A Daily News investigation discovered that the county
receives nearly $30,000 a year from federal and state governments for each child
placed in the system - money that goes to pay the stipends of foster parents,
but also wages, benefits and overhead costs for child-welfare workers and
executives. For some special-needs children, the county receives up to $150,000
annually.
"Called the 'perverse incentive factor,' states and counties earn more
revenues by having more children in the system - whether it is opening a case to
investigate a report of child abuse and neglect or placing a child in foster
care," wrote the authors of a recent report by the state Department of
Social Services Child Welfare Stakeholders Group.
Since the early 1980s, the number of foster children in California has gone
up fivefold, and doubled in the county and nation. About one in four children
will come into contact with the child welfare system before turning 18,
officials say.
This has overwhelmed social workers, who often don't have time to help
troubled families or monitor the care children receive in foster homes.
The hundreds of thousands of children who have cycled through the county's
system over the years are six to seven times more likely to be mistreated and
three times more likely to be killed than children in the general population,
government statistics reveal.
Officials acknowledge that more than 660 children embroiled in the county's
foster care system have died since 1991, including more than 160 who were
homicide victims.
"The county's foster care system makes Charles Dickens' descriptions
look flattering," said Mark Rosenbaum, legal director at the American Civil
Liberties Union of Southern California.
David Sanders, who took over as director of the Department of Children and
Family Services in March, said experts estimate up to 50 percent of the 75,000
children in the system and adoptive homes could have been left in their parents'
care if appropriate services had been provided. He said DCFS comes into contact
with nearly 180,000 children each year.
The Daily News' investigation of the child-welfare system, which is shrouded
in secrecy by confidentiality laws, involved the review of tens of thousands of
pages of government and confidential juvenile court documents, studies, computer
databases and several hundred interviews.
As the investigation progressed, state and county officials acknowledged that
the financial incentives built into the laws encourage the needless placements
of children in foster care, and officials have started taking steps to reform
the system.
Last Updated: Dec 7, 2003