State of Tennessee is accountable for the care it provides to its foster children

Our Opinion: Foster care needs a fix
Children in system harmed by too frequent moves from home to home
Clarksville Leaf Chronicle, March 10, 2007.

A group that monitors Tennessee's foster-care program has found the state's program improving, but it's not at the place it should be yet. Too many children are being moved around too much.

Children's Rights, an advocacy group that filed a class-action lawsuit against DCS, has checked for the last six years on the foster-care program as a result of the court-ordered settlement. Specifically, it's looking at how children are treated during the first six months in the state system. Most of these youngsters find themselves in state care due to abuse and neglect.

Of those, more than 50 percent had been moved at least twice during that initial six-month period. Another 18 percent found themselves in three or more homes during that time frame.

Children's Rights says that number of moves is not acceptable. Tennesseans should concur with that assessment.

These children already have been through the wringer. They don't need a high level of instability once they are removed from abusive homes and placed in foster care.

The report also said the program came up short in required visits by their caseworkers in the children's first eight weeks in state custody.

On the plus side, conditions for foster children have improved since 2001, according to the group. DCS has moved children out of places that were very similar to outdated orphanages and into foster families. A greater effort also is being made in keeping siblings together, which keeps important family ties intact.

Many adults have overcome horrendous childhoods to have happy and productive lives. If the state of Tennessee can intervene on behalf of its citizens and help to make childhoods a little easier for those children in foster care, it has an obligation to try to do so.