LilMtnCbn
09-01-2004, 09:10 AM
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/nation/9543549.htm
Adopting 'problem' children may be perfect blessing
BY TERI SFORZA
Orange County Register
SANTA ANA, Calif. - First, she turned the TV volume up. Way up.
Then, Robin Workman enfolded foster daughter Nikki in her arms and hugged her -
even as Nikki thrashed, kicked, bit and screamed a scream that could wake the
dead and kill them all over again.
Nikki, then 3, had been diagnosed with autism after a life of neglect and
abuse. She sat and rocked, refused to look anyone in the eye, hated being
touched. But three, four, five times a day, the TV volume went up - so there
was something to focus on besides the shrieks - and Workman patiently performed
"holding therapy," falling crazy in love with the iron-willed little girl.
Workman and her husband adopted Nikki and soon discovered the autism diagnosis
was wrong. Today, Nikki is 20, a successful student on scholarship at the
University of California, Irvine, pursuing pre-med courses and doing volunteer
work to help kids still stuck in the foster-care system she escaped.
"A lot of people say they don't want a child with problems," Robin Workman
said. "But just because they have problems today doesn't mean they're going to
have problems forever."
This is the sort of success story that the state and federal governments are
trying to replicate all over the nation.
Officials have mounted an unprecedented push to move thousands of children from
foster care into permanent homes since 1998, and adoptions have soared. That's
a great step forward for America's neediest children, some say. But others
worry that it comes at a high price, and not in dollars alone.
Critics say the bonuses earned by state governments for completed adoptions
amount to a bounty on children's heads; others want to see some of the
increased spending redirected to helping families in trouble before their kids
end up in foster care.
California has received more than $34 million in bonuses for children adopted
out of the child-protection system - money that filters down to counties for
additional staff and programs. Orange County has received $2.3 million. The
bonuses, from the federal government, range from $4,000 to $6,000 for every
child adopted out of the system beyond the number adopted the year before.
DEALING IN CHILDREN
It's those bonuses that make some people nervous. Critics fear they make
officials more prone to "snatch" children from their biological families and
put them up for adoption, because the state and county can make money on the
deal.
"There are some children for whom adoption is genuinely the right answer," said
Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child
Protection Reform in Virginia. "The problem is, this system creates a perverse
incentive for the state to take children away from their parents. It's like a
bounty on their heads.
"Some kids being adopted didn't need to be taken away," Wexler said. "Rather
than gaining a forever family, they're losing one. Why not reward states for
returning kids safely to their birth parents?"
The adoption bonuses are part of the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act,
passed in 1997, which aims to keep kids from languishing in foster care and
move them into permanent, loving homes. The act requires children to be quickly
reunited with their parents or freed up for adoption: within six months if
they're younger than 3, and within a year if they're older.
If there's evidence of serious abuse or neglect, no attempts at family
reunification need to be made and parental rights can be terminated
immediately.
This has raised an outcry as parents who have led rocky lives but still want
their children wind up in court, battling to remain mothers and fathers. Six
months, or even a year, is a terribly short time to try to turn a troubled life
around, they argue.
CATCH TWENTY-TWO
Michael Riley understands those arguments. Even empathizes with them, to a
degree. He's director of Orange County, Calif., Children and Family Services,
the agency that makes the often agonizing decisions that separate parent from
child and affect lives so profoundly.
"If we take a child away from his parents, we get criticized. If we leave a
child with his parents and the child gets hurt, we get criticized. Either way
we go, we get criticized - and we understand that. It's the nature of things.
"There's a saying that police and social workers have: If you want to be loved,
be a fireman. We know we're not going to be loved," Riley said.
He also knows that the federal Adoptions and Safe Families Act, which has
helped move thousands of kids into permanent homes over the last few years, has
its blemishes.
"There have been some advocacy groups saying 12 months isn't enough time when
you're looking at a family that has been disorganized and chaotic for
generations," Riley said. "Parts of that are true, no doubt. If you have a
mother from an alcoholic family who has been abused, and we come in and expect
her to get her act together in 12 months, that may be unrealistic. But there
are parents who do it.
"That's a constant battle," he said. "If not 12 months, how many? Nobody
knows."
Studies show that prolonged foster care can leave deep scars on children, and
the sooner they get into stable homes, the better off they are. Experts say
it's not fair to make them wait for years and years while a parent tries to
straighten out, messes up, and starts over again.
Riley also understands how the adoption bonuses might be interpreted as
bounties. And he thinks a "permanency bonus" - where states are rewarded for
successfully reuniting families, as opposed to reaping rewards only for
adoptions - is a good idea. But social workers simply don't tear families apart
and inflict trauma on children so counties can nab an extra few thousand
dollars. "We are not baby snatchers," Riley said.
