Local cases linger longer than federal law mandates

Monday, Dec. 1, 1997 | 10:37 a.m.

Local foster care cases linger twice as long without resolution as a federal law contemplated.

That was one of the findings of a Family Court foster care and adoption study performed by John Sarb and forwarded last spring to the Nevada Supreme Court.

The former administrator of the Nevada Division of Child and Family Services noted that foster care cases he reviewed remained open an average 3.58 years. In contrast, the federal Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 mandates that permanency plans such as family reunification or adoption be in place within 18 months after a child is placed in protective custody.

"The history of achieving permanency in Clark County has not been good," Sarb wrote. "Cases are open too long and outcomes are poor despite numerous court hearings."

He found that children spent an average 2.6 years in the system before they were reunited with their parents, or 3.8 years until they were assigned a guardian. Nearly one-third of the cases he reviewed involved children who reached 18 without a resolution. Those kids, on average, spent more than five years in foster care.

Family Court began taking steps last month to accelerate the process by conducting hearings on permanency plans after a case is as little as a year old, rather than waiting 18 months. Sarb also praised the court, particularly Judge Gerald Hardcastle, for pushing to have teenagers placed in independent living arrangements beginning at age 16 rather than 17.

Sarb's other findings included:

* The court must do a better job determining whether child welfare agencies have made "reasonable efforts" to provide services to keep a child at home or to return him once removed.

* More parents need attorneys. Indigent parents are assigned attorneys if one or both have a mental problem or language barrier, or face potential criminal charges, or a petition to terminate parental rights.

Yet only 17.4 percent of the hearings had one or both parents represented by a lawyer. When a parent had an attorney, the hearings ran two to three times as long, since the court was able to get information from a source other than the welfare agency.

"To be sure, the court works at making sure the rights of parents are explained to them, and it is done carefully and in plain language," Sarb wrote. "However, when the court must play the role of defense counsel it can only detract from its other duties and can hamper the progress of the case."

* Child welfare agencies often are late filing reports. The court usually gets the report the week before the hearing, but not defense attorneys. Parents without attorneys often don't get the reports until the hearing, and are left to try to read and understand them "while the hearing was going on."

"Parents without counsel do not know they can raise this issue with the court," Sarb says.

* "Age appropriate" children need to be at all hearings, but are in court infrequently.

"It is folly to think children, particularly adolescents, will not register their disapproval or lack of understanding of the court's actions," Sarb wrote. "When the court gives them no say in these proceedings they will find a way to be heard.

"Unfortunately most of their methods are disruptive at best and dangerous at worst. They disrupt placements, rebel against counseling and fail at school. At any given time DCFS (Division of Child and Family Services) has about 35 children on runaway status. Some are never found."

* The court should put more information into its case files. Currently there is no record of what transpired at the initial protective custody hearings or why hearings are postponed.

There is also sketchy documentation that notice of hearings was properly given. That's noteworthy because both parents were present at only 26.7 percent of hearings, and neither was present 30.4 percent of the time.

* The court needs a second juvenile judge, particularly since there is not adequate time to conduct hearings given the current caseload. The average protective custody hearing, for instance, lasts only five minutes. The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges recommends one hour for such hearings.

"The brevity of these hearings clearly precludes getting into all the relevant issues," Sarb wrote.

* Child protective service caseworkers wear too many hats. Sarb said they should investigate the cases, and help provide services or reunite the family. But they shouldn't serve as prosecutors at the initial protective custody hearings.

That role should be left to a deputy district attorney, with the caseworker serving as a witness, Sarb said. The district attorney's office doesn't get involved unless the welfare agency wants to petition the court for extended custody.

"The potential for role confusion is great," Sarb said. "Even if the worker can separate the roles effectively, the parents cannot reasonably be expected to know if they are talking to the person investigating them, helping them or trying to convince a judge they did something wrong. The helping role is most likely to suffer in this process."