Editor’s note: As part of Street Roots’ ongoing solutions-based reporting on the foster care system, Street Roots took a deep dive into the national and local data on placement stability and disruptions for young people in foster care. With funding and collaboration from the Solutions Journalism Network, Street Roots searched for positive deviants, or unique programs, showing evidence of success in reducing the number of moves for kids in foster care.
Read parts one and two of the series here.
Kids in foster care say the experience of being removed from their homes and launched into a constant state of flux as they move from placement to placement has forever changed their lives.
“Starting fresh with someone you’ve never met is one of the most horrifying things ever,” said Max Masse, 19, who entered Oregon’s foster care system five years ago.
The state removed Masse from his home after accusing his birth mother of creating fictitious diseases, leading Masse to believe he was dying. He said he spent most days heavily sedated in a “fuzzy, dream-like state,” as he endured visits with specialists and unnecessary medical treatments.
“I was about to get a surgery,” Masse said, describing when his grandmother became suspicious and reported his mother to Child Protective Services. “I was about 70 pounds, and this surgery would have been very dangerous.”
In Masse’s case, social services requested to remove the 14-year-old from his home, and a judge approved the request. Masse knew, if he had stayed, he wouldn’t have been safe.
“I don’t need sympathy for this, but I probably wouldn’t be here today,” Masse said.
Masse’s case may be a clear example of imminent danger in the home, but there’s a growing movement in the child welfare world to prevent children from being removed from their homes for lesser charges of neglect or abuse. Instead, in cases where a child does not appear to be in imminent danger, helping the child and family with support services and safety measures in the home is emphasized.
It’s an approach that inspired juvenile court judges in Iowa to create an innovative pilot project called “Four Questions, Seven Judges,” which is having success as the program spreads to courtrooms across the state.
The strategy is straightforward. Before approving any child welfare request to remove a child from their home, the judge asks the child’s caseworker four specific questions: What can we do to remove the danger instead of the child? Can someone the child or family knows move into the home to remove the threat? Can the caregiver and the child go live with a relative or family friend? Could the child move temporarily to live with a relative or family friend?
Seven Iowa judges participated in the pilot to prevent unnecessary removals of children from their families; or, at the least, lead to more placements with relatives or family friends.
One of the judges who helped draft the questions, Judge William Owens, from Ottumwa, Iowa, said he had an epiphany after attending a lecture by Amelia Franck Meyer, CEO of Alia in Minnesota, a nonprofit which helps leaders transform child welfare systems.
Franck Meyer explained, every time a child is moved from placement to placement in foster care, they are wounded and develop a diminished capacity to connect with others.
“Children are the most vulnerably-born mammals on the planet,” Franck Meyer said. “If they don’t have a protector, they don’t make it.”
The words struck a chord with Owens, who is a father and grandfather.
“It was one of those moments in life,” Owens said. “I thought, maybe the work I was doing was not the best work we can do.”
Franck Meyer clearly remembers Owen’s question to her that day.
“He said, ‘this is all great, but what can I do from the bench?’” she said. “Just off the cuff, I said ‘ask questions about how to keep these kids safely at home, and you may want to think about how to make that happen.’”
New way of thinking shows dramatic results
Iowa Department of Human Services (IDHS) administrators were also looking for ways to encourage judges to get behind the movement to keep more kids supported at home with their families, in preference to placing the children with well-meaning but unfamiliar foster families.
“We had roundtable talks with judges,” said Janee Harvey, division administrator at Iowa’s Adult, Children and Family Services Division. “They said, ‘if we are agreeing to traumatize kids in the name of safety, we better be sure it’s worth it.’”
Harvey said, historically, the belief that it’s best to remove kids from parents who have issues has driven foster care. Research shows that’s not necessarily true. She said foster care causes its own set of problems for youth, including behavioral issues, depression and lower outcomes in life.
Franck Meyer recommended slowing down the process to “make sure the things we don’t want to happen are more difficult to do.”
