|
Proving Suitability
In every area of American law there is supposed to be a presumption of "innocent until proven guilty". Except that this doesn't appear to be the presumption when children are placed in the foster care system for purported abuse/neglect. There is normally a precipitating event/report, but once a social worker removes a child from a home the burden of proof shifts away from the agency to the biofamily. It's now up to the biofamily to prove they are fit parents, to prove they have not abused/neglected their children, and to follow through with a case plan put in place by the social worker who removed their children - even though in 1/3 of the cases the children should never have been removed. That doesn't seem like any form of justice or protection of children to me. Shouldn't it be the burden of the accusing party (the State) to prove these parents are unfit?
Reunification Plans
On the surface it would appear that complying with a reunification plan should be easy - there are tons of services available, you just have to be willing to use them, right?
Two problems with this theory that I see.
1) Elements of reunification plans are arbitrarily set by social workers who lack appropriate training and supervision, and completion of the elements is not necessarily designed with the new time-frames in mind. Let's take the example of a "typical" drug-addicted parent. The elements of his reunification plan would normally contain the following:
a) completion of a substance abuse program and compliance with its recommendations
b) completion of a psychological exam and its recommendations
c) completion of a parenting class and demonstration of proficiency in parenting skills
d) evaluation for anger management and compliance with recommendations
e) evaluation for individual counseling and compliance with recommendations
f) monthly contact with DSS
g) follow reasonable requirements of caseworker
h) provide DSS with a list of relatives names, addresses, phone numbers
i) maintain adequate housing and demonstrate financial ability to provide for the child
A typical substance abuse program is 12 weeks, so there goes 3 months of the 16 month timeline. Scheduling a psych eval, comleting it, and establishing recommendations typically would take another month. We're down to 12 months. A parenting course is another 12 weeks, so we're now down to 9 months left. Anger management and individual counseling... at least another month to get those into place. You now have 8 months in which to find a job, find a house, and bring in some cash so you're "financially able". A minimum-wage job is unlikely to provide the income required for "adequate housing", let alone financial ability. And this timeline doesn't take into account the time the child is in foster care before the case plan is in place, nor the additional court appearances, counseling sessions, and "other requirements of the caseworker". Even someone extremely well-organized would have trouble getting all of this done. (This was an actual case plan for a father where there was absolutely no substantiated abuse/neglect - he did have a substance abuse problem).
2) Necessary supports are not available to the extent needed in most communities - and substantial waiting periods exist for those services that are there.
On this one, I speak from personal experience in the non-profit community for nearly 10 years.
There are 16,000 people elligible for services at my legal aid organization, but we only have funding for 4,000 each year. That means 3 out of 4 people aren't getting the help they need. For those we are able to see, it's usually about a 2 month wait from the time they contact us to the time we're able to deliver any services.
While I don't have specific number available to me at the moment, conversations I've had with local substance abuse treatment centers, family counseling programs, food pantries and domestic violence organizations indicate a similar level of under-service and waiting periods.
How is a bioparent supposed to complete a reunification plan in the allotted timeframe when he/she has to wait 2 months or more to enter each particular service?
Drawing this to a close - there are serious institutionalized impediments to parental reunification that go far beyond an individual's "willingness" to complete a reunification plan. And the federally-mandated timelines for "permanence" endanger a significant number of families who were torn apart by inappropriate removal of the children to begin with.
Kristie
Adult Adoptee
|