CHILDREN REMOVE WITHOUT CAUSE
Last year, Los Angeles child welfare chief David Sanders shocked people when he
said that up to half of the children in protective custody never should have
been removed from their homes. Sanders wants to put a new emphasis on helping
troubled families before crisis happens, before kids wind up in foster care.
But, right now, he can't.
"Unfortunately, the services have followed the money. And the money the federal
government is willing to make available to work with families is capped," said
Rich Hemstreet, chief of the state's permanency policy bureau for foster care.
"However, foster-care funds are an open-ended pot of money. The more kids go
in, the more money we can draw down. It's a quirk in the way the federal
funding system is structured."
On the street, that means the state's main tool to help families having trouble
caring for their children is to take the children away.
And no matter how many counselors are assigned to troubled families, there will
always be children who should never return home.
And there will always be a need for foster parents like Workman.
Some 80 children have found shelter with her family over the past 20 years. She
works with birth parents, trying to teach them more effective parenting
methods. She always strives to reunite families when it's the safe and sane
thing to do. But that's not always the case.
The Workmans adopted two more children after Nikki, the last in 1999, and she
has foster kids right now - all straight-A students.
She is effervescent about them.
"It becomes a passion. It's the love of my life, it's the reason I get up in
the morning," Workman said, folding baby T-shirts into packs of three to supply
other foster parents when the tiniest ones arrive. "I survived cancer twice,
and when I wake up in the morning - I'm not being dramatic - my first thought
is, thank God I've got another day. I see these kids and I want to bring them
home. My whole thing is giving them hope for a better tomorrow."
There are rules at the Workman house: All children must play a sport (if
they're physically disabled, something like chess will do just fine); and all
children must do some sort of community service.
"So much of the time, the kids are told, `It's not your fault,'" Workman said.
"And it's not their fault they're in the system.
But at some point they need to be held accountable for their own behavior."
The prospect of diverting some funds toward preventing families from entering
the system in the first place seems like a wise idea to her.
"My last baby was a seventh-generation foster kid. Not one of the mothers was
over 16," Workman said. "Generally, when you have abused kids, you have parents
who were abused as kids. I'd like to see more spent on prevention - it goes
generation after generation."
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
Adopting 'problem' children may be perfect blessing
BY TERI SFORZA
Orange County Register
SANTA ANA, Calif. - First, she turned the TV volume up. Way up.
Then, Robin Workman enfolded foster daughter Nikki in her arms and hugged her -
even as Nikki thrashed, kicked, bit and screamed a scream that could wake the
dead and kill them all over again.
Nikki, then 3, had been diagnosed with autism after a life of neglect and
abuse. She sat and rocked, refused to look anyone in the eye, hated being
touched. But three, four, five times a day, the TV volume went up - so there
was something to focus on besides the shrieks - and Workman patiently performed
"holding therapy," falling crazy in love with the iron-willed little girl.
Workman and her husband adopted Nikki and soon discovered the autism diagnosis
was wrong. Today, Nikki is 20, a successful student on scholarship at the
University of California, Irvine, pursuing pre-med courses and doing volunteer
work to help kids still stuck in the foster-care system she escaped.
"A lot of people say they don't want a child with problems," Robin Workman
said. "But just because they have problems today doesn't mean they're going to
have problems forever."
This is the sort of success story that the state and federal governments are
trying to replicate all over the nation.
Officials have mounted an unprecedented push to move thousands of children from
foster care into permanent homes since 1998, and adoptions have soared. That's
a great step forward for America's neediest children, some say. But others
worry that it comes at a high price, and not in dollars alone.
Critics say the bonuses earned by state governments for completed adoptions
amount to a bounty on children's heads; others want to see some of the
increased spending redirected to helping families in trouble before their kids
end up in foster care.
California has received more than $34 million in bonuses for children adopted
out of the child-protection system - money that filters down to counties for
additional staff and programs. Orange County has received $2.3 million. The
bonuses, from the federal government, range from $4,000 to $6,000 for every
child adopted out of the system beyond the number adopted the year before.
DEALING IN CHILDREN
It's those bonuses that make some people nervous. Critics fear they make
officials more prone to "snatch" children from their biological families and
put them up for adoption, because the state and county can make money on the
deal.
"There are some children for whom adoption is genuinely the right answer," said
Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child
Protection Reform in Virginia. "The problem is, this system creates a perverse
incentive for the state to take children away from their parents. It's like a
bounty on their heads.
