Block Grants and the End of Children's Rights
Rule, James B. & Lambiase, Susan
In today's politics of the family, the right has claimed the high ground. They're the ones laying down the law on "family values." Come to think of it, they're the ones who concocted that...
...Yet the policies touted by the right are calculated to undercut the limited but by no means insignificant protections currently available to America's children...
...The institutional fiascoes and personal tragedies that sicken the public conscience stem not from an absence of proper remedies, but from the lack of political will and public commitment necessary to make these remedies work...
...Often operating on a shoestring, they have compelled governments to produce results commensurate with the vast amounts spent on child welfare...
...Protecting the nation's most vulnerable children should hardly be less serious a responsibility than protecting Social Security...
...States and localities must report their plans for child welfare and adoption assistance to the federal government, for example...
...For that matter, they are part of the same mind-set underlying opposition to civil rights protections for gays in the 1990s—or for African-Americans in the 1950s and 1960s...
...The work involved in administering childwelfare programs is not carried out by federal staff...
...Of a group of 118 children alleged to have been physically abused, only five received a medical exam...
...Note that the programs mandated here are entitlements for each child who needs the service...
...Right-wing efforts at "block granting" child welfare funds aim at something far more sweeping—and far more insidious— than simply shifting the administration of these activities closer to local levels...
...There is no cap on funding...
...And the worst of it is that the right's proposals for devolution of responsibility to states and localities would make things far worse...
...Instead, family policy has to be directed from those levels of government closest to real people's needs—the states or even localities...
...While Charles's fragile emotional state gradually improved at some treatment facilities, the Department of Human Services kept returning Charles to his mother, who was unable to care for him...
...Ultimately it met with a Clinton veto, along with the rest of the "welfare reform" bill...
...Acting sometimes as a conscience to public officials who might be hard put to find their own, acting as lawyers for the unrepresented, they have obliged both government officials and the general public to acknowledge the true costs of their anything-but-benign neglect of children...
...Current federal statutes establish an important cluster of rights for endangered children— along with legal mechanisms for making good on those rights...
...Federal obligations to contributors to the system would be suspended, and monies collected would be turned over to the states and municipalities to distribute...
...Unfortunately, the scope for their efforts is vast...
...Here are two stories—the first little-known, the second notorious: In New Mexico, seventeen-year-old "Charles" has been convicted of second-degree murder...
...Or would people suspect that the shift would undermine the underlying commitments...
...Wisconsin is not alone in failing to manage its foster care system effectively...
...FAIL • 1996 . 71 The End of Children's Rights These efforts bear a distinct resemblance to a host of other right-wing initiatives from recent years...
...Most people reflexively demand that those responsible should suffer the worst possible fate...
...The right's "family values" rap has one thing going for it—simplicity...
...All of this resonates predictably with today's alienated, antigovernment populism...
...Increasing numbers will not...
...Under such arrangements, states would follow no rules but their own, spending federal money with only minimal restrictions...
...After each return home, Charles's mental state became more precarious, so that he required institutionalization...
...One child had been waiting nine years without action from the state...
...Federal assistance to states' child welfare programs is provided under this statute for such crucial services and protections as room and board and adoption assistance for children with special needs, outreach, recruitment and monitoring of foster care placements, and staff training...
...Studies are now documenting the connection between abuse and neglect and juvenile crime...
...What if someone suggested that Social Security be subjected to the philosophy of block granting...
...Charles entered foster care at the age of six...
...The idea is that federal measures to protect the vulnerable somehow demean those involved or restrict their absolute freedom to make their own way in life...
...Some of these children will grow up in stable, nurturing homes, receive an adequate education, and ultimately bring themselves and their own children out of poverty...
...A government intrusive enough to protect such groups, the logic goes, is liable to threaten all people with the deprivation of their liberties...
...Above all, the right insists, government must stop meddling, with its dependency-inducing programs for family support...
...The first Child Welfare Block Grant bill—part of the "Personal Responsibility Act of 1995"—passed in the House on March 24 of that year...
...72 • DISSENT...
...He has been in and out of thirty-four foster care placements over the last ten years...
...Public-interest legal organizations such as Legal Aid, Legal Service Corporations, the National Center for Youth Law, and Children's Rights, Inc., have challenged neglect of federal child protection standards throughout the country—and often won significant victories...
...Family court ordered, however, that the home be closely monitored by child welfare authorities...
...Children removed from their homes and placed in three or more foster care settings, for example, are almost three times more likely than other foster children to be arrested...
...But no informed observer thinks that we have seen the last of attempts to transform child-welfare mandates and entitlements into block grants...
...They are the ones who pay the highest price for the troubles of today's increasingly unstable and destructive families...
...Statistics tell part of their story: • In 1992, some 2.9 million children were the subject of an abuse or neglect report—a serious warning sign—and an increase of 130 percent in ten years...
