Report: Fewer Pa. Children In Foster Care

By Associated Press  |  Featured in The Examiner, PennLive, CBS, METRO, InYork
March 16, 2008

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) ¯ The number of Pennsylvania children in foster care has dropped more than 10 percent since 2002, a change officials said reflects efforts to provide more at-home services to families.

The number of clidren in placement has fallen from 37,941 in 2002 to 33,689 in 2007, a decrease of 11.2 percent, state Department of Public Welfare spokeswoman Anne Bale told The Morning Call of Allentown for a story Sunday.

"We've tried to provide better services to children in their homes—we're seeing an increase in those services," said Cathy Utz with the department's Office of Children, Youth and Families.

In Lehigh County, Audrey Johnson was reunited with her daughter, Giosyra Prendes, who was placed in foster care three weeks after her birth when doctors found fractures and evidence of shaken-baby syndrome.

The newborn's teenage father admitted hurting the baby, born on July 29, 2005.

Giosyra was returned to her mother in July, after Johnson, now 19, took parenting classes and complied with other requirements— and when caseworkers were sure the toddler would be safe.

Giosyra's father was placed in a juvenile probation program, from which he has been released.

Pam Buehrle, executive director of the county's Children and Youth Services agency, attributes much of the decrease in foster care to the increase in family services.

The agency provides parenting education, counseling and programs to resolve parent-child conflict issues, as well as assistance to find housing, or get drug or alcohol treatment.

"We even assist sometimes with a visiting nurse" to make sure an infant is thriving, she said. "You name it, we can provide it.

We try to provide anything that is needed to keep the child in the home."

One service is provided within two hours of a child's pending removal from a home to figure out what can be done instead.
Johnson has returned to high school, where she is in her senior year.

"They had me go to non-offending parenting classes, basic parenting classes; they had me do therapy sessions," Johnson said.

Child welfare officials are heartened by the drop in the numbers of children in residential foster care, but at least one advocacy organization is calling for more federal money to help families keep children at home.

"Right now, despite reunification (with family) being the primary goal for children in foster care, the majority of federal child welfare funds can only be used to help a child while in out-of-home placement— foster care," said Marci McCoy-Roth, a health and human services officer at the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Nationally, the re-entry rate into foster care after a child is reunited with family is about 15 percent, she said.

"Our hope is that we can bring that number down closer to zero," she said.