Charlotte—According to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, or NC DHHS, there are currently 10,271 children in foster homes. Children who were taken from their parents because of abuse, neglect or squalid living conditions –– children who desperately need a new life. Many are bounced around from foster home to foster home, sometimes separated from siblings, sometimes never finding permanence or a sense of belonging.

Ask any social worker what their initial goal is for foster children and the answer is always the same – reunification.

“The goal is always to get that child reunited with their biological family if at all it is in the best interest in the child,” said Louis Nilsen of NC DHHS. “That’s always the first goal.”

But if the parents simply aren’t fit to parent, if mom can’t shake her drug addiction or dad simply won’t stop beating his children, that goal changes. If all measures have been exhausted, every program has been attempted and still there is no change, the social worker changes the goal of the plan, from reunification to adoption.

“When a child becomes a foster child, there is something about the home that makes it unsafe for that child,” said Nilson. “The county workers become very involved with that family and it might be that after six months, they see such a pattern of violence or drug abuse or whatever, they understand that this child will be in limbo for years if (they) don’t terminate rights.”

Of the 10,271 children currently in state foster homes, 2,980 of these have ‘adoption’ as their plan. That doesn’t mean they’ve been legally cleared for adoption. Only 616 children in North Carolina are legally cleared for adoption. But social workers have decided in 2,980 cases that reunification is not possible. They begin pushing for termination of parental rights in court. If the judge is convinced and the plan is met with little resistance, it can take just a matter of months to terminate parental rights.

But what if the social worker is wrong? What if he or she has lost objectivity and reunification really is possible? And besides human error or incompetence, what could possibly alter a social worker’s perspective on what is best for the child?

The answer is money.

PERVERTING THE SYSTEM

In 1997, Congress passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which was intended to make strides toward more quickly removing children from dangerous living situations. It also provided financial incentives to states if they find adoptive or other permanent homes for foster children, especially those with special needs.

Noted under the “Adoption Incentive Payment” section of the act, a state can receive as much as $4,000 for adopting out a child. Under another provision technical assistance is offered “through grants or contracts…to assist states and local communities to reach their targets for increased numbers of adoptions.” This financial assistance can be used to expedite termination of parental rights and to “encourage the fast tracking of children who have not attained 1 year of age into pre-adoptive placements.” Technical assistance is also appropriated to the courts – as much as $5,000,000 for each fiscal year.

Many agree that the goal of this law is good – to move children out of foster homes and into permanent adoptive placements. But the same state government agency entrusted with the job of protecting children from dangerous situations and working with parents to reunite the family unit (if possible) is also given huge bonuses by the federal government if they push to terminate parental rights and boost their adoption numbers.

Of the past three years that North Carolina was eligible for incentives, the state received the bonuses two of those years, totaling $2.2 million. While some of this money is kept in statewide reserves, most of the money is distributed to counties on the basis of the number of children adopted. Last year, 1,379 children were adopted from foster care in North Carolina, up from 1,231 the previous year and 822 the year before.

The NC DHHS has made such great strides in the number of children adopted, that U.S. Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson paid a visit to Raleigh last November to honor Charles Harris of the NC Division of Social Services. Harris received one of the federal department’s Adoption Excellence Awards for “collaborating with the court system, mental health providers, the General Assembly, churches, business and private citizens” and for doubling the number of special needs children adopted from the foster care system in just six years.

But even with these accolades and accomplishments, some feel this law is fraught with problems.

OBJECTIVITY LOST

“It is fertile ground for problems,” said Mike Schmidt, who is representing the father of ten children currently in DSS custody.

“It’s scary because when a dollar bill gets involved, it can cloud decision-making and it can move down to the lowest levels,” he said. “It can influence testimony. It can influence plans.”

Schmidt is currently fighting DSS to have Jack and Kathy Stratton’s children returned to them. The couple’s ten children were taken away January 2001 on allegations of neglect and abuse, allegations they’ve fought in court but found almost insurmountable.

Said Kathy Stratton, “It was obvious that DSS had a plan to keep us from our children.”

No DSS official would comment on the Stratton’s case.

When their oldest son turned 18 and “aged out” of the juvenile court jurisdiction two months ago, his case went before a different judge, and the Strattons were not only found to be fit parents, the judge ruled that Spencer, who has special needs and requires a guardian, should be returned to his parents immediately.

As to their other nine children, the Strattons must continue to fight DSS and what they call biased reports “full of lies” in juvenile court, holding onto the hope that their parental rights will not be terminated.

The Strattons aren’t alone in accusing DSS of losing their objectivity.

OTHER CASES

Last April, a federal judge found the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services’s (DCFS) system of investigating child abuse and neglect to be unconstitutional, too many times leading to false accusations of wrongdoing against child caretakers. Calling DCFS investigations one-sided, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer ordered that the system be revamped entirely.

In New Jersey, a former Department of Youth and Family Services (DYFS) caseworker filed a lawsuit last May, alleging he was fired after he refused to falsify his reports toward removing five children from their parents. Michael Spincola’s complaint said that his supervisor told him “children should be taken away from poor parents if they can be better off elsewhere.” The children were taken from their mother, Wykeena Beal, and placed in foster homes where at least one child suffered abuse. Beal’s children were eventually returned to her seven months later, but she has also filed a lawsuit against DYFS. DYFS claims that Spincola was fired because he couldn’t keep up with proper documentation and he failed to “follow a directive.” Both cases are still pending.

Perhaps the best example of DSS out of control is the state of Massachusetts. DSS has commissioned financial consultants such as Anderson Consulting and Public Consulting Group to advise the state on how to aggressively “maximize federal revenue.” Accountants have re-engineered how the agencies are run, not for efficiency but to increase funds from the federal government. This method has afforded DSS an extra $90 million per year. Other states have followed Massachusetts’ lead.

When the NC DHHS was granted $2.2 million in federal incentives, $108,693 was distributed to the Mecklenburg County Department of Youth and Family Services. DYFS spokesperson Dallas Williams also reported that in the past three years, DYFS increased their staff positions by 33 percent or 106 new positions “in order to meet the demands of our community.”

For federal funds to continue to pour into states and local departments, the Adoption and Safe Families Act must be re-authorized by Congress this year.

“I think we definitely want that bonus,” said Nilson, “to get as many children placed as we can.”

Said Schmidt, “There just has to be a better system, one that will not jeopardize judgment because of a dollar bill.”