Patti Machelor had an important story in Sunday’s Arizona Daily Star about kids in foster care.

The number of abused and neglected children in state care has nearly doubled in Pima County over the past decade—even as funding to help them has dropped precipitously and the number of foster homes declined.

Statewide and locally, it is becoming more difficult to place children removed from their homes with families where they can experience some normalcy.

Caseworkers are trying harder to place children with relatives, but it’s not a simple solution. Tracking down extended family who might help can be challenging, and resources are scant. Group homes and shelters, meant to offer a temporary reprieve, are becoming long-term housing for many older children, sibling groups and teens.

A depressing roundup of the cuts:

• Emergency clothing allowance: reduced from $300 per child annually to $150.

• Extra emergency clothing allowance – given only in an extreme circumstance such as a fire: reduced from $200 per child annually to $100.

• Books and education allowance: reduced from $165 per school-age child annually to $82.50.

• Special needs allowance (used to supplement expenditures for a vacation, birthdays or a special holiday): reduced from $45 per child annually to $22.50.

• Diaper allowance for disabled children over age 3: reduced from $125 per child per month to $62.50.

• Camp and vacation allowance: suspended.

• Foster care maintenance payment: cut by 20 percent. Foster families now receive $19.68 per day per child as well as 53 cents for clothing and 10 cents for a child’s personal allowance. Children under age 3 get a diaper allowance of 95 cents per day and children under age 1 get $2.10 per day for diapers and formula. (If the child needs a higher level of care – there are three levels – the maintenance payment increases by increments of $3.84 per day).

Seriously: We can’t afford more than $22.50 to help a foster kid have a happy birthday or a merry Christmas? But hey: The budget was balanced in record time.

Remember these kids when lawmakers talk about how they cut back on wasteful spending.

(Arizona Daily Star]

This article appears in Apr 28 – May 4, 2011.

Getting hassled by The Man Mild-mannered reporter

9 replies on “Arizona Daily Star: Foster Care System in Crisis”

  1. “Remember these kids when lawmakers talk about how they cut back on wasteful spending.”

    They didn’t forget. Why do you think they increased the prison funding anyway?

  3. Arizona doesn’t have too few foster parents. Arizona has too many foster children. Child abuse did not double in Pima County over the past decade. Rather, the state adopted a take-the-child-and-run approach in response to high profile fatality cases, often taking children when family poverty is confused with “neglect.” Arizona tears apart families at rates up to double those in states widely regarded as, relatively speaking, models for keeping children safe. And the rate of removal in Pima County is well above the state average.

    Not only does that do enormous harm to the children needlessly removed, it also overloads the system, so workers have even less time to find children in real danger – that’s the real reason for the horror stories that make headlines. Full details are in the report my organization released on Arizona child welfare, on our website here: http://bit.ly/irF2Ny

    As for cuts, I’m a-lifelong-liberal-non-countercultural-McGovernick-lapsed-card-carrying- member-of-the-ACLU. I’m a tax and spend liberal and proud of it. But the cuts to worry about are the cuts in programs to help families together, including basic help to ameliorate the worst effects of poverty – things like housing assistance and day care.

    The one area Arizona doesn’t have to worry about is foster parent pay. The cuts were from rates that were the second highest in the entire nation. Even with the cuts Arizona pays foster parents far more than most states: More than $7,400 per child per year. And since it’s considered “reimbursement” it’s tax free.

    Yes, foster parents have to dip into their own pockets – a little. That’s how it should be. An act of charity and love is just that. If you volunteer to tutor a child after school do you demand that your mileage to get to the school be reimbursed? Of course not. You might even buy some of your own supplies. Similarly, would you want a child placed with someone who demanded government reimbursement to throw a foster child a birthday party? Anyone in Arizona who decides not to be a foster parent because of these cuts probably shouldn’t be a foster parent. Details on this are in a post to our Child Welfare Blog here: http://bit.ly/lmwEZW

    Richard Wexler
    Executive Director
    National Coalition for Child Protection Reform
    http://www.nccpr.org

  4. Richard, easy words. I mentor youth in foster care and it makes me sick when a teenager is only given $120.00 per year for clothing. Foster parents are not rich people and cannot afford to buy children the proper amount that is needed. What about the children in group homes that will never make it to a foster home? Is $120.00 per year adequate? Or $22.50 for a birthday?
    I was also a foster child

