on their resumes when they go looking for new work in the future.
All of this shows that the political climate is one in which politically correct views are sanctimoniously held for purely political reasons. The reality of the situation is not of major concern to politicians—it is the optics of the matter that matters most to them. The FFPSA looks good from an optics point of view. That is why it was passed. The perspective from the front lines, however, looks dangerous and upsetting. The children who are meant to be served by the FFPSA could be the ones who end up being shafted and abused the most.
Policy/Program
The FFPSA is a problematic policy that is designed to make sure that families stay together and that children do not have to be removed from their homes and placed in foster services. The family preservation policy is beneficial in the sense that it promotes the integrity of the family and maintains that it is better for children to stay with their families if at all possible, i.e., if the child can exist safely and securely in the home. The policy focuses on providing services that can help parents come to grips with whatever challenges they are facing. These services can include anything from counseling to arrangement of welfare services for the improvement of the family’s economic or financial condition. If there is substance abuse in the family, there may be a need for counseling. If the problems run deep, it may end up that the child is removed and placed in foster care. This often happens with families who are poor, black and have a family member incarcerated. In such situations, the unfortunate reality is that there is simply not much that the social worker can do other than remove the child in the end. There are limits to family preservation policy, but it is a good policy to pursue in hope and justice for the sake of all considered.
Evaluation
The FFPSA does not stand up to the test of whether the ultimate good is being served by the policy. Instead, it stands up as a policy mainly because it provides the kind of political window dressing so much in favor today: politicians want to feel good about keeping families together. They are not paying attention to the realities of the situation, however. Foster group homes are necessary because they are the last refuge of children who are not safe in their biological families. Family preservation services cannot fix every domestic situation—that is a given and thus there should be a risk mitigation strategy in place. Instead, the funds that should be going to support foster group homes will now be going to support family preservation services that are unlikely to be efficacious. Children will likely still end up needing to be removed and they will be put in conditions likely to rival the environment they were pulled out of in terms of poverty and lack of adequate care. The state cannot give what it does not have, and if what it does have is given to families that will never make good on the investment the outcome could be disastrous for all stakeholders.
Current Proposals for Reform
The current proposal for reform means well, and the idea of keeping families together is an optimistic one. The reality is that it is not going to be as easy or as effective as the optimistic supporters of the reform believe. Thus, the proposal here is that if funds are going to be used to support the FFPSA they not be diverted away from foster group homes. Instead, those funds should come from somewhere else in the budget. Wherever the money to support family preservation comes from, funding must not be cut for foster group care. Foster group homes are the last refuge, and if they go children will literally end up on the streets.
Thus, it is imperative that policy makers and legislators realize the risk that they run when the draft and pass idealistic policies. The policies may have great optics, but they can have terrible outcomes in reality. The funding for foster care should, if anything, be increased—because the situation with foster group homes is already not great. Taking funding away would only make it worse, and if anything more is needed to improve care for children who group up in and age out of foster group homes. They are, unfortunately, being ignored by the utopian planners behind the FFPSA.
Conclusion
Risk mitigation must be conducted, and funds shored up for foster group care even as funds are found from other sources for family preservation. The FFPSA is a policy that looks out for families in theory. In practice, family preservation’s success is limited. Foster group home funding should not be cut; family preservation programs should not be implemented at the expense of group home funding.
References
Behrmann, S. (2019). Former DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen says she left post because 'saying no' wasn't enough. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/10/22/kirstjen-nielsen-former-dhs-secretary-said-she-left-post-because-saying-no-wasnt-enough/2450196001/
Definitive Contract. (2016). Retrieved from https://govtribe.com/award/federal-contract-award/definitive-contract-hsfe3013c0366
Mallon, G., McHartt-Hess, P. (2013). Child Welfare in the 21st Century. 2nd Edition.Columbia University Press.
O’Connor, S. (2001). Orphan Trains: The Story of Charles Loring Brace and the Children He Saved and Failed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Patwardhan, I., Hurley, K. D., Thompson, R. W., Mason, W. A., & Ringle, J. L. (2017). Child maltreatment as a function of cumulative family risk: Findings from the intensive family preservation program. Child Abuse & Neglect, 70, 92-99.
Reid, P. (2019). DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen speaks for first time since resignation announcement. Retrieved from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kirstjen-nielsen-resigning-dhs-secretary-expected-to-offer-resignation-today-live-updates-2019-04-07/
Ringel, J. S., Schultz, D., Mendelsohn, J., Holliday, S. B., Sieck, K., Edochie, I., & Davis, L. (2018). Improving child welfare outcomes: balancing investments in prevention and treatment. Rand health quarterly, 7(4).
Wiltz, T. (2018). This New Federal Law Will Change Foster Care As We Know It. Retrieved from https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2018/05/02/this-new-federal-law-will-change-foster-care-as-we-know-it