Kansas and privatized child welfare
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"Marley Greiner" maddogmar...@worldnet.att.net
A while back I mentioned that Kansas had privatized it's child welfare system. The article l wanted to link to at the Heritage Foundation is no longer available, thought have a hard copy of it. I was looking for something today and found this--the results of privatization.
Privatization was highly touted by the Right as a cure-all to wasteful, redundant programs that obviously the government was in capable of fixing.
Here's what happened , from the August 3, 2001 issue of the Christian Science Monitor.
Marley Click here to read this story online: http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2000/08/03/text/p4s1.html Headline: Kansas' bold experiment in child welfare Byline: Laurent Belsie, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor Date: 08/03/2000 (TOPEKA, KAN.)It was billed as the grand experiment in privatizing child welfare.
Kansas would bid out adoption, foster care, and other services to private companies. They'd be paid a lump sum for each child. It was up to them to figure out how to deal with the caseload.
But somewhere between idea and implementation, things went wrong.
Without question, there have been significant advances. Among other things, Kansas has leveled the imbalance in services between poorly served rural areas and better-served cities, and adoptions are up 81 percent.
Yet the much-anticipated revolution in child welfare never occurred.
Instead of creating a managed care system similar to a health-maintenance organization, the changes yielded only a semi-privatized system. Moreover, with one of the original private contractors now teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, the state has taken a step back from some of its boldest reforms.
As the presidential candidates begin to debate in earnest privatizing more social services, Kansas is a cautionary tale about the limits of privatization. It raises question about whether some social responsibilities - such as the welfare of children - sit uneasily on private shoulders.
"Kansas was everybody's poster boy for managed care," says Alfred Kahn, professor emeritus at Columbia University in New York and co-author of a forthcoming report on privatization. "And they have nothing to show for it yet that anybody should copy." A lump sum Kansas' managed-care plan was set up on the innovative idea that each child in the adoption system came with roughly $13,500 in funding. The state would pay the private agency caring for the child half that amount when the child entered the system, another 25 percent when they were placed with adoptive parents, and the final 25 percent when the adoption became legal.
The goal was to provide a monetary incentive for the agency to find homes for children as soon as possible.
And the new system has made progress.
In addition to the leveling of urban and rural services and the improved adoption rate, the program is moving children back to their original families or adoptive parents more quickly. The state is also offering more services to more children than ever, and it is collecting far better data so it can hold contractors accountable to its new goals for child placement.
"The system was so significantly underfunded in Kansas," says Joyce Allegrucci, ***istant secretary for children and family policy at the state's Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services in Topeka. "We have significantly more resources for children in this state than ever before." But recently, burgeoning problems have overshadowed the successes. Unable to move some hard-to-adopt children into new homes, the agency that has run Kansas' adoption program, Lutheran Social Services, has piled up huge debts.
Another challenge: the new process in 1996 was so different from the old system that no one knew how much it would cost, so monetary figures were just officials' best estimates.
As the costs became clearer, the state gave out more money - foster care funding alone has jumped nearly 17 percent since the new program took effect four years ago. But the increases haven't been enough to slow Lutheran Social Services' losses.
Late last month, Lutheran Social Services of Kansas and Oklahoma told its subcontractors it had only $7.3 million to pay off some $9.8 million in debt. It has offered to pay its subcontractors 74 cents on the dollar.
Such a deal would be a big blow to some subcontractors, many of them local agencies providing various services for children. But if they don't accept, Lutheran Social Services could file for bankruptcy.
The company's biggest problem: cash flow, says Marc Bloomingdale, chief operating officer for the Wichita, Kan., agency.
Backing off Such funding problems have led the state to back away from its managed-care approach. In its latest round of contracts, which took effect in July, agencies get a specific amount of money per month per child, not the lump $13,500 sum. It's a more traditional approach.
The change removes some of the incentive to move children quickly through the system. But officials hope federal regulations, which force states to integrate children quickly back into families or risk losing federal funds, will ensure that agencies don't simply stall so that they can receive more monthly payments.
Some experts in Kansas say slowing down a bit might be beneficial. While the fast-track approach works for most children, Kansas was in too much of a hurry at times, they say.
"I don't care how much training I have, there are certain kids I can't handle!" says Deborah Edelman-Dolan, a foster parent and clinical social worker at Florence Crittenton Services here in Topeka.
Recently, a caseworker contracted by the state urged her and her husband to take in a 14-year-old sexual offender. It was an inappropriate request for a family with two children of their own. Ms. Edelman-Dolan turned the caseworker down.
