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Child Welfare League of America Releases National Report on Decline in Federal Foster Care Funding
New Report Shows 18% Reduction in Federal Assistance for Abused and Neglected Children
For more information, contact
Joyce Johnson
Phone: 804/492-4519
Cell: 703/980-7641
E-mail: jjohnson@cwla.org
July 17, 2006, Washington, DC -- A new report released today by the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) shows federal assistance for foster care has declined significantly in recent years. The report, Ten years of Leaving Foster Children Behind, is a new analysis of the latest data on child welfare services and the eroding eligibility for Title IV-E Foster Care and Adoption Assistance.
Ten years ago, Congress passed landmark welfare reform legislation doing away with the more than sixty year old anti-poverty program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and replacing it with the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program. However, what Congress did not do was detach the eligibility requirement for federal foster care support from the AFDC program. Hence, when a child enters foster care or is placed for adoption as a special needs child under Title IV-E of the Social Security Act, the federal government will help subsidize a share of the cost only if that child was removed from a family that would have been eligible for the AFDC program as it existed on July 16, 1996.
In 1998, following enactment of these reforms, well over half of the children entering foster care, some 55 percent, were eligible for federal foster care assistance. By 2004, under half, or 45 percent, are eligible. This is an eighteen-percent reduction in children who are eligible to receive federal support. In sheer numbers, at least 50,000 children per year are not eligible for federal assistance.
CWLA conducted a state-by-state examination over a seven year period, 1998 through 2004, to determine the average monthly number of claims that a state filed for each of those years. In 2004, 233,000 of the 517,000 children in foster care were estimated to be eligible. In comparison, 1998 data indicates that there were 305,000 children claimed by states to be eligible for Title IV-E assistance.
"Imagine the stadium at last week's baseball All Star game filled with children - that's how many children are not receiving assistance. We call on Congress to fix the eligibility requirement and put an end to ten years of leaving foster children behind," said Shay Bilchik, President and CEO of the Child Welfare League of America.
CWLA also took a look at the impact of the AFDC eligibility requirements on state systems by assessing the federal Foster Care Eligibility Reviews of all 50 states and the District of Columbia for the timeframe of April 1999 through October 2004. Researchers examined the number of states struggling to make sure that they are following the eligibility rules of a now defunct-federal program, whether or not the states were losing federal funds as a result of errors in determining eligibility, and the administrative burdens that states had encountered. CWLA found a total of thirty-one states that were not in compliance with the AFDC eligibility requirements during either the primary, secondary, or subsequent review.
"Though I consider my experience with the foster care system to be short, I endured enough to last a lifetime....The state steps in to protect and provide for youth. This is their job, yet how can one protect and provide when there is very little funding?" commented Jessica Lindsey, a member of the National Foster Youth Advisory Council.
The report includes information from a survey of local community based agencies that provide foster care services. The results of the survey are compelling. Non-profit agencies, including faith-based agencies, that provide foster care services struggle to make up the shortfall in federal support for these children. The survey found that sixty-five percent of providers identified a trend of local private agencies subsidizing out-of-home care. State and local child welfare agencies have had to devote important staff resources to maintaining an outdated eligibility requirement, and as a result, are experiencing increased pressure to raise millions of dollars annually to make up for the diminishing federal support.
"We have seen our fundraising demands grow annually as we are now raising $1.5 million per year to fill in the gap of the costs of providing services," noted Tom Burton, Executive Director of Agape in Nashville, Tennessee.
CWLA called the eligibility link to a federal program that no longer exists bad policy and called on Congress to eliminate the link altogether and provide support for all abused and neglected children.
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