Death prompts changes at agency that monitors foster kids

By Ana M. Valdes, The Palm Beach Post
5:35 p.m. EDT, May 21, 2011

WEST PALM BEACH— Leaders of the private agency once charged with ensuring Nubia Barahona was safe with her adoptive family say the girl's death has led to changes that could help caseworkers detect threats to foster children.

"This case has caused a shift in [caseworkers'] thinking. — 'Are these foster parents the good people? Do they want to adopt for good reasons?'" said Our Kids CEO Frances Allegra, who recently co-wrote a 10-page plan to improve its case management in response to the death.  FULL STORY

Duh, I dunno boss. It's your knerffing incompetent agency. And it's not as if it's the first time bad things have happened to your kidnapped little money-makers.  Maybe MOST kids would be better off if left alone in their real homes?

Foster Care vs. Keeping Families Together: The Definitive Study

NCCPR long has argued that many children now trapped in foster care would be far better off if they had remained with their own families and those families had been given the right kinds of help.Turns out that’s not quite right.

In fact, many children now trapped in foster care would be far better off if they remained with their own families even if those families got only the typical help (which tends to be little help, wrong help, or no help) commonly offered by child welfare agencies.

That’s the message from the largest study ever undertaken to compare the impact on children of foster care versus keeping comparably maltreated children with their own families. The study was the subject of a front-page story in USA Today. The full study is available here

The study looks at outcomes for more than 15,000 children. It compares foster children not to the general population but to comparably maltreated children left in their own homes. The result: On measure after measure the children left in their own homes do better. In fact, it’s not even close.

Children left in their own homes are far less likely to become pregnant as teenagers, far less likely to wind up in the juvenile justice system and far more likely to hold a job for at least three months than comparably maltreated children who were placed in foster care. FULL STORY