Private caseworkers and the state's representatives also depend on cursory evaluations at times.
For example, last week after a 30-minute and a 90-minute conversation with a troubled teen at Florence Crittenton, both the agency and the state caseworkers recommended she move to foster care. Critics say the examination was too hasty.
"We know what kids need," says Karen Shectman, executive director of Florence Crittenton.
Under the old system, the facility might serve 70 different teenage girls in a year. Now, it treats some 90 girls and for shorter periods of time. A half dozen have returned after foster homes didn't work out - something that rarely happened under the old system.
New bureaucracy The new system has also added another layer of bureaucracy - big contractors - between the state and local care givers, That has caused delays.
More often in recent years, district court judge Dan Mitchell has found that his orders to get children evaluated or to put adults in parenting cl***es get delayed because the programs have long waiting lists.
"If we're going to make the effort to intervene, then we ought to be able to deliver and do it in a timely manner," says Judge Mitchell, who is ***igned to the juvenile division in Shawnee County, which includes Topeka.
"And that's not the case." Supporters of the program, meanwhile, argue the system takes time to work out the kinks.
Privatization "makes sense," says Bob Smith, who heads United Methodist Youthville, a nonprofit child-welfare group that handles foster care for Wichita and surrounding Sedgwick County. "I don't feel it saves money initially. [But] you have the opportunity to create a model of service delivery that will be more efficient." (c) Copyright 2001 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.
Click here to email this story to a friend: http://www.csmonitor.com/cgi-bin/send-story?2000/08/03/text/p4s1.txt The Christian Science Monitor-- an independent daily newspaper providing context and clarity on national and international news, peoples and cultures, and social trends. Online at http://www.csmonitor.com Click here to order a free sample copy of the print edition of the Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/aboutus/sample_issue.html
mh ...@hotmail.com (Melinda Walmsley)
children who enter foster care in Sedgwich Co KS are 3 times more likely that children elsewhere to never return home.
61% of children who left foster care in 1999 were put up for adoption, compared to 22% nationally.
The number of children permanently separated from their parents in KS more than doubled from 1997 to 1999 when the adoption incentive bonuses went into affect, where the US gov paid a bonus to states to up the number of adoptions.
children in KS are 8 to 10 times more likely to be abused in foster care than with their own parents.
child protective agencies are focibly removing more children form their homes even when the agencies own investigations establish that the children have not been neglected or abuses.
In Kansas, nearly half of children placed in foster care were taken from homes with unsubstantiated reports of child maltreatment.
6.4 children per 100,000 were killed in foster care in 1998 compared to a rate orf 1.5 per 100,000 in the general public.
Federal legislation p***ed in 1997 has dramatically increased child removals during 1998 and later years.
Children will have a 1 in 25 chance of being subject to a abuse/neglect investigation this year in sedgewich County. On the other hand, the chance of getting a flat on the family car is 1 in 70.
Kansas has the highest percentage of termination of parental rights last year out of all 50 states.
Sedgewich County is at 61% National 22% Kansas as a whole 30% Of those children who become involved in they system.
Note that with a 61% termination rate and only a 57% substantiation rate, some children are permanently taken from their parents despite absolutely no evidenc of abuse or neglect, and vertually all cases where the slightest sustantiation exists, termination of rights will occur.
7500 children per year are tortured under what is technically government protection.
One common practice in Kansas is to remove all children fromt he home, and then offer to return the older children in exchange for a voluntary relinguishment on the babies. THis is the practice when accustions are unsubstantiated, and is why more childen are permanently removed from the homes than there are those who have substantitated abuse/neglect claims. If the parents refuse, they lose all their children. If they are fit to parent the kids over age 3, why are they not fit to raise the kids under age 3, especially when no evidence of abuse or neglect can be found.
Quote for State Representative Gwen Welshimer, " It seems to be a crime to be poor in the State of Kansas. If you don't have money, you might be better off living somewhere else." Quote from Rep. Ron Tracy, I am appalled that children are put on so many different kinds of medication when they are placed in custody." Drugging the kids is a good way to put pressure on the parents to sign off on their babies in order to protect their older children from the abuses they endure in foster care.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHH Kansas. Kidnapping capital of the USA.
This is why we are called, "An adoption friendly state!" PS. did I mention our governor is an adoptive parent and all these problems in Kansas started about the time he took office. Or that judges in KS get their promotions by direct recommendation of our governor. Perhaps the reason the fraud and coercion are ignored in contested adoptions. It would be bad for the carreer to return a baby.
