Racial inequity in American foster care system

Child welfare hurting blacks
National study finds children taken from homes disproportionately; county says there's no disparity
Encarnacion Pyle, Columbus Dispatch, Oct. 29, 2006, News pg C1.

Correction: CORRECTION PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 1, 2006 - The number of black children in the care of Franklin County Children Services is disproportionately high, but the agency's caseworkers visit them as often as they do white children in the agency's care. Because of an editor's error, a secondary headline mischaracterized the situation described in a story on Page C1 of Sunday's Metro & State section.

Racial inequity
* Although black children make up about 15 percent of all children in the nation, they account for nearly 37 percent of the 500,000 in foster care.

* In Ohio, blacks make up 42 percent of children in temporary care and 52 percent of those in permanent custody who will never return home.

* Franklin County's numbers are higher at nearly 55 percent, and Cuyahoga County has among the worst overrepresentations of black children in foster care with 70 percent.

* Although race is often a disturbing topic, child-welfare advocates are talking more about it and its impact on the nation's most-vulnerable children. They're also building strategies to reduce racial disparities and cut the number of children being referred to children services because of poverty. There is a higher proportion of black children in the nation's child-welfare system than white, and they suffer worse consequences, according to a new study.

"We know that children who currently are or have been in the child-welfare system are at an increased risk of dropping out of school, suffering serious mental-health problems, going to juvenile detention or prison, abusing drugs and alcohol -- outcomes that ultimately translate into significant costs to American taxpayers," said Khatib A.F. Waheed, spokesman for the Washington-based Casey-CSSP Alliance for Racial Equity, which issued the study last week

Nationwide, nearly 37 percent of the children in foster care are black, although only 15 percent of children nationwide are black.

In Ohio, 42 percent of kids in temporary care are black. In Franklin County, it's nearly 55 percent.

Advocates have long voiced concerns about the disproportionate number of black youths in the child-welfare system, but they've had a difficult time figuring out why it happens and what to do about it.

"People need to be aware that there is a significant difference between a child being abused or neglected, being raised by a poor family or in a way that is culturally, religiously or any other way different than their neighbors," said John Saros, director of Franklin County Children Services.

The agency has a committee that has studied race issues for several years and more recently created an internal group to study disparity issues. The group was created after the Columbus chapter of the NAACP filed a complaint with the U.S. Justice Department last year.

Children Services also passed a detailed plan last month to reduce the number of black children in foster care by hiring more-diverse workers and helping more families care for their children in their own homes.

Still, the agency has to improve the quality of care provided to black children put into foster homes, said Noel Williams, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Columbus.

"John Saros likes to talk about how he is reunifying more children with their families each month than placing into care," she said. "But quality is as important as quantity."

Williams said she is dealing with a case in which a troubled teenage girl was placed in a home with a woman who Children Services was investigating for how she raised her own children.

"The standard of care is substandard," she said.

The Casey study found that despite no differences in the rates of child abuse and neglect between races, black families are more frequently the subject of abuse and neglect reports, and their children are removed from their homes more often.

Once in foster care, according to the data, black children typically receive fewer visits from caseworkers and less mental-health services than white children.

In addition, black children typically stay in foster care longer and are adopted at a lower rate than white children.

Franklin County follows most of these trends, except a review of caseworker visits with their children showed no difference between the races.

For example, in September, 95 percent of both black and white children were seen by their caseworker at least once, Saros said. The agency doesn't track mental-health services by race.
"We're treating kids pretty equally," Saros said.

The numbers in this study and others, however, speak for themselves, said Crystal Ward Allen, executive director of the Public Children Services Association of Ohio.

She said a Case Western Reserve University study found that black children who live in poor, inner-city neighborhoods are referred to a child-welfare agency more often at several points in their lives, including at birth and when they enter preschool and kindergarten.

Allen said that although child-welfare agencies nationwide shouldn't discourage people from reporting suspected cases of child abuse and neglect, they should better educate the public about signs of abuse and the places to refer families that might have been targeted only because they are poor.

"The safety of the child must be a priority," said Robert B. Hill, author of the report and a senior researcher for Westat, a Washington research company.

"When families are struck with a crisis, there must be immediate interventions. However, it is equally important for children and families to get the support they need to prevent children from entering or returning to care outside of their homes."