...In New Mexico, a senior state official recently said that the child welfare litigation "did more to improve [the New Mexico] child welfare system than anything I've seen in the last fifteen years...
...In Missouri, a state commissioner credited the lawsuit against the child welfare system with creating momentum for a "model system" in the county where the Children's Rights, Inc., suit was filed, one that should serve as a basis for statewide reform...
...Reactionary "Reforms" The right-wing effort to "reform" child welfare aims ultimately at rescinding the country's moral responsibility for its children—and at removing the most effective legal tool to force negligent state and local bureaucracies to act on behalf of children...
...and (4) proper care and placement in the least restrictive (most family-like) setting available...
...3) a permanent placement program...
...Most Americans, we suspect, regard these stark realities with a mixtut of repugnance and denial—aware of the reality of child abuse and neglect, but unwilling to reflect on it...
...On November 20, 1995, after months of abuse, Elisa died at her mother's hands...
...Basic to this legislation is the federal Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 (the "Child Welfare Act...
...Some, with a bit more reflection, may also wonder o loud how the public agencies responsible could have decayed to the point where such disasters are possible...
...The solution...
...Who could expect an isolated child to initiate court action against a welfare bureaucracy...
...But these ideas spell disaster for the most vulnerable of those touched by the family wars—children...
...However, when courts find on behalf of the interests represented by these organizations, they order payment of fees to the plaintiffs...
...The American family is going to hell, they believe (figuratively and, for some of them, literally...
...The role played by these embattled organizations underlines the indispensability of civil society as a complement to state action...
...These arguments are unseemly enough when mobilized against beleaguered groups like those mentioned above...
...For example, a state must ensure that its child welfare system provides (1) an information system that conforms to statutory requirements...
...Perhaps even more important, legal actions by child-welfare groups have forced system-wide institutional reform in many states...
...Obviously, responsibility for Social Security would be much closer to home under such arrangements...
...2) written case plans for each child in care and periodic FALL • 1996 • 69 The End of Children's Rights reviews and hearings...
...she just wanted to make sure they were alive...
...parents must take responsibility for their families...
...The right to enforce these provisions through lawsuits means that child-welfare advocates may enter the courts on behalf of children who would otherwise have no one to protect them...
...Admissions to juvenile justice facilities reached an all-time high of 900,000 children in 1992...
...Half the children whose foster parents are considered potential adoptive parents had been waiting four years or longer for adoption to be finalized...
...Advocacy Efforts These are just the sorts of institutional breakdowns that child welfare advocacy organizations confront...
...Most Americans, we suspect, would applaud these efforts...
...In Wisconsin, millions of dollars in federal reimbursements designated for foster care have already been used for other state programs—not for children...
...If a state receiving federally mandated funds under the Child Welfare Act does not provide a specific protection guaranteed by the statute, children can sue the state to enforce the provision...
...It would have eliminated any requirement that states contribute their own funds for these purposes...
...In June, the mother pled guilty to her murder...
...Although her aunt was willing and able to care for her after her father's death, Elisa was ordered to live with her drug-addicted, deeply troubled mother...
...When he was convicted of murder, the New Mexico foster care system closed its case...
...Block grants, not federal mandates, are the latest expression of this vision...
...The question is, what response is in order when families fail in the most fundamental way—by failing to protect children from immediate psychological or physical danger...
...At that point, assertion of responsibility by federal institutions is an elementary expression of family values...
...Organizations such as Children's Rights, Inc...
...It would have reduced, by at least 2.7 billion dollars over five years, federal funds available to states for foster care, adoption assistance and other services to protect children and families...
...To take just one instance, a study of reported child abuse and neglect in Milwaukee found that • In 48 percent of all child abuse and neglect investigations, no government worker ever made face-to-face contact with the parent or child...
...initiate court action on behalf of children—often in cases that extend over years, if not decades...
...Charles was now the responsibility of a different state institution...
...He first attempted suicide at the age of seven...
...But when they are applied to threatened or neglected children, not even an ideological fig leaf remains...
...Or, government protections for gays would put them in a "privileged" position of enjoying "special" rights not accorded to ordinary citizens...
...Instead, states and localities receiving federal funds provide the services, but must follow federal rules for their administration...
...The left has allowed itself to be thrown on the defensive—as though it had no distinctive principles to advocate in defending and strengthening America's families...
...This has led to court judgments for broad categories of children...
...When atrocities like Elisa's death hit the media, public apathy on child welfare turns to outrage...
...Of course government must provide the ultimate defense against neglect, grave mistreatment, and other manifest dangers to children...
...But ultimate national oversight and responsibility are indispensable...
...Workers ought to make up their own minds about environmental dangers when they "choose" to accept employment, the argument goes...
...Indeed, the block grant legislation as originally proposed would have capped funding of child welfare in the states...
...Children who end up entering the Milwaukee foster care system fare even worse: • More than a third of the children determined by the system to have a goal of "return home" remained in foster care for more than three years...
...Such a right may seem nothing more than window dressing...