Allegrucci must be a common name. I noticed that the person in charge of SRS has that last name and so does the Judge who has direct supervision over Stanton Hazlett, Disciplinary administrator.
Hazlett, that's another common name. Funny, in most states, common names are Jones, or smith. But in KS our common names are Allegrucci and Hazlett. Odd wouldn't you all say. Kansas does seem to have a lot of common names popping up in different areas of adoption.
Melinda Grandmother to Katelynn, now and always
klbjor ...@aol.comeonin (KL)
What did all this crap about fostercare have to do with you coercing your daughter into relinquishing?
KL "You don't love someone because they are beautiful, they are beautiful because you love them." - Anon.
Jackie C jda...@newsguy.com
Two darn weeks.. KL..
How can you be so mean spirited?
Jackie
mh ...@hotmail.com (Melinda Walmsley)
Nothing at all, but it shows the government attitude towards adoption, and helps to expalin why adoption fraud has gotten so out of control.
Here's some more.
Melinda The Real Story Help! My Kids Are Gone!
News and Media Lobbying for Reform Federal Cl*** Action Judicial Criticism The State of Utah is buying federal dollars with the blood of our children Throughout America, an average of 3,000 children a day are stolen from their homes and placed in foster care to fuel a multi-billion dollar money-making machine. Utah??™s system is typical, and provides a case study in both the tactics of the government and how individual citizens can defend themselves and their families. To you, your children are your life. To the thousands of caseworkers, supervisors, therapists, judges, and doctors whose salaries are paid by this machine, your children represent job security. Fresh meat. Despite what they may have told you, your case is not a weird exception.
They??™re doing this to everyone.
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Do you have a group of parents who are fighting with DCFS? To schedule an informational seminar on how you can protect your family from child welfare tactics, please contact Michael Humiston at: ??? E-mail: i...@nationaloutrage.org ??? Telephone: 435-654-1152 ??? Address: National Outrage P.O. Box 486, Heber City, Utah 84032
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The federal government pays the State of Utah at least $25,000 for each child the State can remove from its family and place in foster care. The more children the State can take, the more federal money its child "welfare" system can rake in. Each year, hundreds of families throughout Utah fall prey to the Gestapo tactics of the Division of Child and Family Services.
What can families do to protect themselves? What can be done to reign in a child welfare system run amok?
On March 5, 1999, several Utah families who have been victimized by Utah's child welfare system, commenced a federal cl*** action against the attorney general of Utah and others, seeking $500 million in damages, the estimated amount of federal money Utah's Department of Human Services has been rewarded over the last five years for removing enough children from their homes. (Recent information suggests that the actual amount of federal money received during this period could be as high as $3 billion.) Most importantly, the lawsuit challenges the unconstitutional statutes that make these abuses possible.
This cl*** action is brought on behalf of all Utah families who have been victims of DCFS practices. Click here for more information on how to join (or be excluded from) the lawsuit. You may also contact Michael Humiston at the following. E-mail: i...@nationaloutrage.org --
Postal Address: P.O. Box 486, Heber City, Utah 84032 -- Telephone: 435-654-1152.
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Utah's Juvenile Courts Operate in Secret!
Did you know that the following Constitutional rights are prohibited in Utah's Juvenile courts?
The right to remain silent The right to confront witnesses The right to a jury The right to a public trial The right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty A detailed discussion of the problems with Utah's child welfare laws is articulated very well by the Hon. Arthur G. Christean, a retired Utah juvenile court judge in an article entitled, "The Child Welfare Reform Act of 1994: Is the Cure Worse than the Problem?" Profane Justice: A Comprehensive Guide to ***erting Your Parental Rights is twelve chapters of in-depth advice to parents on how to prevent being falsely accused of child abuse, and if you are charged, how to fight the charges and win. The advice in this book will keep Social Services out of your house, teach you how to recognize if your children have been taught to turn their parents in for "abuse" such as spanking, and how to defeat the government's attempts to "kidnap" your children into protective custody. It also gives detailed advice on successfully fighting false allegations of child abuse in a corrupt court system.
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For more information concerning the outrageous abuses heaped upon the Rodriguez family and many others by the child "protective" agencies in Utah, Click Here to see the entire text of the federal cl*** action filed March 5, 1999.
Once again: This cl*** action is brought on behalf of all Utah families who have been victims of DCFS practices. Click here for more information on how to join (or be excluded from) the lawsuit. You may also contact Michael Humiston at the following. E-mail: i...@nationaloutrage.org -- Postal Address: P.O. Box 486, Heber City, Utah 84032 -- Telephone: 435-654-1152.
