Too many placement changes and not enough visits from social workers

DCS Seeks To Create More Stability For Foster Children
WKRN-TV, March 7, 2007.

Despite improvements to Tennessee’s foster care program, case workers are not visiting foster children enough and those youngsters are being moved around too much. Those were the findings of a children's rights group's report.

A small study found over a 6-month period that 52% of children were moved twice, and 18% moved three or more times in that time period. A children’s rights attorney says that is unacceptable.

A 150-page progress report, resulting from a federal court order to improve foster care, focused concern on the amount of times youngsters are moved around.

Kathy Jack has been a foster mother......in Rutherford County for three years, caring for young ones in her home. The court monitors’ new report says youngsters in foster care need stability. Jack agrees. “Without it, they don’t feel like they belong anymore,” she says.

While the new report shows foster children moving to different homes much too frequently, Jack says that's not been her experience. “They (the state) work very hard at creating stable environments and getting good foster parents,” she says.

DCS is trying to find more foster parents, which would limit the number of times a child is moved around. Jack agrees with that.

“Fostercare is what gives those kids that have been in care a long time a taste of being a normal kid,” she says.

DCS commissioner Viola Miller says the agency has some important challenges. “We've got to do a better job of finding relatives,” she says. “All of the research indicates that if you place children with relatives, they are less likely to move than children who are placed with strangers.”

Miller wants even more visits to homes by caseworkers. “We’re at about 67% of our children who are seen two or more times per month, and we want that number to go up to about 80%.”

The DCS commissioner says 98% of children in foster care are now seen at least once a month by their care workers. The report does cite improvements in a number of areas: conditions at foster care homes, and keeping family members together.

Tennessee has some 5,000 foster parents to care for some 8,000 children now in the system. The good news is the number of children in state custody has dropped dramatically. In 2004, about 10,000 children were in DCS custody, compared with only 8,700 today.