Paper
The reluctant role of the Federal Government in Child Welfare in the United States
- issue: Issue 2 / 2008
- authors: John Sciamanna
- keywords: child welfare, Usa
- views: 4533
- downloaded: 1
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abstract
Background. The most recent official data indicates that in 2005 there were more than 506,000 children in foster care in the United States on a given day. Throughout the year approximately 800,000 spent some time in foster care. 122,000 of these children were ready for adoption meaning that they were no longer going to be rejoined with their parents. In that same year there were over 3 million referrals or calls of possible child abuse and neglect. 1,460 children died from child abuse. Over the past seven or eight years there has been some decrease in the number of children in foster care but overall these numbers have held throughout this decade.
Despite these numbers, the subject of foster care, adoption, child abuse does not rank high in federal U.S. elections nor does the subject rank high in recent national budgets. When candidates for the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives or for the office of President raise "children's issues" these issues almost never come up. While the first decade of the 21st Century has seen the U.S. government invests hundreds of billions dollars into the war, into larger tax cuts and into certain national interests such as security against another terrorist attack, the funding for the collection of federal "child welfare" programs have eroded. It remains to be seen how the 2008 candidates will respond but recent campaigns and polling does not suggest that 2008 will be any different.
Purpose. This paper is based on several historical and U.S. government data and information sources including information by NGO's such as the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA).
History. The United States history of what we call "child welfare" or the care and welfare of children without families or abandoned by their families is a long and changing history. The nineteenth century's solution would in part include sending children out to the new western frontier of the United States on trains - orphan trains. In the early twentieth century there were also poor houses-congregate facilities that provided little more than a roof over one's head. Then the great depression era, under President Franklin Roosevelt, brought us the Social Security Act which attempted to address a number of poverty and social issues by providing some needed support programs, support for the unemployed, for the elderly and a cash assistance welfare system for children and widows. The sixties brought a new dedication and a war on poverty including attempts to fortify the public assistance entitlement called Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC).
In 1980 under President Jimmy Carter a separate program would be created out of the AFDC program with the establishment of the Foster Care and Adoption Assistance program. This funding was created as an "entitlement", meaning that if a child was placed in foster care or placed in an adoptive home and met the federal eligibility requirements, federal dollars would be provided to that state government overseeing that child's care. Thus, a designated funding stream was created. It was limited however only to those children who had been removed from their birth parents. As part of this 1980 action Washington lawmakers attempted to bolster the funding for intervention services that might prevent a child from going into foster care. A fixed amount of funding or block grant of federal funding was increased to help state governments pay for programs that might prevent abuse or provide services for struggling families. Unlike the foster care funding however these funds were fixed and would not go up automatically as need increased.
This was really the last bold action a congress and President has taken in regard to child welfare. Since that 1980 action, little has been done to transform federal funding or support for children in the nation's child welfare system. Instead of reforming the care provided and the way the federal government pays or assists states in paying for it, funding has been frozen, cut or at the very least eroded by inflation. While various advocacy groups (Non-Governmental Organizations/NGOs) have made numerous calls for comprehensive reforms that would fund a range of services from in-home prevention and preservation services, no major action has resulted and in fact there have been some efforts to dismantle federal funding by converting the entitlement formula for Foster Care and Adoption Assistance into a fixed amount of funding or block grant that would not increase regardless of need.
Recent Past. In 1981 the United States Senate passed legislation that, if it had been passed by the House of Representatives, would have turned Foster Care and Adoption Assistance funding into a fixed block grant. The U.S. House of Representatives stopped the proposal.
In 1995 the U.S. House of Representatives under the new Congressional leadership led by Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, examined the entire public assistance system from food programs such as school-based lunches, to a food stamp program for the poor to the main cash assistance program, AFDC to the Foster Care and Adoption Assistance programs. They proposed a child welfare block grant that would create a fixed allocation of funding. It would provide a set amount of funding not tied to increasing eligibility. It passed the House of Representatives in the spring of 1995 but failed to get passed by the United States Senate in the fall of that same year.
