State seeks options for kids in foster care
By Samantha Downing
RICHMOND – The General Assembly has told the governor and the Virginia Department of Social Services to formulate a plan to reduce the number of children in foster care.
The Senate last week unanimously passed House Bill 718, sponsored by Delegate Christopher Peace, R-Mechanicsville. It requires the executive branch to “develop a plan to increase the safe and permanent placement of children with families to reduce the number of children in foster care by 25 percent by 2020.”
“The plan shall provide for the placement of children currently in foster care or children entering foster care in safe, appropriate, permanent living arrangements,” the bill says.
The House of Delegates had approved the measure on a 91-6 vote last month.
The bill underscores what the state already hopes to achieve, said Raymond Ratke, who serves Virginia’s secretary of health and human resources as a special adviser for children’s services.
“It would be doing what we’ve already been doing – expanding it and enhancing it and continue to move those practices and philosophical changes along in Virginia,” Ratke said.
In February, he said, Virginia had 6,024 children in foster care. That was down 20 percent from December 2007, Ratke said.
The Department of Social Services has not had a specific target on reducing foster care placements. Agency officials say they have focused more on seeking better outcomes for families involved in the foster care system.
HB 718 would put the focus not only on good outcomes but also on reducing the number of children in foster care.
“A big part of what the plan would include would be increasing the number of adoptions and decreasing the amount of time it takes to find adoptive parents,” Ratke said.
To succeed, he said, state officials must emphasize family engagement and kinship.
“We need to do a better job of finding and locating blood relatives and placing kids safely with blood relatives,” Ratke said. “We don’t have a great track record of that so far. About 5 percent are with blood relatives.”
Ratke said many children in foster care could stay with their regular families if a support system were in place. “Research says when you are able to do that, those kids have much better outcomes than those placed in foster care.”
By implementing such ideas and building on programs already in place, the Department of Social Services can reach the legislative goal of reducing the number of children in foster care by one-quarter over the next 10 years, Ratke said.
“It’s a large number but, again, we’ve reduced it already by 20 percent in the last two years,” he said. “We feel like it’s very doable and reasonable.”
Ratke is encouraged to see the General Assembly take a stand on foster care. “It’s really nice to have a bill that says, ‘This is the goal: to have fewer kids in foster care.’”
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On the Web
The Virginia Department of Social Services has created a Web site about the state’s efforts to expand kinship care and provide other alternatives to foster care. For information, visit www.vafamilyconnections.org.