"Some kids being adopted didn't need to be taken away," Wexler said. "Rather
than gaining a forever family, they're losing one. Why not reward states for
returning kids safely to their birth parents?"
The adoption bonuses are part of the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act,
passed in 1997, which aims to keep kids from languishing in foster care and
move them into permanent, loving homes. The act requires children to be quickly
reunited with their parents or freed up for adoption: within six months if
they're younger than 3, and within a year if they're older.
If there's evidence of serious abuse or neglect, no attempts at family
reunification need to be made and parental rights can be terminated
immediately.
This has raised an outcry as parents who have led rocky lives but still want
their children wind up in court, battling to remain mothers and fathers. Six
months, or even a year, is a terribly short time to try to turn a troubled life
around, they argue.
CATCH TWENTY-TWO
Michael Riley understands those arguments. Even empathizes with them, to a
degree. He's director of Orange County, Calif., Children and Family Services,
the agency that makes the often agonizing decisions that separate parent from
child and affect lives so profoundly.
"If we take a child away from his parents, we get criticized. If we leave a
child with his parents and the child gets hurt, we get criticized. Either way
we go, we get criticized - and we understand that. It's the nature of things.
"There's a saying that police and social workers have: If you want to be loved,
be a fireman. We know we're not going to be loved," Riley said.
He also knows that the federal Adoptions and Safe Families Act, which has
helped move thousands of kids into permanent homes over the last few years, has
its blemishes.
"There have been some advocacy groups saying 12 months isn't enough time when
you're looking at a family that has been disorganized and chaotic for
generations," Riley said. "Parts of that are true, no doubt. If you have a
mother from an alcoholic family who has been abused, and we come in and expect
her to get her act together in 12 months, that may be unrealistic. But there
are parents who do it.
"That's a constant battle," he said. "If not 12 months, how many? Nobody
knows."
Studies show that prolonged foster care can leave deep scars on children, and
the sooner they get into stable homes, the better off they are. Experts say
it's not fair to make them wait for years and years while a parent tries to
straighten out, messes up, and starts over again.
Riley also understands how the adoption bonuses might be interpreted as
bounties. And he thinks a "permanency bonus" - where states are rewarded for
successfully reuniting families, as opposed to reaping rewards only for
adoptions - is a good idea. But social workers simply don't tear families apart
and inflict trauma on children so counties can nab an extra few thousand
dollars. "We are not baby snatchers," Riley said.
CHILDREN REMOVE WITHOUT CAUSE
Last year, Los Angeles child welfare chief David Sanders shocked people when he
said that up to half of the children in protective custody never should have
been removed from their homes. Sanders wants to put a new emphasis on helping
troubled families before crisis happens, before kids wind up in foster care.
But, right now, he can't.
"Unfortunately, the services have followed the money. And the money the federal
government is willing to make available to work with families is capped," said
Rich Hemstreet, chief of the state's permanency policy bureau for foster care.
"However, foster-care funds are an open-ended pot of money. The more kids go
in, the more money we can draw down. It's a quirk in the way the federal
funding system is structured."
On the street, that means the state's main tool to help families having trouble
caring for their children is to take the children away.
And no matter how many counselors are assigned to troubled families, there will
always be children who should never return home.
And there will always be a need for foster parents like Workman.
Some 80 children have found shelter with her family over the past 20 years. She
works with birth parents, trying to teach them more effective parenting
methods. She always strives to reunite families when it's the safe and sane
thing to do. But that's not always the case.
The Workmans adopted two more children after Nikki, the last in 1999, and she
has foster kids right now - all straight-A students.
She is effervescent about them.
"It becomes a passion. It's the love of my life, it's the reason I get up in
the morning," Workman said, folding baby T-shirts into packs of three to supply
other foster parents when the tiniest ones arrive. "I survived cancer twice,
and when I wake up in the morning - I'm not being dramatic - my first thought
is, thank God I've got another day. I see these kids and I want to bring them
home. My whole thing is giving them hope for a better tomorrow."
There are rules at the Workman house: All children must play a sport (if
they're physically disabled, something like chess will do just fine); and all
children must do some sort of community service.
"So much of the time, the kids are told, `It's not your fault,'" Workman said.
"And it's not their fault they're in the system.
But at some point they need to be held accountable for their own behavior."
The prospect of diverting some funds toward preventing families from entering
the system in the first place seems like a wise idea to her.
"My last baby was a seventh-generation foster kid. Not one of the mothers was
over 16," Workman said. "Generally, when you have abused kids, you have parents
who were abused as kids. I'd like to see more spent on prevention - it goes
generation after generation."
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