  5. Tamra, I totally agree with you and Richard, I question how many foster children you have ever had in your home. My sister was a foster child from birth-we were able to adopt her at age 6. It was difficult for our parents to work full time to support the family and keep all of the children and all of the appointments. The amount of money that came out of our parents’ pockets was about as much as was given to our parents for each foster child. Unfortunately there are parents that want to help and from their hearts- but Richard, as much as I agree with your information on the amount of children removed from homes not from neglect but from poverty – I do not agree with the amount being ‘ok’ for the foster parents and that they would not be good foster parents because they need money in order to survive. To assist a foster child to feel unlike a foster child– how many items could you purchase for $22.50? or what one item could you purchase for $22.50?

  6. NCCPR, I will say I can agree that fostering should be an act of charity more than anything else, but I will also say some families that want to do a charitable act lack the funds to do it. State providing reimbursements enables them to practically manage what they otherwise couldn’t…taking in another child in need. I will also say, as a child of “the system” Arizona HARDLY and I mean, HARDLY, does the take and run approach for kids in foster care. I came out of a family that way neglectful. There is a LOT of poverty in Arizona and a lot of that is because of drugs in homes. A lot of parents in poverty are drug addicts and typically when your addicted to anything, you aren’t thinking of much else…including your own children…which leads to neglect of your children, as well as many mental disorders in those parents. Another result of the drugs involved are the poor babies you see when you search for a child 4 years or younger to adopt and you see kids…babies with SEVERE disorders.

    Arizona’s approach is to look into the family situation because they received a call or the child had a mark on the body at school and a school counselor was required by law to contact the police or CPS…then AZ may send someone to the house to check out the situation. I was abused myself, came to school with the physical mark, CPS (the social worker) came, looked around, gave my mother a warning (a year and a half earlier we went to Child Crisis Center for 2 weeks, then came back to my mother, who was a drug addict and abusive). The social worker gave my mother a warning and never came back. Had AZ taken the “take the child and run” approach, my 4 siblings and I would have been taken away from my mother long ago. They don’t move to that approach except in extreme situations.

    The money provided is to help charitable families. The charitable family should not be looked down upon for needing support. They also cannot be expected to be well-off. Not everyone who has a good heart is well-off, nor should it be necessary for them to be. It’d be nice if all of us had 6 figure incomes and were executives in our company…maybe then we could afford 5 kids and manage comfortably. It is good to respect those who experience financial strife, work hard, and still want to extend a hand.

    Sorry for the long-winded response, but you talk as though you know a lot about the system, but based on what you said, you also sound like you don’t have any actual experience and therefore DON’T actually know what you are talking about…and that hit a nerve in me.

  7. I have 3 fosters and last year i had 6, 4 went home so i now have the 3 that i love more then anything. I received 24.00 35.00 16.00 a month i was a self supporting with my Daycare AND THINGS ARE UP AND DOWN IN DAY CARE BUSINESS BUT I GOT HURT AND THAT TOOK MY FREEDOM AWAY BUT IT MUST BE GOD WILL CAUSE I HAVE ALOT OF LOVE TO GIVE and let me tell you it is HARD BUT THE GREATEST JOY AND GOD PROVIDES AND I DONT GET PAID AND I STRUGGLE BUT I DO IT CAUSE THEIR IS NO GREATER JOY THEN CHILDREN GIFTS FROM GOD AND ILL NEVER GIVE UP ON THEM IM STILL WEARING THE SAME SHOES FROM 2 YEARS AGO BE CAUSE THEY COME FIRST IN MY LIFE THANK YOU SINCERLY KATHY

  8. Strangely enough, I ended up here while trying to find assistance with diapers for my own biological child. I found MANY agencies that cater to assisting foster/adoptive families. I found few for the child’s ACTUAL family.

    I am in complete agreement with Richard Wexler! It upsets me immensely to see stories about how the foster system has too little money to care for all the children in foster homes. Most of these children HAVE HOMES already! For those of you who want to say that we speak as people with no experience in the system, be assured that I am quite familiar with the corrupt and “broken” CPS system in Arizona. My family is currently being victimized. Based on one person’s reports that I was drinking, my children were removed from a very safe, clean, loving, caring home where they were happy, healthy, and well cared for. I was completely sober (documented) the day my children were removed, and have been sober (also documented) the entire time our case has been open (over a year!).

