A good news story, but with an asterisk
Not that many stories coming out of Harrisburg these days are of a positive nature. We’ve grown accustomed to articles about corruption, political bickering and legislative stagnation carrying that dateline. But Wednesday’s newspaper featured something of a different sort: a story about a program administered by the state court system and child welfare agencies that has dramatically reduced the number of children placed in foster care and institutions.
The number of dependent children placed in temporary care fell from 21,400 in 2006 to 14,100 at the end of March. The number dropped by 44 percent in Allegheny County.
Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Max Baer helped launch the Permanency Practice Initiative seven years ago with federal grant money.
The strategy is to bring in a wider number of family members and others who care for the child, have them make their own decisions about the child’s care and have more frequent judicial reviews of the cases. The idea is to have families, rather than the state, take responsibility for raising children from shattered homes.
The courts estimate the initiative is saving about $117 million annually in state, federal and local costs.
All this sounds good, until we get to the figures from Washington and Greene counties, which are among 14 counties that saw an increase in the number of children in temporary care. The number in Greene County rose from 48 to 55 over six years, and Washington County’s swelled from 299 to 341 – an increase of more than 12 percent for both counties. In fact, Washington County’s jump of 42 children in temporary care leads the entire state.
What’s going on here?
At this point, state court and local officials are at a loss for an explanation, although the jump may be a result of an increase in the number of cases followed up locally. We might caution that this one set of statistics is not likely to tell the whole story, and conclusions should not be jumped to. But, it does draw attention to a system that should be examined closely so that improvements – both in the money spent and the children raised – can be made.