Owens and his colleague Judge Linnea Nicol took that idea and ran with it. In 2019, they drafted the four questions and helped launch the four-month pilot project with IDHS and Iowa Children’s Justice.
By spring, they received some impressive results.
From December 2019 to March 2020, the seven judges received 83 requests for removals of a child or siblings from their home or another setting. After asking the four questions, the judges granted 44 requests for removals — about half of the total requests submitted.
Of those 44 requests approved, judges placed 24 children or sibling groups with family members, and another five children went to live with family friends. Judges placed 15 of the children or siblings with foster families who were unknown to the child or siblings.
In comparison, during the four months preceding the pilot project, the same judges granted 99 requests for removals, more than double the number of the 44 approved during the pilot.
Of the 99 removals granted before the pilot, judges placed 42 youths with family members, nine with family friends and 34 with unfamiliar or unknown foster parents. Judges moved 13 youths into shelters.
Harvey said it wasn’t a controlled study, but there was a dramatic drop in the number of requests approved and a “significant shift in the number (of children) who stayed with relatives or (family friends), instead of shelters”
What Owens found “pleasantly surprising” was a drop in the number of removal requests he receives. Social workers are using the questions themselves before contacting him.
“As opposed to calling me every single time, they can work with the family, in a family-centered way, to address the issues in the home — without getting the court involved,” he said.
Owens said he’s grateful for all of Iowa’s wonderful foster families, but he’s come to realize, keeping kids with family is the key to better outcomes and stability.
“The child is still at home, still sleeping in their bed with their toys, going to their same school and seeing their friends,” he said, “essentially, staying in their own home, but we’re removing the danger.”
When you can't stay home
Based on Masse’s experience of a judge removing him from his home, the 19-year-old does not believe all families should be put back together – especially his family. However, he agrees placements with loving relatives or family friends are a lot better for kids than moving them to a stranger’s home.
He and his sister live with his grandmother in Astoria in a “kinship” placement.
“I got very lucky,” Masse said. “It’s hard enough leaving your family, but it’s a lot easier going to family you at least already know.”
Oregon’s Child Welfare Progress Report for September 2020 shows approximately 33% of children in foster care live with kinship caregivers (family or family friends), and a much larger number (35,000) live with kinship caregivers outside the foster care system.
Oregon Department of Human Services data shows the percentage of Oregon foster youth who live in relative foster families has slowly grown from 27% in September 2011, to nearly 33% in September 2020 -- a nearly six percent increase.
IDHS workers say 45% of all kids in foster care are living with relatives or family friends. Social workers are legally allowed to place kids in unlicensed placements if the caregivers are related or known to the child.
Also unique to Iowa — after two months, caregivers can receive a kinship caregiver payment of $300 a month, per child, for up to six months.
The state designed the payment to give relatives or family friends a little help as they prepare to get licensed as Iowa foster care providers, which bumps their monthly payment to about $650 a month.
Harvey said many relative caregivers in Iowa, as in Oregon, choose not to go that route and instead remain independent of the child welfare system.
She said Iowa’s “Four Questions, Seven Judges” pilot encourages courts and social service agencies to be open-minded to all sorts of arrangements with relatives to get the best care for kids.
“Kids who are placed with relatives experience greater stability,” Harvey said. “We’ve seen reductions in lateral (placement) moves when we focus on the family.”
From 2016-2020, including the duration of the pilot, Iowa’s Adult, Children and Family services saw a drop in the number of moves for kids, from 3.1 moves to 2.57 moves per 1,000 days in care. Harvey said focusing on quality placements is helping placement stability.
The idea of family members stepping in to take care of each other is nothing new. For many cultures, it’s always been that way. But only recently, child welfare departments have begun incorporating kinship navigator programs into their systems of care.
Federal law defines kinship navigator programs as programs that assist kinship caregivers in learning about, finding and using programs and services to meet the needs of the children they are raising -- and their own needs.
From Oregon to New Jersey, child welfare workers see the benefits. “There’s better stability,” Harvey said. “Those relatives and (family friends) are feeling less overwhelmed having that navigation and support.”
