Too many American children are unnecessarily placed in group homes even though there is consensus that kids do best in family settings, a new report from the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation says.
Nationwide, nearly 57,000 children in the child welfare system live in group settings, and 40 percent of those who are placed in group homes have no documented need to be in such facilities, according to the report, "Every Kid Needs a Family."
"While some children grow up to succeed without a family, we would never willingly choose such a path for our own kids," the authors wrote. "Yet too many children in the child welfare system are not living in families during the most critical years of their physical, emotional, psychological and social development and the most vulnerable moments of their lives."
The report also notes racial and gender disparities: Black youtha are 18 percent more likely than white youths to be placed in group settings, and boys are 29 percent more likely to be placed in groups than girls.
In Maryland, the percentage of children in the child welfare system who are placed in group homes has fallen from 26 percent in 2006 to 14 percent in 2013, according to Rob Geen, director of policy reform and advocacy for the foundation. The nation's overall rate is also 14 percent.
The states with the lowest percentage of children in nonfamily settings are Oregon, Kansas, Maine and Washington, where 4 percent to 5 percent of young children are in group homes, according to the Casey report. Those with the highest proportion are West Virginia, Wyoming, Rhode Island and Colorado, at more than 25 percent.
Geen emphasized that there are some children with specialized needs who benefit from a group setting. But he compared those facilities to an emergency room, saying it is best to use them in the short term for stabilization.
In 2007, Maryland launched the Place Matters initiative, which focuses on preventing children from coming into care in the first place and shortening the length of time they are placed in out-of-home care.
Since 2007, more than 19,900 children have found permanent homes through adoption, guardianship or family reunification, according to the state Department of Human Resources.
Efforts to find more alternatives to group homes are gaining national momentum, Geen said. Last week, the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, convened a hearing examining foster group homes.
Hatch has previously sponsored unsuccessful legislation that would limit federal funding to group homes for very young children and for long-term stays for older youth.
"No one would support allowing states to use federal taxpayer dollars to buy cigarettes for foster youth," Hatch said in a statement for the hearing last week. "In my view, continuing to use these scarce taxpayer dollars to fund long-term placements in group homes is ultimately just as destructive."
The senator said in the statement that he hopes to draft new legislation within the next few months to reduce reliance on group homes.
Family settings benefit taxpayers, too, Geen said. Group placements cost seven to 10 times what family placements cost, the Casey report says.
The report recommends several ways to decrease group placements. Governments could require detailed data to be gathered on out-of-home placements and review a child's placement at least quarterly. States could prohibit group placements for very young children, and family court judges can require documentation that a family setting can't meet a child's needs in order to send that child to a group home.
To recruit and retain more foster parents, public agencies can be required to maintain a census of active foster parents, and collect feedback from foster parents, the report says.
Thoughts about what is best for children have changed over time, Geen said.
"One hundred years ago, we placed kids in orphanages and we thought that was good for them," Geen said. Thirty years ago, "we even purposely moved children from one foster home from another home to avoid attachment."
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