    And, poverty IS labeled as neglect for the purposes of removing a child from their home.

    I, as a mother, bought my own children clothes, diapers, shoes, school supplies, food, birthday presents, etc. even when they were in foster care. Even so, as a single struggling mother, I see no problem with the dollar amounts budgeted for care of a child in foster care. I have (and always have) provided for my own children, again in their own home, within the same budget guidelines. I buy Parent’s Choice diapers at Walmart (not Huggies) and don’t spend more than $30 a month. I would be thrilled to have $150 a year per child for clothing! Payless, Walmart, and thrift stores sell perfectly acceptable clothing for children (even teenagers). CPS will pay over $1000 for housing my 2 children somewhere else, but will not help me with $300 to bring my own rent current (I pay only $475 per month to house 3 people). We do not have a “camp/vacation” budget (we enjoy time together as a family doing things like church activities, community service, going to the park, camping, snuggling while watching a movie…). CPS pays for foster parents to take the children to daycare everyday, even when the foster parent does not work out-of-the-home. CPS will not buy the parent a $15 per month bus-pass, but will spend hundreds a month to a private “transportation company” to take foster children to and from schools, doctor’s appointments, “visits” with their own parents, and to the counseling they now need because of the trauma caused by being ripped from their own home.

    There really are children who do need help from CPS. So much of their deserved time and money are being wasted on those who do not.

    For those of you who truly needed help, but weren’t helped by CPS in the past, I am so sorry. But that CPS does not exist in Arizona today. They do “take the children and run” now. It would even be acceptable if the grabbed the child until they could “get all the facts” just to be on the safe-side. But, they grab the child, then do whatever it takes to justify the removal by distorting information to be able to label the situation as “neglect” (rather than take into account all facts from all sources).

    More effort and funds should be provided to allow the children to remain in their own homes whenever possible.

  9. William Kitchen ,
    Hi i am currently a youth in a group home as we speak right now. I am 17 old going to school looking like a bumb. I go to school with Bleach Stains on my clothes from Super Cleaning the house and getting chemicals all over my clothes. This makes room for youth in and out of school to bully a 17 year old and that ,”with me ” could start fights. I agree with all those up above who not only support and futuristically speaking want to make accommodations for youth in society who are suffering and in the predicament of poverty and what I call , ” NEGLECT” from Arizona state. I have been in CPS Care adn or a ward of the state for 7 years. Not including the first 3 years of my life before I was adopted at 4 years old. But my thing is I don’t worry about the state because they are four dollar bills when it comes to, again making those accommodations and supporting those youth who could not have a life with their regular parents . I am a African American male…. ONe who will NOT become a statistic … In a jail cell looking like a fool. I will overcome these predicaments…whether or not the state is on my side or not. Someone is hiungry in Africa wanting some other nation to support them. Praying to their ALA asking to spare their life and provide fooed for them. So also at the same time I have to be grateful. Ill tell you what my adopted mother always told me,… ” Someone in some other part of the world has it worse than you. So I think about this and I say America may be corrupt and the goverment may be using funds without letting the people know for corrupt things but Karma will come back 7 Fold. Whether its our financial systems crashes or something happens to where we lose money fighting a war and drafting Americans to fight against the terrorist groups or God Forbid someone taking over the United States because ” WE ARE NOT PROTECTING OUR BORDERS AND SECURING THEM….BUT ITLL COME BACK…. GOD ONLY KNOWS THE DAY OR THE HOUR THE EXACT MINUTE OR TENTH OF A MILLIONTH OF A SECOND…… GOD IS ALWAYS ON TIME AND THATS ALL I GOT TO SAY ABOUT THAT… I DONT KOW IF ILL BE ALIVE THAT DAY TO SEE IT BUT I KOW THIS NOW IF I AM ILL BE QUOTING ANOTHER QUOTE MY MOTHER USE TO SAY,,….,, ” I LUV IT WHEN A PLAN COMES TOGETHER… BUTS THATS OKAY THOSE WHO ARE SUPPORTING THE ORPHANS. THE BIBLE SYAS , ” BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO BLESSED THE ORPHANS “. THINK ABOUT IT..

    QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS: EMAIL ME AT : raptureready365@gmail.com or wkkitchen0623@gmail.com.

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