The manager at Grandfamilies.org, a state law and policy resource center for grandparent caregivers, acknowledged most kinship navigator programs do not rise to the level of evidence-based. Still, she said they appear to yield positive outcomes. Preliminary research shows children in kinship care have better connections with their caregivers, siblings and cultural identity.
One of the challenges is finding the time and funding to support quality searches for relatives and family friends. Already-overwhelmed social workers must boost their game to locate and engage more relatives and family friends for emergency and planned placements.
Some states, including Iowa, have dedicated funds for kinship support staff and family-finding units, but others, including Oregon, do not. Oregon has support specialists in each branch, and it’s the job of caseworkers to find relatives or family friends in the children’s lives.
Sweeping new federal welfare reform under the 2008 Family First Prevention Services Act supports reimbursements to states which promote relative caregivers. Child welfare leaders expect future expansions in kinship caregiver programs after fully implementing the Family First Prevention Services Act.
Owens said Iowa’s “Four Questions, Seven Judges” pilot dovetails perfectly with the new legislation.
He offered the example of a case in which he received a request to remove eight children from a home where a married couple was dealing with drug addiction, and their baby had prenatal exposure to methamphetamine.
Owens said the kids were well-bonded to each other, and he knew if he removed them, there was little likelihood they would be placed together with a relative or foster family.
“It would’ve been really traumatic to separate them,” Owens said.
The judge and IDHS workers turned to the four questions to help figure out how to keep the kids together. After going through questions, Owens decided the mother’s ex-husband, the father of six of the children, should move into the house to help.
“We weren’t certain it would work, but it was worth a try,” Owens said.
Owens said the ex-husband, a cooperative co-parent, could stay long enough for the mother and her husband to begin drug treatment, and it worked.
The case was closed, meaning child welfare and juvenile justice were no longer directly involved with the family.
“I treat that as a win,” Owens said.
Sharing the success with others
Franck Meyer said the “Four Questions, Seven Judges” program is a great example of a simple idea put into action without costing a thing. It began with a small group of judges giving it a shot, and it’s now a statewide program for juvenile court judges.
“You can just shift your mindset, ask a few questions and things can just shift,” she said.
Franck Meyer said other child welfare systems nationwide could easily replicate the program.
The long-term results remain to be seen. Some judges are already using the questions in different ways than first intended: some have decided to put the responsibility of reviewing the questions solely in the hands of social workers and their supervisors. Owens doesn’t see that as a problem if the questions are still used in some form.
Judges conducted a similar pilot in Portland, Omaha, Nebraska and Santa Cruz, California more than 10 years ago involving “bench cards” for juvenile court judges (set questions and proceedings for hearings). Long-term research results from “Courts Catalyzing Change: Achieving Equity and Fairness in Foster Care Initiative” in 2014 found the use of the bench cards inspired judges to hold more discussion, ask more questions and better engage parents in the proceedings.
However, results showed minimal impact on judicial placement decisions and case outcomes, possibly due to judges failing to use the bench cards in later hearings.
Franck Meyer said it takes commitment to make these questions part of everyday life. Judges also need to consider questions concerning racial bias due to the disproportionate number of children of color separated from families.
Research shows minority children have more removals, stay in care longer and are less likely to find permanency.
“We need to ask, what part of this case is sitting in front of me because of systemic bias, or because of our classism and bias against poor folks,” Franck Meyer said.
Now that they know better, they need to do better, Franck Meyer said, especially when it comes to keeping kids safe with relatives or family friends.
“Not any adult will do,” Franck Meyer said. “Not any place will do.”
Masse believes his life could have been a lot different if he hadn’t moved in with his grandmother: He has heard stories from friends in foster care about bad placements and multiple moves.
Masse said there are no quick transitions for youth in foster care, and the most important question should always be: “Is this placement going to be good for the child?”
Editor's note: The following quote has been updated to clarify which groups were being referenced “significant shift in the number (of children) who stayed with relatives or (family friends), instead of shelters.”