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Virginia League of Social Services Executives

Issue Insights

Child Abuse and Neglect, Foster Care,

Adoption and CSA

January 2009

Virginia League of Social Services Executives

Issue Insight

Child Welfare

Child Abuse and Neglect

One of the most important measures of a government is how it cares for its children. Child abuse and neglect occur in every segment of society, and are often the result of parents who were themselves abused or who do not have the resources to cope with difficult situations. Virginia emphasizes parental outreach and education as well as protection of abused children. Though there is no acceptable rate of child abuse and neglect, the Commonwealth's approach has resulted in a rate that is substantially lower than the national average.

Why is This Important?

In Virginia, a child is abused or neglected every 75 minutes, and every 14 days, a child dies from such mistreatment. The immediate impact of abuse or neglect on a child is tragic, but so, too, are the long-term consequences -- affecting children, their communities and the Commonwealth as a whole. Child abuse is often hidden, may occur over time, and is usually preventable.

How is Virginia Doing?

Virginia has a relatively low child maltreatment rate. In 2006, the state tied with Kansas for the fourth lowest rate. Nationally, the child maltreatment rate was 12.1 substantiated cases per 1,000 children in 2006. Virginia's rate was much lower, at 3.8 cases per 1,000 children for the same year. Pennsylvania's rate of 1.5 was the lowest in the nation.

Compared to its peer states, Virginia's rate was lower than that of North Carolina (13.2), and Tennessee (13.3). Data for Maryland was not available for 2006, but in 2005 its rate was 10.4. However, it is difficult to compare child maltreatment statistics across states because there is great variation in state laws, definitions, standards of evidence, and record keeping. It is estimated that up to 60% of child fatalities due to abuse are incorrectly reported as accidents or other incidents.

In Virginia in 2006, there were 47,130 children reported as possible victims of abuse and neglect. 7,330 of these were founded reports, meaning that a review of the facts gathered during an investigation met the standard of evidence required in Virginia. Nearly half of the children experiencing maltreatment were under the age of 7, and nearly 75% were under the age of 12. Within Virginia, in 2007 the Northern region had the lowest rate of child maltreatment at 1.7 per 1,000 children. West Central and Southwest regions had the highest rates, with 6.1 and 8.3 substantiated cases per 1,000 children, respectively.

What Influences Child Abuse and Neglect?

Child abuse and neglect are not confined to any particular socioeconomic class, race or ethnicity, or religion. Children younger than age 4 are at the greatest risk of severe injury or death. There are a number of situations that place children at particular risk for being abused or neglected, including:

  • Parents who were abused as children themselves.
  • Teenage parents.
  • Parental or family substance abuse.
  • Parental depression, stress or other mental health problems.
  • Family violence, such as intimate partner violence.
  • Unemployment and poverty.
  • Community violence.
  • Family isolation.
  • Lack of parental knowledge of child development and understanding children's needs.
  • Lack of caregiver support for dealing with children with disabilities or developmental delays.

What is the State's Role?

The Child Protective Services (CPS) Unit at the VirginiaDepartment of Social Services:

  • operates a 24-hour child abuse and neglect hotline;
  • administers grant monies to prevent and treat child abuse;
  • develops statewide public awareness and education programs; and
  • maintains a database of offenders and victims of child abuse and neglect.

Increasing awareness and public education have been shown to increase the percentage of cases reported.

What is the Local Department of Social Services Role?

Local Departments of Social Services are responsible for:

  • receiving reports of abuse and neglect;
  • conducting investigations or family assessments for valid CPS reports;
  • providing services that enhance child safety and prevent further abuse;
  • educating local individuals and entities who work with children and families about the impact of child abuse and neglect and prevention of abuse and/or neglect.

Virginia League of Social Services Executives

Issue Insight

Child Welfare

Foster Care

When a child's safety is threatened at home, foster care may be a necessary course of action, but moving the child back into a stable home or an independent situation is crucial for his or her future happiness and success.

Why is This Important?

