FRANKFORT, Ky. - Kentucky's efforts to improve child welfare appear to be working.
The Department for Community Based Services released their one year report on child welfare transformation efforts--it shows that progress is being made.
- More foster homes added across the state
- 9,800 children are in foster care and that number is high
- Adoptions out of foster care on the rise
“It’s important to note this report was completed on our own initiative within the department,” DCBS Commissioner Eric Clark said. “Typically, when government reports are released it’s due to some type of mandate, either by the legislature or someone requesting it, that is not the case with this report. I think that’s important because it shows a new way of operating in DCBS. That we are going to be transparent, and be more proactive in sharing information because we are the state child welfare agency, we are not the state child welfare system.”
Commissioner Eric Clark says with more funding and legislation in 2018 several things are improving.
Some bright spots in the report are 671 new foster homes have been added across the state. The number of youth leaving the foster system to be reunified with family members has increased from 2,193 in 2014 to 2,339 in 2018. The number of youth being adopted out of the foster system has also increased from 846 in 2014 to 1,045 in 2018. The number of youth leaving the system without receiving permanency has slightly decreased from 650 in 2014 to 641 2018.
DCBS attributes the improvements to changes within the department.
“We attribute that to some of the workforce supports,” said Elizabeth Caywood, Deputy Commissioner of DCBS. “New philosophical approach about insuring in home services and exhaustion of those before foster care is considered. We’ve also had a number of initiatives to recruit quality foster care and adoptative homes, for those children who cannot be reunited with their home of origin, we have other permanency alternatives. We’ve also built a more robust relative and fictive kin service array.”
But there are still several areas where improvement is needed. To begin with, is reducing the number of youth in the foster care system. Currently, around 9,800 children are in foster care.
“That’s too high, it stresses our system,” Commissioner Clark said. “It overwhelms our workforce.”
Reducing the number of cases assigned to a worker is another area the department is working on improving.
“Another problem we have in the department is just an overwhelmed workforce,” said Clark. “When you have an overwhelmed workforce that leads to a retention issue, when you have a retention issue you’re losing experience. We have got to have a stable workforce.”
Finally, the department is working to speed up the process for when children reach permanency.
“Not only do we have too many kids in out of home care, but they are lingering in care too long,” Clark said. “A child will be in the foster care system on average of statewide for about three years before they are adopted, that’s too long.”
Commissioner Clark says more money needs to be spent on prevention services. The federal Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018 will allow for some federal funds be used for that. Currently, about $15 million is spent on prevention services, while more than $400 million is spent on out of home services.
“We are overwhelmingly excited about this opportunity, it will take investment we will be speaking to the legislature about that, we spend a lot of money on foster care and out of home services right now,” said Clark. “That has to change, and federally funding will come along to help us do that.”