Originally published by Missouri Kids Count and modified for Community Commons.
Last month Community Commons shared Too Many Kids in U.S. Child Welfare Systems Not Living in Families by the Annie E. Casey Foundation which highlighted the state of children in our nation’s foster care systems.
We now look at how Missouri is using that data to make improvements to their system and help find permanency for its children.
Missouri’s Foster Children
There are 1.3 million children in Missouri – 13,038 of those children are in the legal custody of the state. As of March 31, 2015, 10 percent are in group placement or residential setting, 3 percent are in mental health/medical facilities, treatment foster homes managed by residential providers, detention, kinship or runaway status. The remainder of the 13,038 are in foster families or kinship/relative care.
The data from Annie E. Casey show that among all states, Missouri ranks in the top 20 states that have the highest number of children in state custody placed with families. Missouri also ranks in the top 20 states with the lowest number of children in non-family placements.
This is good for Missouri’s children, but there’s still room for improvement. The State of Missouri is responding to these recommendations in the the following ways:
Recommendation 1: Expand the service array
- During the 2014 legislative session, the budget for the Missouri Children’s Division was increased by $5.1 million, in recognition of the need to improve the environment for staff who work with children at risk.
- Missouri Children’s Division is working to become a trauma informed agency using the National Child Traumatic Stress Network Toolkit to train staff as well as foster parents.
- The Children’s Division works closely and effectively with the Missouri judicial system and CASA, or Court Appointed Special Advocates. CASA are volunteers appointed by a judge, supervised and supported by professional staff, to advocate for the best interests of abused and neglected children in court. Children with a CASA volunteer are substantially less likely to spend time in long-term foster care, and less likely to re-enter the foster care system.
“Ultimately the way you measure results in the child welfare system is whether children are safe, whether children in the system are reunifying with their families or moving on to another permanent placement,” says Decker, “Because all children need a loving family that’s going to be with them for the duration”.
– Tim Decker, Director, Children’s Division, Missouri Department of Social Services
Recommendation 2: Recruit, strengthen and retain more relative and foster families
- In 2013, Missouri legislature subsidies available to adoptive parents were extended to a qualified relative of a child or a qualified close non-related person who is granted legal guardianship of the child. This widens the pool of potential adoptive families for children in foster care.
- The Children’s Division also has a strong public-private partnership with the Adoption Resource Centers (ARCs) around the state. The ARCs provide training, respite assistance, advocacy services and outreach.
- The Missouri State Foster and Adoption Board recommends each applicant becoming a resource parent to first experience foster care through becoming a respite provider and provides competency based training for every foster relationship to equip them in parenting children with a variety of issues to assure placement stability and success.
This map shows how many children, on average, exited the foster care system in each Missouri County in 2014.
This map shows, on average, how long children who existed that foster care system in 2014 were in state custody.
Recommendation 3: Support decision making that ensures the least restrictive placement
- Children are screened through a Children’s Division Residential Care Screening Team Coordinator. This screening occurs after the Children’s Services Worker has completed a comprehensive screening form to assess the level of care necessary to assure treatment.
- Residential treatment providers are also increasingly trauma informed, and many have certifications in models of care for responding to trauma.
- Private Foster Care Case Management organizations are required to be accredited through either Council on Accreditation, Commission for Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities, or the Joint Commission
Additionally, Missouri emphasizes the value of prevention in strengthening families early on. This is achieved through several proven and effective programs such as:
- Parents as Teachers;
- Home Visiting Programs such as those conducted by Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services and by Cornerstones of Care Healthy Families Program;
- Head Start programs; and the
- Strengthening Families Initiative developed by the Center for the Study of Social Policy.
Read The Right Balance – protecting children, and supporting families – the right to grow up in a nurturing home for more details and resource links on Missouri’s actions to improve the lives of children in out-of-home placement.
Read examples of how Community Partnerships are improving the lives of children in foster care.
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