Experts want county in charge of foster care

Friday, May 16, 2003 | 10:03 a.m.

Public officials and child advocates agree that there would be vast improvement in local child protective services if Clark County could gain control of foster care from the state.

Allowing the county to run the entire system from investigation through foster care would provide a continuum of care for abused or neglected children. That, they say, would enable children's cases to be handled more smoothly because one government agency instead of two would be responsible for them.

For years Clark and Washoe counties have been the only two political jurisdictions in the country that operated separate county and state child protective systems. Child advocates had long argued that the split system needed to be fixed, and the 2001 Nevada Legislature agreed. It ordered that both counties should have full control of foster care in their respective jurisdictions.

But because of state funding shortages, system unification was only partially completed in Washoe and not accomplished at all in Clark.

Gov. Kenny Guinn has proposed spending $8 million be over the next biennium to end the split systems.

Susan Klein-Rothschild, director of Clark County's Department of Family Services, said she hopes lawmakers approve that budget this session.

The split system, which officials refer to as "bifurcation," "adds time delays to children's cases," she said. "The longer it takes to get a child into a safe place the more harmful it is for the child. Bifurcation is a contributing factor in delaying the termination of parental rights."

Clark County Family Court Judge Gerald Hardcastle said dismantling bifurcation also puts the financial and staff resources where they belong, which he believes is at the county level.

"We've had these two systems running right now (state and county) and neither one is adequately funded," Hardcastle said. "My feeling is that if we could restore the funding level to Clark County by giving us the foster kids, we'll do better by them."

The partial unification of child protective services in Washoe County has been a success so far, Reno foster parent Suzanne Fisher said. She said the biggest improvement is that foster children are not being bounced from home to home as much as they were when the state ran the system.

"I pushed hard for integration because I saw too many kids moved around before," Fisher said. "We felt it was in the best interests of children not to be moved around."

Foster parents have a wish list that extends beyond dismantling bifurcation, however. Even though they get reimbursed at a rate designed to meet the child's basic needs, Las Vegas foster parent Teresa Becker said there is not enough money for items such as after-school activities and yearbooks.

"There's no tutoring money for these children and probably 80 percent to 90 percent of them are behind in school in some way," she said. "I can't afford to buy class rings, which can cost $400 to $500. It's even hard to afford things like school pictures. When foster children don't get these things they're disappointed and feel they're not the same as other kids.

"We're trying to help build their self-esteem. If they're continually disappointed, they won't feel good about themselves."

Las Vegas foster parent Christall Rotta said she would like to see establishment of local respite homes to care for foster children on a temporary basis to give foster parents an occasional break. She said the lack of respite care has forced her to consider dropping her participation in the care of medically needy children.

"Every other weekend would be nice so that I could go out to dinner with my husband," she said. "We've accepted the responsibility of taking on these kids but we need a break, too."05