...Even defendants in these lawsuits sometimes concede that such legal action does much to turn around failed child welfare bureaucracies...
...When we reach such points of moral extremity, all citizens must join to prevent catastrophe...
...The United States has in place potentially potent tools for protecting children against the worst hazards of family breakdown and neglect...
...But they make a poor substitute for understanding the forces shaping the welfare of endangered children in America today...
...The work of the organizations now playing this role is crucial...
...More than 440,000 children are in foster care—a 62 percent increase in ten years...
...Almost everywhere, children in government custody have suffered damage worse than the abuse or neglect they experienced originally...
...Reform efforts are underway in twenty-four states and localities, including New York, Connecticut, Kansas, Kansas City, Mo., Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and Milwaukee...
...But from time to time—and now more and more oftenheartwrenching tales of cruelty and death leap out of the newspapers and television screens...
...It is this crucial source of funding that block granting will undercut...
...More chilling still, block granting of child protection would eliminate the ability of children's rights organizations to act on behalf of children under the Child Welfare Act...
...Finally—and crucially—case law interpreting the Child Welfare Act gives children the right to enforce federal protections in court...
...Private donations fund these activities up to a point, but these sources never suffice to bankroll the huge costs of long-haul litigation...
...The picture in fact is not totally bleak...
...Children are entering foster care at younger ages and staying there longer...
...They reflect the same mentality as the attempts to undermine the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or to undercut protections against environmental hazards, or to gut rural legal services...
...Or, if government is to address the needs of families at all, responsibility must not reside with the remote, out-oftouch institutions of Washington...
...Minority children rose from 53 percent of this population in 1987 to 63 percent in 1991...
...Last year, six-year-old Elisa Izquierdo, known to New York City child welfare officials for years as a child in danger, was murdered...
...The notion that the right has a natural monopoly on the defense of families is ridiculous...
...Few reflect on the causes of Joseph's situation, and the calls for treating juveniles as adult offenders intensify...
...And of course it is a good thing that activist groups be able to act as advocates of endangered children to ensure that government institutions meet their responsibilities...
...And federal law has strictures to enforce them—that is, strictures that could result in effective enforcement...
...Come to think of it, they're the ones who concocted that tendentious term and slipped it into current political discourse...
...But, in fact, this provision has brought to life one of the most potent forces for defense of children's rights...
...There are all sorts of good reasons why state and local agencies should enjoy a measure of administrative flexibility in carrying out such responsibilities...
...For fourteen months, the officials failed to monitor the home, failed to talk to Elisa, and failed to investigate several wellfounded reports of suspected abuse...
...Child Welfare Protections All such reactions are understandable...
...But would such proximity really be a blessing...
...As with foster care, children of racial minorities are disproportion68 • DISSENT The End of Children's Rights ately overrepresented in juvenile justice facilities...
...Litigation or the threat of litigation, with support from national 70 • DISSENT The End of Children's Rights and local child welfare experts, has often worked to forge long-term solutions to the problems of poor and neglected children...
...There would be no guarantees of base-line levels of provision, no recourse for those whose benefits went unpaid by state or local bureaucracies...
...Abused and neglected children would be left to the meager mercies of the agencies that have the worst records in protecting them...
...If the states do not conform to federal mandates—if the state plan is inadequate or does not contain particular elements—the states will not be entitled to federal funding...
...Though long in coming and never assured until the last moment, these payments ultimately underwrite the exhausting and drawn-out legal campaigns that make the difference between public responsibility for children and public neglect...
...they also show the connection between unstable foster-care arrangements and violence...
...Admissions to juvenile justice facilities have risen steadily since 1984...
...These interventions have brought varying degrees of success in Louisville, Kentucky, Colorado, and New Mexico...
...What most Americans don't realize is that it is precisely these crucial forms of civic action that would be hamstrung by the "reforms" promoted by the right...
...the market will decide how much safety is required...
...In 49 percent of cases in which abuse or neglect did occur, the case was closed and the child left at home with no services provided...
...It would have allowed states to further reduce funds and, after two years, transfer up to 30 percent of their federal block grant funds to other block grant funds...
...The standing to sue under this law has been the best tool available to children's rights advocates to force public agencies to meet their responsibilities— by providing the federal standards and entitlements that permit children's advocates to file suit against failing state and local systems...
...People have got to pull up their own socks...
...The reason is the moral weakness of those with family troubles, and the willingness of policy makers to excuse or support such decadence...
...Anyone familiar with the damage done to children from poorly administered child welfare programs will understand how crucial these standards are...
...Dimensions of the Problem There is no doubt that children are in danger...
...More than fourteen million children live in poverty in this country, more than in any year since 1965...
...Forty-two percent had no face-to-face contact with their social worker in the previous year...
...Caseloads have been so high in Washington, D.C., that one worker testified that she couldn't develop plans for children on her caseload...
Vol. 43 • September 1996 • No. 4
