Overhaul of foster care eyed

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The nation's foster care system would undergo sweeping changes, akin to welfare reform, under a bill recently introduced by House Republicans.

"The way the federal government pays for foster care is perverse," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Texas Republican and co-sponsor of the Child Safety, Adoption and Family Enhancement Act.

"We are spending billions of dollars to pay for the room and board of children in temporary foster care, but doing little else to actually improve these children's lives," he said.

The bill, introduced by Rep. Wally Herger, California Republican and chairman of the House Ways and Means subcommittee on human resources, is "like welfare reform for child welfare," said one congressional aide.

As in the 1996 welfare reform, the bill would combine major child-welfare funding streams into a capped grant to states. The grant would grow $200 million a year, and when per-child adoption-bonus payments are added in, child-welfare funding is estimated to increase from $7.7 billion in 2005 to nearly $11 billion in 2014.

Congress also would remove outdated child-welfare rules, giving states more flexibility in how to spend their funds. However, states would have to ensure "better outcomes" for children, such as stronger efforts to prevent children from entering state care and improved management of children's cases when they are in care.

"This bill is designed to fundamentally change the child-welfare system to focus on outcomes rather than process," said Mr. Herger, who has been holding hearings for months on child-welfare issues.

House Democrats have not endorsed the bill, saying their Child Protective Services Improvement Act, introduced in 2003, is better.

The Herger bill correctly provides more resources, but caps the grant -- which "threatens the safe haven needed when children must be removed from their homes," said Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin, Maryland Democrat.

Foster care is the "safety net of last resort for our most vulnerable children, and I cannot see the wisdom in cutting a hole in that net," said Mr. Cardin, who said the Herger bill erred in not requiring states to pay relatives who become legal guardians of foster children or resolving work force problems in child welfare.

Separately this week, leaders in child welfare and law enforcement said they are working together to respond more effectively when foster children run away, are abducted from care or otherwise become "lost in the system."

The number of "missing" foster children is unknown, said Shay Bilchik, president and chief executive of the Child Welfare League of America, which, in collaboration with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, has released its first in-depth report on "Children Missing from Care."

The problem is likely to grow, however, because the number of teens and preteens in foster care steadily has risen.

About 40 percent of children in foster care are 13 or older, compared with 25 percent in 1997, and older foster children are more likely to run away, said Bryan Samuels, director of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.