Proponent Testimony on Amended Substitute HB 214

Senate Health, Human Services, and Aging Committee

Bryan Brown, Assistant-Executive Director

Ohio Association of Child Caring Agencies

December 5, 2007

Chairman Coughlin, Ranking Member Smith, and members of the committee, my name is Bryan Brown; I am the Assistant-Executive Director of the Ohio Association of Child Caring Agencies (OACCA). Thank you for the opportunity to offer proponent testimony on HB 214.

As you may know, OACCA is a statewide association of private and public agencies that provide a wide array of services to thousands of children and families across Ohio every day of the year. Some examples of these services include:

Caring for children in foster care experiencing the trauma of child abuse or neglect,
Finding adoptive families for waiting children and providing post-adoption support so that new families can grow together and,
Helping children recover from mental illness, substance abuse or juvenile delinquency

Beginning last December, OACCA and our member agencies worked with Senators Tom Niehaus and Gary Cates and Representatives Jeff Wagner and Courtney Combs as members of their interested-party legislative committee to develop recommendations to reform the state foster care system. The committee consisted of staff from several associations, foster care agencies, county children services agencies, foster parents, ODJFS, the Attorney General’s office, and legislative staff. It was a thoughtful, inclusive and deliberative process, and I am proud of our recommendations –which are included in HB 214.

OVERVIEW OF HB 214

In its current form, Amended Substitute HB 214 achieves the following:

Expand the number of training hours for prospective and current foster caregivers. Our association fully supports this change and, in fact, many of our member agencies already provide much more training than is required by ODJFS.
Retain some privacy rights for foster caregivers. Provide that the names, documentation, and other identifying information about foster caregivers or prospective foster caregivers, are not public records. We join with Representatives Wagner, Combs, Speaker Husted, Senators Seitz and Niehaus, as well as the Governor’s office and the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services in supporting the belief that the records should remain confidential, and that that confidentiality protects both children and foster caregivers.
Establish a statewide, standard Level of Care Tool that will allow public agencies to accurately assess the level of care each child needs and to use that assessment to make appropriate placements with agencies that have foster caregivers with the training and skill needed by that child. Although we support this provision of the bill, our committee did not intend to limit the evaluation of tools to the one used in CuyahogaCounty since several other counties have developed tools that have been effective. The evaluation should include other models to ensure we have the best one for use across the state. We respectfully request that private agencies be included in the list of participants that will develop/assess the standard Child Placement Level of Care tool, as this partnership is one of the great strengths of the Cuyahoga model.

IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC RECORDS EXCLUSION

While HB 214 seeks to make many positive changes to the state foster care system, the public records component has received the most attention. Current practice (ORC 5101.29)provides that identifying information about foster caregivers is confidential. The rationale behind this is twofold: 1) foster caregiver information should remain confidential out of concern for the safety and well-being of foster children and their caregivers; 2) making this personal information available to the public creates a disincentive to foster and will likely further deplete the number of trained and qualified foster caregivers in Ohio. The Marcus Fiesel legislative workgroup that convened for eight months to reform the state foster care system came to the same conclusion.

Foster caregivers and foster children have much more to lose by the state releasing this information than the public has to gain. This is the point of the successful public records amendment to HB 214 which does include a procedure for releasing foster caregiver information for those whom the judicial system indicates may pose a risk to children.

Background

Following the Marcus Fiesel tragedy, the Cincinnati Enquirer issued a public records request to ODJFS for a complete list of foster caregivers. After their request was denied, the Enquirer sued ODJFS for this information. ODJFS’s interpretation of current law is that this information is confidential. Regardless of the result of the suit, the foster care reform workgroup decided a year ago that state law should clearly show that foster caregiver information is confidential and not public record. Language was written into HB 214 as introduced that clearly makes this information not public record. The bills sponsors worked with the newspapers and others on a compromise. The compromise makes the following change: if a foster caregiver has had his or her foster caregiver certificate revoked or has been charged with, pleaded guilty to, or was convicted or indicted of certain specified offenses (murder, rape, involuntary manslaughter, menacing, and others) then identifying information about those foster caregivers are public record, while all other foster caregivers information is not public record.

Misconceptions

Does making all foster caregivers information public add anything to the quality of our system or somehow improve our ability to “track” foster parent data? No. ODJFS and county departments of children services already have a simple tracking method that can look at specific pieces of data about foster caregivers to determine if they encountered problems as a foster caregiver. In fact, SB 163 (Sen. Niehaus) completely overhauls how ODJFS screens foster caregiver applicants and current caregivers. The bills add training requirements and even establish a retained applicant fingerprint database so that ODJFS can provide better oversight over foster caregivers. Therefore, the state of Ohio has, and will continue to, step up to the plate to provide more effective oversight to the foster care system. It is the responsibility of ODJFS to do this, not Ohio newspapers.

Does making all foster caregivers information public act as a deterrent to child maltreatment? No. This argument is completely flawed. There is no logic in suggesting that “oversight” by newspapers of foster caregiver records would decrease episodes of child abuse or maltreatment in foster homes. Ohio’s current rate of foster youth who experience maltreatment (broadly defined)while living in out of home care is 0.43%. Moreover, of all the options to prevent child abuse and lapses in foster homes, making identifying information about foster caregivers public is definitely not the best option regardless of how you look at this issue. Instead, better oversight that weeds criminals and bad parents out of the system and increases foster caregiver training requirements is what will ultimately lower instances of abuses.

Does making all foster caregivers information public potentially threaten child and foster family safety? Yes. Over a dozen individuals from OACCA member agencies have told us stories of biological parents threatening their children’s foster caregivers and the children themselves. In the House Juvenile and Family Law Committee, there was testimony from staff and law enforcement on this issue. Clearly,this is already happening too often. Giving biological parents more clues to where their removed children are living in foster homes will definitely increase the number of these threatening situations, increase stress on foster families, and ultimately weaken the system. Stating that these claims are “exaggerated” is not fair to all the children and foster caregivers that have already experienced these traumatic situations, some of which involve deadly weapons like knives and guns.

SUMMARY

In summary, HB 214 will overhaul the amount and quality of training requirements for prospective and current foster caregivers, maintain confidentiality of foster caregiver records, and develop a cutting-edge Level of Care Tool that will improve the ability of public agencies to determine the needed level for care foster children that are to be placed in foster homes. Coupled with the SB 163 (Sen. Niehaus), which overhauls background checks and ODJFS oversight of foster caregivers, the legislative foster care reform package will improve the state system that oversees 19,000 Ohio children in state custody.

The last thing that anyone in this room wants to result from the Marcus Fiesel tragedy is to jeopardize the safety of foster caregivers and foster children. Therefore, please support HB 214 in its current form so that we can finally move forward with an improved system.

OACCA and our member agencies across Ohio are proud to support this bill and we urge you to join its sponsor to pass this legislation that will substantially improve the state foster care system and the safety of Ohio’s 19,000 foster children. Thank you for your time. I would be pleased to answer any of your questions.

Contact Information

Brown Brown

Assistant-Executive Director

Ohio Association of Child Caring Agencies

(614) 461-0014