Proposals leave Child Haven officials uneasy

Friday, Jan. 12, 2007 | 6:57 a.m.

With a sparkling new tile floor, shiny new cabinets and seven new bedrooms, Clark County's freshly renovated cottage at Child Haven will help ease the crowding there and allow more siblings to be housed together at the emergency shelter for abused, neglected and abandoned children.

But for the county's troubled child welfare system, the fanfare of a press conference Wednesday celebrating the completion of the renovations was checked by looming clouds.

Among bills that state lawmakers will consider during the upcoming legislative session is a requirement that Child Haven be licensed by the state and a ban on housing children under age 6 at the facility.

Those proposals would put the county in an uncomfortable spot.

The state Health and Human Services Department is asking lawmakers to require facilities such as Child Haven to obtain a license from the state. Now, state law allows local governments to decide whether to require a license, and Clark County doesn't require one for Child Haven.

Lou Palma, who manages the facility, said it already meets or exceeds licensing requirements, with one glaring exception: capacity.

Under state licensing standards, Child Haven would be allowed to house no more than 105 children.

On Wednesday Child Haven was home to 99 children, but last summer the population at the shelter surged to more than 230. That means the proposed licensing standards could leave some children with no place go after authorities remove them from dangerous homes.

"In jurisdictions where licensing requirements are set, I've got articles up on the wall of my office about children having to sleep in workers' offices, in cars, in waiting rooms because you can't go over your stated capacity," Palma said.

At the same time, officials acknowledge it's difficult to argue against licensing requirements designed to keep children safe.

"There is no way anyone could oppose the idea," said Palma's boss, Tom Morton, director of Clark County's Family Services Department.

It does, however, pose a dilemma.

"If we were licensed and limited to a defined capacity without an array of other community resources, we find ourselves leaving children in unsafe situations or placing children in places that don't match their needs," Morton said.

Part of the problem is that the county does not have enough foster care families, leaving children - especially those with special needs or large sibling groups - lingering at Child Haven. The alternatives are grim, Morton said.

"Which is worse?" he said. "Overcrowding at Child Haven or leaving children in an unsafe situation or a less capable facility?"

State lawmakers who favor the idea, such as Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, argue that children need the nurturing environment of a family. The capacity limit, they say, is designed to eliminate problems such as those that existed last summer, when children slept in Child Haven's gym and infants slept in staff offices because of overcrowding.

Although Child Haven is intended to be a short-term emergency shelter where children stay for no longer than 10 days before being placed with relatives or a foster family, 38 children had been there longer than 100 days as of Wednesday.

"Being cared for by shift workers is not the same as being able to bond with a family," said Leslie, one of the legislators pushing for the changes. "Young children can be better cared for in a stable family environment."

The licensing requirement also might give Clark County's foster care family recruitment and child placement efforts a kick in the pants, she said.

The county already has stepped up its foster care recruitment efforts, with a campaign launched last year and with the hiring of two full-time foster care family recruiters. Two more are expected to come aboard soon, Morton said.

State officials plan to work guidelines into the proposed legislation that would prevent children from ending up in the situations depicted on Palma's office wall.

"The last thing we want to do is have more displaced kids," said Barbara Legier, the state's deputy administrator for child welfare.

An emergency plan will have to exist in case Child Haven sees another flood of children, Leslie said.

"We don't want to be in a situation where we are leaving children in homes that are not able to provide for them," she said. "We do need to have an overflow mechanism. The Legislature is trying to be reasonable."