Why We Break Our Promise

ASFA is a good law with a promise of a safe home within one year at most. So, why the discrepancy between law and compliance? Many reasons have been given to explain the delays.

No sense of crisis: The institutions designed to protect the children have no sense of crisis. We should treat foster care like hospitalization. When the crisis has passed, get back home – or find a new one. The longer a child is in temporary care, the more damage is done. Evidence shows significant correlations between the length of time in temporary care and increased mental and social problems. Unfortunately, caseworkers and courts do not feel this sense of urgency.

Getting it right takes time: Another reason sometimes given by caseworkers is that they must wait until they are certain that they have it right. No matter how “right” the initial case plan or the final resolution may be, a sure way to get things wrong is to delay. While the system dithers, the child is growing and developing, both physically and psychologically. The problem is that the child does not have time. The clock is ticking. The perfect becomes the enemy of the good.

The high turnover and a shortage of caseworkers: Caseworkers come and go. Foster children are transferred from one staff member to another, and left to drift, under the assumption that they are safe in the foster home. Many caseworkers are not sufficiently trained in child development.

Older children should be allowed to choose whether they want to be adopted: This is a tough one. The young person must have a voice. Yet most 14-year-olds have a naïve idea of how the world works, and what it takes to survive as an adult. They may brashly want to be free of any parental controls. They may have hopes of being reunited to an idealized birth parent, having forgotten the neglect and abuse they earlier experienced. They may be responding with rejection to the way that society has thus far treated them.

The child’s rights are not given priority: Many courts and judges have still not grasped this basic concept of ASFA, which states that the child’s rights are paramount. The child’s right to a permanent home supersedes the rights of the birth family, the foster parents, and the prospective adoptive parents. The child’s rights come before the state’s need to save money. The first consideration must be what is best for the child. And yet many judges retain a lasting bias toward birth mother, giving her endless opportunities to improve, letting terminations drag on year after year.

Children are our most valuable resource, our hope for the future. Foster children are our most vulnerable citizens. Concern for their well-being must have the highest priority. Delays in establishing permanence add to an already negative situation. Every child has the right to a permanent home within a year.

I don’t think they (people) understand how it feels not to say ‘mom’ and ‘dad’….Going through foster care, you don’t get to say that, you know that often. And if you do trust somebody enough to say that, who knows how long they’ll stick around.