County moves to control child welfare programs

Friday, April 2, 2004 | 11:37 a.m.

Clark County's Department of Family Services is moving forward with efforts to consolidate its program for foster children and adoptions with a state program, an effort officials hope will forestall any threat to its federal funding sources.

A goal set by the federal government in the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act is to move children to permanent placement with families within 12 months of entering the government system. Clark County officials and child advocates say the divided state and local system is not meeting this and other federal goals.

Without a correction, millions of dollars in federal funding that comes to the state and ultimately to the county is at risk. About 40 percent of the state's $33.3 million for adoption and foster care programs comes from the federal government.

Clark County Manager Thom Reilly and Clark County Family Services Director Susan Klein-Rothschild said that information on how long it takes children to be adopted or placed in a permanent foster home is sketchy, in part because of difficulties in getting the information from the state agency.

According to the Nevada Division of Child and Family Services, the waiting time for children to go to adoption was more than 35 months in fiscal year 2002. Foster children were discharged in more than 15 months.

Reilly said, however, that those times did not necessarily include the period a child may have been under the county's care. The federal government looks at the total time under government care, not just the period under the state's authority, he said.

Klein-Rothschild said one of the first goals of the county, which took over responsibility of 42 former state workers Thursday, is to retrain them to improve the reporting procedures.

The Adoption and Safe Families Act "is part of what is promoting the change," she said. "We need good data and good statistics to know how we can improve."

The move Thursday puts employees who do assessments of foster-care and adoption situations under the county's authority. The process of consolidating the former state agency for adoption and foster care should be completed in October with the transfer of another 100 state workers who serve as direct case managers.

At that time, the county also will take direct responsibility for 1,800 children now under the state's care, according to the county officials.

Klein-Rothschild warned that the improvements to the system will take time, but she believes the county can improve the performance of the now-divided system.

"The goal of the Legislature and the county commission," the two governments that approved the overhaul of the children's welfare system in 2002, "was to streamline and eliminate redundancy," Klein-Rothschild said. "We are looking at that. We are starting some things, but I want to be realistic. It won't happen overnight.

"We are assuming the staff and the programs beginning today," she said.

State officials did not immediately return phone calls Thursday.

Although the programs will come under the purview of the county, the funding will still come from the federal and state governments, so the 42 additional county workers should not stretch the already strapped county budget.

Reilly said the merger of the county and state programs should provide a faster, better service for children in foster-care and adoption programs -- and better data collection to be passed on to the state, which collects and administers the federal funding.

"If it doesn't the state of Nevada won't be receiving any federal funds," Reilly said.

The goal is to place each child in a safe, stable home as quickly as possible, he said.

"The ultimate performance measure in child welfare is that children are placed in safe and stable homes," he said. "The bureaucracy in and of itself made it more difficult to meet that standard."

Donna Coleman, president of Las Vegas-based Children's Advocacy Alliance, said the 1997 federal law is clear.

Children have to be placed in a permanent situation -- adoption, reunion with parents or long-term foster care -- 12 months after coming under the government's care. The divided state and county system has not been achieving that goal, she said.

"We're one of the worst states in the country for the length of time in foster care," Coleman said. How bad compared to other state could be hard to tell, because "the record keeping is less than stellar," she added.

A recent federal audit of the system in Nevada found it failed in every indicator studied, she said.

The transition to a unified county system is important, she said.

"We advocated for it," Coleman said. "When children were removed from a home, they went to county care. If they stayed in government care, they went to the state. It was very disruptive to a child's life.

"Now, when they come into care, that's it. They will go to county care."

Assemblywoman Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, was one of the legislators who worked on the laws unifying the system.

"I think it's going to make a huge difference in the lives of these children," she said. "We studied the system, and the system itself was failing the children."

Clark and Washoe counties both accepted the responsibility to take over elements of the state system, she said.

"They should be commended for taking that position," Buckley said. "The time is just so important. When a child is waiting to be adopted or waiting for a permanent home, every day matters.

"To have delays for months and months is just not acceptable," she said. "The child doesn't want to be a ward, or a case number. They want to be a kid."