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Contact Information We answer every phone call and e-mail, but due to the overwhelming response we have received, it sometimes takes several days. If your phone call or e-mail has not been answered within a week, please try again.
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adopta ...@aol.com (AdoptaDad)
Subject: Re: Kansas and privatized child welfare From: mh...@hotmail.com (Melinda Walmsley) Date: 12/6/2001 10:19 AM Eastern Standard Time Message-id: <eb5515c9.0112060719.300c4491@posting.google.com> Nothing at all, but it shows the government attitude towards adoption, and helps to expalin why adoption fraud has gotten so out of control.
Yes, in the worst cases the government believes that children are better served by adoption than being subjected to repeated physical abuse, sexual abuse, and severe neglect at the hands of one or more biological parents.
I suppose you have no problem returning these children to their "rightful owners." Congratulations - your meltdown is now complete.
Dad
jmmb ...@aol.com (Jmmbear)
2 weeks to decide, 8 1/2 months not to notice.
Jeanne
ghoulag ...@aol.com.net (The All-Powerful All-Knowing One)
ROR! Good one, Jeanne!
Ghoulagirl.
"Don't you try to out-weird me, honey; I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal." - Zaphad Beeblebrox, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (Douglas Adams)
lilmtn ...@aol.com (LilMtnCbn)
How succinct.
meagan ...@aol.comsthesun (Kathy)
Beauty.
Kathy "To err is human; to forgive, divine."
meagan ...@aol.comsthesun (Kathy)
Indeed.
Kathy "To err is human; to forgive, divine."
ghoulag ...@aol.com.net (The All-Powerful All-Knowing One)
I concur.
Ghoulagirl.
"Don't you try to out-weird me, honey; I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal." - Zaphad Beeblebrox, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (Douglas Adams)
ghoulag ...@aol.com.net (The All-Powerful All-Knowing One)
You know, I almost wrote that in MY reply. Get OUT of my head!
Ghoulagirl.
"Don't you try to out-weird me, honey; I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal." - Zaphad Beeblebrox, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (Douglas Adams)
lilmtn ...@aol.com (LilMtnCbn)
..check that out
meagan ...@aol.comsthesun (Kathy)
gooder and gooder..
Kathy "To err is human; to forgive, divine."
ghoulag ...@aol.com.net (The All-Powerful All-Knowing One)
How dare you!
Ghoulagirl.
"Don't you try to out-weird me, honey; I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal." - Zaphad Beeblebrox, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (Douglas Adams)
lilmtn ...@aol.com (LilMtnCbn)
Correctamundo.
ghoulag ...@aol.com.net (The All-Powerful All-Knowing One)
Awe..
Ghoulagirl.
"Don't you try to out-weird me, honey; I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal." - Zaphad Beeblebrox, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (Douglas Adams)
mem ...@aol.comeondown (Elizabeth)
Watch out, Jackie! You know what they say about pointing a finger. There are 4 pointing back at you.
Elizabeth
meagan ...@aol.comsthesun (Kathy)
Yeah, bummer..
Kathy "To err is human; to forgive, divine."
klbjor ...@aol.comeonin (KL)
Jackie...Last time I checked a pregnancy lasts longer than 2 weeks. Tarin had more than 2 weeks. Melinda only knew about it for 2 weeks, but Melinda isn't the birthmom, is she? She is just the overbearing mother who coereced Tarin into relinquishing, and from what I have heard went against Tarin's own wishes to keep her daughter. So, I would say that I was not being mean spirited, I was pretty much laying it out there on the line. The facts are pretty much speaking for themselves.
KL "You don't love someone because they are beautiful, they are beautiful because you love them." - Anon.
patr ...@dial1.net (Dian)
Well, you are hoping the kids you raise will share a moment that will last forever, with their parents and yourself in the same room, in a bonding moment.
Does that mean the kids were not as abused as you made them out to be? Di
"helicon" heli...@eircom.net
Darn.
Helen
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Jackie C jda...@newsguy.com
Kathy you are beyond the pale..
At this moment I do not believe you are a birth mother..
Jackie
Jackie C jda...@newsguy.com
A baby should not be relinquished on the day that baby is born..
A fetus should not be relinquished.. not in my world..
The fact is that the State of Kansas allows this to happen..
Baby stealing in its finest..
And you guys do not care.. you wish to look somewhere else.. blame someone..
The wool has been pulled over your eyes and you do not care about what is really going down..
Jackie
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