While unsuccessful in converting the Foster Care system of funding, Congress did convert the AFDC cash assistance program into a block grant. The old AFDC program had now been turned into a block grant called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). This action turned this entitlement or open ended fund into a fixed block grant to address the basic needs of the poorest citizens. That change did have an indirect but lasting effect on child welfare funding. Eligibility for funding for Foster Care and Adoption Assistance had been based on the eligibility for the AFDC cash assistance program. With this AFDC program now converted into a block grant with no national eligibility requirements, Congress had to create a new standard of eligibility for Foster Care and Adoption Assistance. They developed a temporary solution. A child would be eligible for federal Foster Care and Adoption Assistance funding if that child was removed from a family that would have been eligible for the old AFDC cash assistance program as it existed in July 1996 - when AFDC was eliminated. While that eligibility was intended to last for a year or two, it is still in place in 2008. It means that less than 45 percent of children in foster care are covered by federal funding.
In February 2003, the Bush Administration released its annual federal budget. The President's budget submitted to Congress every February outlines not just the President's proposed funding levels of more than $1.7 trillion for federal programs in the coming year, it also outline's that President's priorities and policies. Within the Department of Health and Human Services budget for the national Children's Bureau was a proposal that altered the way the federal government assists states in addressing children in foster care. The Administration was proposing that states be given more flexibility to spend their share of the federal money. The federal foster care funds (totaling less than four and a half billion dollars) could be used to prevent the removal of children and to reduce the need for foster care. As a condition however, any state agreeing to the terms would be limited to fixed allocation or a block grant of federal funding
Instead of the current structure that allows a state to draw federal dollars if a child met the federal eligibility requirements a state could accept a block grant of funding if they agreed to suspend this funding/entitlement structure. A state would agree to take a pre-determined fixed amount federal funding regardless of how many or how few children were in care. If the state agreed to this fixed amount it could spend funds on a range of services not just for the support of children in foster families and foster facilities. In this way a state could invest in "up-front" or prevention services. That would mean funding would not go up if the need went up (more children went into care). The idea was that there was already enough funds being spent it simply needed to be spent differently.
Since that 2003 budget the President has offered the same proposal in the five budgets that followed. Each year the Administration failed to provide the technical details of their proposal and each year Congress has shown less interest in pursuing the Admini¬stra¬tion proposal.
As the Bush Administration began its last year, the U.S. Congress has taken a more serious look at ways to address child welfare. Several legislative proposals have been offered by members of the Senate and the House to address certain parts of the child welfare system. Some, including one by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, would extend federal funding to families (kin) who take in their own relatives rather than go to a non-family member. A range of other proposals would address the age at which care ends, how the system is paid for and what services are covered. Whether new legislation and programs are passed in 2008 with presidential and congressional campaigns in high gear remains to be seen.
Conclusion. In the last quarter century not much has changed in terms of national policy. Programs that were created to prevent neglect and abuse have never been funded at the level set in the original laws. Improvements were made in regard to the collection of data - there is better tracking of where children are today then there was ten or twelve years ago. But ultimately there are those who see this issue of child abuse and neglect as either a state issue not deserving or requiring a national focus or those who recognize its importance but who are reluctant to give it higher priority than many other issues that capture voter attention. Ultimately it will be the next Administration and the next Congress beginning in 2009 before we see the chance for any significant change in federal attention and policy for vulnerable children and families in the U.S. Child Welfare system.
Key findings. The issue and challenge of child abuse and neglect and support for children in the United States child welfare system have never risen to the level of importance that it could be considered a national priority. The last significant expansion and investment by the federal government took place in 1980. Since that point the most attempts at change or reform have conditioned those reforms on the principle that the federal government should not spend or allocate any more federal dollars. While there appears to be agreement that federal funding should be spent on programs to prevent abuse from taking place, the most significant federal proposals offered in the last twenty-five years allow such prevention spending only if the funding is taken from the current population now in care. While issues of adoption, foster care and child abuse can generate sympathy in the general population they rarely evoke a strong enough presence that would generate major legislation or national investment. Until this focus changes and child welfare issues become a national priority, the United States will continue to deal with these issues differently according to which of the fifty U.S. States a child lives in and nationally the U.S. will continue to have 500,000 children in foster care and nearly one million abused and neglected each year.
Contacts: John Sciamanna, Co-director of Government Affairs, Child Welfare League of America, Child Welfare League of America, 2345 Crystal Dr, Suite 250, Arlington, VA 22202, E-mail: jsciamanna@cwla.org or nymethuckle@msn.com, Phone 703-412-3161.