On Thursday, July 2nd, 2020, the CHAMPS-NY coalitionheld a second press conference to highlight the need for a moratorium on “aging out” of foster care in New York State during this ongoing public health crisis. CHAMPS-NY, a statewide group of providers, advocates and thought partners, works to promote state policy and practice changes to ensure children entering foster care are placed into family-based settings whenever possible.
In the press release, our own Kate Breslin (Schuyler Center President and CEO and CHAMPS-NY co-chair) notes,
“Young people leaving foster care already face many obstacles. Now, in the middle of a global health crisis, when a safe and stable home are vital to both individual and public health, no young person should be pushed from their home or be forced to leave foster care without a family simply because they turn 21. New York needs to take simple, straightforward, and urgently needed action to ensure that young people in foster care in New York State have the option to remain in foster care after their 21st birthday, and for at least 180 days after the last region in the state has fully reopened.”
Since the pandemic began, nine states have taken executive action to protect youth in foster care.
On Thursday, May 28th, 2020, the CHAMPS-NY coalitionheld a press conference to highlight the need for a moratorium on “aging out” of foster care in New York State during this ongoing public health crisis. CHAMPS-NY, a statewide group of providers, advocates and thought partners, works to promote state policy and practice changes to ensure children entering foster care are placed into family-based settings whenever possible.
In the press release, Kate Breslin, Schuyler Center President and CEO and CHAMPS-NY co-chair notes,
“In the middle of a global health crisis, when a safe and stable home are vital to both individual and public health, no young person should be pushed from their home or be forced to leave foster care without a family simply because they turn 21. Governor Cuomo needs to take Executive Action to ensure that all young people in foster care in New York State have the option to remain in foster care after their 21st birthday, and for at least 180 days after the last region in the state has fully reopened.”
The press conference itself was featured on Friday, May 29th, 2020 in an article in Chronicle of Social Change. It was the fifth article in that month to shed light on this urgent issue.
Since the pandemic began, nine states have taken executive action to protect youth in foster care. New York, the state hardest hit by this crisis, is not one of them.
We know intuitively – and from the data – that to thrive, children need a stable, loving, permanent family. When children enter foster care, those who are placed with family are more likely to experience stability: they are moved around less, spend less time out of their homes, experience less trauma, are more likely to stay in their community of origin and more likely to stay with their siblings. This results in better mental and behavioral health, increased permanency, and stronger ties with their community and culture.
When a child enters foster care, the first goal is always to reunify that child with their family. However, when reunification is not an option, establishing permanency for that child within a safe, stable, caring home is imperative. And that safety and stability can often be found with relatives or “fictive kin” with whom the child already has a close, positive relationship. In order to ensure that more children in foster care in New York State are able to find permanency with kin, we are working with our CHAMPS partners to strengthen kin-based permanency options, including KinGAP. KinGAP (the Kinship Guardianship Assistance Program) allows children who are in foster care with a relative to enter a stable guardianship with that relative. Because KinGAP does not involve terminating parental rights, it enables children to leave the foster care system and enter a stable family environment in as little as six months. Because of the nature of this permanency arrangement, KinGAP also makes it more possible for children to maintain important positive relationships they have with their families of origin. Finally, KinGAP supports families with a stipend, akin to the adoption subsidy, to help relatives provide for the child[ren] in their care.
This is why we are advocating for New York to strengthen KinGAP by funding it through an open-ended funding stream outside of the foster care block grant, akin to the adoption subsidy. By reforming KinGAP funding to reflect that it is a permanency option, the State will enable its counties to make KinGAP an option for more kinship families, and will allow more children to exit foster care in a timely manner to permanency with kin.
In addition to our efforts to strengthen KinGAP, we are working with our CHAMPS partners to urge New York State to create a Kinship Firewall, to encourage counties first exhaust all options to place children with kin before placing them in other foster care settings. We are also supporting the creation of a Foster Care Ombudsman to advocate for and inform foster parents, including recommending improvements to the foster care system, which will improve long-term outcomes.
In 2020, we are eager to continue our work with CHAMPS and many other partners to strengthen New York families.[/vc_column_text]
Just over 16,000 children are in foster care in New York State. They face greater economic, health, and academic challenges than their peers. Yet, with supported and compassionate caregivers, children in foster care can thrive. It is time for New York to focus on preventing entry into foster care and on recruiting and intensively supporting kin and others who step forward to care for them.
New York is a leader in many respects in the areas of child welfare. For example, it makes a substantially greater investment in preventive services than most other states. It is essential that the State begin to collect information about the effectiveness of its preventive services.
New York State has repeatedly — for more than a decade — ranked poorly in a periodic federal review called the Child and Family Services Review (CFSR), which Schuyler Center reported on in April 2016. The State should conduct a root cause analysis to determine why the State is persistently failing to meet national standards on numerous child welfare measures. In the last periodic review, New York ranked last compared to 47 states measured on the rate of recurrence of maltreatment. This means that 17.8% of New York children who had experienced a confirmed case of maltreatment, experienced a second incident within 12 months. The national standard is 9.1%. New York ranked near the bottom on the time it takes for children in foster care to be placed in a permanent home. In particular, New York performed poorly in terms of finding permanency for children and youth who had been in foster care for more than 12 months. And, New York ranked 46th out of 48 states for the rate of maltreatment while in foster care.
We know that children do better when families are economically secure, have access to affordable quality child care and health care, and when caregivers have the tools and support they need.
Our colleagues, Richard Heyl de Ortiz and Sarah Gerstenzang, from the Adoptive and Foster Family Coalition, recently penned a thoughtful commentary in the Times Union with strong recommendations about how New York can and should do better for children who are in foster care.
New York – and the country – have a real opportunity with the recent passage of the federal Family First Prevention Services Act, to transform our foster care system. Read Schuyler Center’s June 2018 memo about The Federal Family First Prevention Services Act Relating To Child Welfare Financing. Among the Act’s requirements: that all states dramatically reduce their reliance on institutional or group home care, investing more in family-based and kin-based foster care. As a leader of the CHAMPS-NY campaign, the Schuyler Center is working to ensure that New York leverages this opportunity, and uses its considerable resources and expertise to ensure that whenever possible, children who must enter the foster care system are placed with kin or in family-based care, and that foster families are well-resourced and supported.[/vc_column_text]
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