The term "foster care" refers to a variety of living situations in which a child may be placed because the family living situation is unsafe. Typically a child will be removed from his or her home because of severe abuse or neglect. The goal, where possible, is to make the home a safe and stable living environment to which the child can return. When that is not possible, however, the goal may be for the child to be placed with relatives, adopted into a safe and nurturing home, or, for older youth, to be able to live independently. It is important that the length of time spent in foster care be as brief as possible, with the child moving quickly to a stable, supportive environment. Lifetime challenges for children who age out of the foster care system without achieving a permanent home environment are particularly pronounced.

How is Virginia Doing?

Nationally, the foster care rate has declined from 7.5 per 1,000 children in 2000 to 7 in 2005. During this same period, Virginia has remained fairly stable at about 3.9 per 1,000. This places Virginia's ranking of declining foster care rates at second best in the nation. Only Utah, with a rate of 2.9, was lower. Virginia had a lower rate of children in foster care relative to its peer states. In 2005, per 1,000 children aged 17 and under in the state, North Carolina had 5.1, Tennessee had 6.3 and Maryland had 7.9 in foster care.

Within Virginia, the Northern region consistently has the lowest rates, while the Southwest, West Central and Valley regions have the highest rate.

While Virginia has a very low rate of children in foster care, Virginia ranks first among the states in the percent of youth (21 percent) who age out of foster care and ranks last in the average waiting time between termination of rights from original guardians and finalization of adoption. Virginia's average wait time of 27.8 months means that children who have lost their parents spend more time in foster care on average than their peers in other states. Rhode Island led the states with an average time of only 5.8 months. By law, finalization of adoption in Virginia cannot occur until 3 months after the date of adoption in order to allow social workers time to observe the compatibility of the adoptive parent-child relationship. This law automatically makes Virginia's waiting time longer. North Carolina, Tennessee, and Maryland all had shorter average wait times than Virginia at 11.4 months, 13.6 months, and 15.4 months respectively.

What Influences Foster Care?

The primary driver for children entering foster care is child maltreatment. Child abuse and neglect is not confined to any particular socioeconomic class, race or ethnicity, or religion. However, some situations place children at particular risk for being abused or neglected, including parent history, family violence, isolation and poverty. An important influence for preventing foster care placement is the availability of effective support services to intervene when child abuse and neglect are found, so that the child does not have to be removed from the home.

Inadequate foster care maintenance payments negatively affect foster parent recruitment and retention. When child welfare systems cannot adequately maintain a pool of foster homes, children are often moved from foster home to foster home or placed in an institutional setting. A 2007 study, “Hitting the M.A.R.C.: Establishing Foster Care Minimum Adequate Rates for Children,” calculated that Virginia’s rates were, on average, 55% lower than the recommended minimum adequate rates. In a comparison of Virginia and its peer states in 2007, Virginia had the lowest per-month reimbursement payments for children age 2 and 9 ($368 and $431, respectively), and the second lowest for children age 16 ($546) after North Carolina ($490).

What is the State's Role?

The Virginia Department of Social Services is responsible for providing supervision to each of the 120 local departments of social services who are administering the foster care program.

What is Local Department of Social Service Role?

The Local Departments of Social Services are responsible for providing and/or coordinating foster care services which may include:

  • foster family home placement;
  • group home or residential placement;
  • independent living home placement;
  • housing assistance;
  • parent training;
  • intensive home based services;
  • educational and vocational training;
  • respite care services;
  • medical assistance;
  • therapeutic, mental health and substance abuse counseling;
  • any additional services identified on a child’s service plan needed to achieve the permanency goal; and
  • recruitment, training and support of foster parents;

Virginia League of Social Services Executives

Issue Insight

Child Welfare

Adoption

Adoption is a benefit to the community as well as to the families it brings together. While the majority of adoptions are by stepparents, adopting children from foster homes is especially important. Children in foster care have often faced many difficulties, and the longer they wait for adoption, the higher the possibility of future problems. Virginia continues to work to improve its rate of adoption through outreach programs and family incentives.

Why is This Important?

