Editorial: Overhaul needed of foster care

Wednesday, April 21, 1999 | 11:55 a.m.

Foster parents Peggy and John Pauly are frustrated. They believe Nevada's foster care and adoption services system, which is supposed to help children, instead adds to the trauma these children experience.

The couple, who live near the town of Yerington in Northern Nevada, told the Assembly Ways and Means Committee on Monday about the need to pass Assembly Bill 158, legislation that would overhaul the state's roundly criticized foster care and adoption system.

The Paulys and other foster parents told legislators that two key factors have contributed to the existing sorry state: heavy caseloads for social workers and an overcrowded court system. In addition, the difficulty of ending parental rights also contributes to children staying in the system. "I have not had a case in my home where a child has been in the system less than 33 months. This is too long for a child to be without a true family to call their own," Peggy Pauly said.

The state now has to wait at least 18 months after a child is taken into custody before it can even start to look for a permanent foster home. Steve Shaw, the chief of Child and Family Services, said once this search is initiated another year could pass before a permanent foster home is found. AB158 would permit the state to begin its search as soon a child enters the system; social workers would simultaneously investigate whether the family is fit to care for the child.

Another foster parent, Susan Porter of Yerington, mentioned to legislators that the state throws roadblocks in the way of foster parents who try to keep siblings together. Porter said she's tried to get the younger sister of two boys who already live with her. Child and Family Services "has done nothing to encourage any contact. I was told that if I kept insisting that the boys needed to be with their sister that they would make sure that I would never see the boys again."

It is unconscionable for a state agency that is supposed to be working on behalf of children to further tear apart what's remaining of the family. It's difficult to think of a situation more heart-wrenching than siblings, who already have suffered enough, being split up. A key provision of the legislation would mandate that the state make every effort possible to keep siblings together.

AB158 also would bring more attention to the needs of these children by allowing child advocates and foster parents the ability to testify on a child's behalf during a court hearing. The legislation, which would bring Nevada more in line with national guidelines, could also result in the state getting as much as $17.5 million a year in federal foster care funds. Even if those federal monies weren't available, the state should still pass the reforms embodied in AB158 that will restore the emphasis where it should be -- on the needs of the child.