The purpose of adoption is to place children who have permanently and legally separated from their birth parents with a new family. It is a social and legal process that gives new parent(s) the same rights and obligations as biological parents. Although there are many types of adoption -- public agency placements, private adoptions, kinship adoptions and stepparent adoptions -- one of the most pressing issues facing states today is adoption of children in foster care. Turbulence and uncertainty during childhood due to an extended stay in foster care can have lasting consequences.

How is Virginia Doing?

Adoptions nationally have increased in recent years -- both those involving public agencies such as the Department of Social Services and adoptions from foster care. According to U.S. Health and Human Services statistics, the national number of adoptions from public agencies more than doubled between 1995 and 2006. Virginia's public adoptions increased from 320 to 551 between 1995 and 2006 -- a period when the total number of children in foster care has remained relatively constant.

Despite the growth in the number of adoptions, in 2006 Virginia had the second lowest rate of public agency adoption in the nation (7.2 children adopted per 100,000 population). Tennessee (16.4) and North Carolina (13.9) had significantly higher adoption rates, while Maryland’s adoption rate was only 6.5 percent. Iowa had the highest adoption rate (33.1).

What Influences Adoption Rates?

A supply of parents who are ready to adopt is a significant factor, as is the readiness of children to be adopted. Financial incentives improve the rate of foster care adoptions by making them more feasible for many families. Finding permanent homes for children with mental disabilities or other special needs remains an additional challenge.

What is the State's Role?

The Department of Social Services provides oversight and services in the following areas:

  • agency and non-agency placement adoptions
  • management of a statewide adoption resource exchange
  • assistance to parents adopting special-needs children
  • oversight of adoption records and disclosure laws, and
  • special initiatives to achieve adoption for children in foster care.

What is the Local Department of Social Services Role?

The Local Departments of Social Services are responsible for:

  • providing adoption services to children who have been permanently and legally separated from their birth parents become permanent members of a new family;
  • providing services for both agency and non-agency placement adoptions;
  • completing the approval process for adoptive families; and
  • determining eligibility for adoption assistance payments.

Virginia League of Social Services Executives

Issue Insight

Comprehensive Services Act

What is the Comprehensive Services Act (CSA)

CSA is a 1993 law that provided for the pooling of eight specific funding streams used to purchase services for high risk youth. These funds are returned to localities with a required state/local match and are managed by local agency teams. The purpose of the act is to provide high quality, child centered, family focused, cost effective, community-based services to high risk youth and their families. In essence, CSA is a funding stream used by localities in Virginia to purchase services for high risk youth.

Relationship between CSA and Child Welfare

The funding stream for foster care was one of the eight specific funding streams used to purchase services for high risk youth that was placed into the CSA program. Other funding streams that were included in CSA included ones from the Department of Juvenile Justice, Department of Education, and the Department of Mental Health Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services. Children who would have been served under the old foster care funding stream are considered “mandated” in the CSA program. In this sense, “mandated” refers to “sum-sufficient funding” requiring state and local governments to appropriate sufficient funds to serve these children.

Foster care is a state and federally mandated program providing services to children who are identified as “at risk”. Foster care services are intended to be a temporary response for children and families in crisis. Foster care services may be provided in the community to “at-risk” children and their families or may be provided after children are removed from their homes. Foster care placements provide a safe and stable environment for children until the issues that made foster care placement necessary are resolved.

If the services required to be provided for the foster care population are beyond what is available in local departments of social services and there are no other family members or community resources available, services may be purchased through the use of CSA funding. Additionally, local departments of social services use both Medicaid funded services, Title IV-E federal funding, or private insurance prior to requesting any services be purchased with CSA funds.

For Additional Information contact

  1. Your Local Department of Social Services
  2. Virginia League of Social Services Executives

Sarah Snead, President;

3.Legislative Committee

Sam Bush, Co-Chair;

Susan Clark, Co-Chair;

4.Public Policy Work Group

Carl Ayers, Co-Chair;

Catherine Pemberton, Co-Chair;

5.Chris Spanos, Government and Public Affairs Counselor;

Updated January 23, 2009

Basic Information Source: Council on the Future of Virginia