Senate Appropriations District of Columbia

Fiscal 2004 Appropriations: District of Columbia
Senate Appropriations Committee - Subcommittee on the District of Columbia

Good morning. This hearing will come to order. Today, on what fittingly is being recognized as the National Day of Hope for Abused Children, I am convening the first of what will be a series of hearings regarding the foster care system in the District of Columbia.

I am honored to have as our lead witness, Congressman Tom Davis, Chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform. Chairman Davis and I share a long-standing concern and commitment to children in our own home states, in the District, and across the nation. Chairman Davis has held several oversight hearings regarding the receivership of the Child and Family Services Agency, commonly referred to as CFSA. In addition, Chairman Davis and I worked closely together to get the DC Family Court Reform Act of 2001 signed into law.

As the new Chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform, Chairman Davis has elevated the oversight of the District of Columbia to the full committee. He truly has demonstrated his concern for and commitment to our nation's capital.

Chairman Davis requested that the GAO review CFSA's performance and progress, and in our hearing today, we will examine and discuss the preliminary findings of that review—some of which are very disturbing. Our witnesses will describe the problems that have led to the current crisis in the District's foster care system and what CFSA has been and is doing to protect the lives of the District's children.

But candidly, this is not the first time we've done this. This is not the first time that we, as a subcommittee, have heard testimony from witnesses describing the sorry state of the District's child welfare system. This is not the first time we've discussed the errors, and the unbelievable lapses in judgment, and the unquestionable and inexcusable breakdowns in the system - breakdowns that have lead to the loss of at least 229 children's lives between 1993 and 2000.

In fact, in a hearing—all too similar to this one today—a hearing that we held in March 2001 about the state of foster care in the District—we listened to vivid and tragic testimony detailing the complete collapse of the child welfare system. And at that hearing, I made it unequivocally clear that protecting the health and welfare of the District's children is my number one priority -and how that, too, should be the number one priority of the District of Columbia. I put the CFSA on warning and said that enough was enough—that we were not going to allow blatantly irresponsible acts of incompetence to continue any more. Furthermore, I explained how this subcommittee has a responsibility—an obligation—to review the District's resource needs and budget proposals with close congressional scrutiny. We have an obligation to ensure that any dollars that flow into the child welfare system are used for the proper protection of the children involved.

So what has changed in these past two years? The preliminary GAO findings would suggest that very little has, in fact, changed. But, before we get to the specifics of the GAO report, I want to make something very clear.

Whether we are talking about a child here in the District, or one in Cincinnati, or in Richmond, or in New Orleans, or anywhere else in America—every child deserves to live in a safe, stable, loving, and permanent home, with loving and caring adults.

Yet, the reality is that tonight, more than a half-million children in this country will go to bed in homes that are not their own. Many of these children are at risk. I first learned this nearly 30 years ago in the early 1970s when I was serving as an assistant county prosecutor in Greene County, Ohio. One of my duties was to represent the Greene County Children Services in cases where children were going to be removed from their parents' custody. I witnessed then that too many of these cases drag on endlessly, leaving children trapped in temporary foster care placements, which often entail multiple moves from foster home to foster home to foster home-for years and years and years.

It would appear that children in this city—in our nation's capital—are at even more risk because of the systemic dysfunction within the District's child welfare bureaucracy. Let me explain.

Over ten years ago, the District's child welfare system was considered among the worst in the nation. In 1989, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a class-action lawsuit against the city-LaShawn A. v. Barry—arguing that the District was failing to protect neglected and abused children. In 1991, the case went to trial, where the court ultimately found the District liable. Following this decision, the parties involved in the case developed a remedial action plan. The court used this plan as the basis for its modified final order, which required the District to correct the vast deficiencies in its child welfare system.
By 1995, however, little had changed, prompting U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan to install a Receiver to oversee the system and appoint a Court Monitor to review the District's performance.

On June 15, 2001, the Receivership ended and responsibility was transferred to a newly established Cabinet-level Child and Family Services Agency. The Order terminating the Receivership created a probationary period that would end when the District demonstrated progress on a series of performance indicators.

Today, the Court Monitor will present her findings and testify as to whether or not to end the probationary period for CFSA. It is my understanding that the Court Monitor will recommend ending that probationary period. I will say, bluntly, that from reading the GAO's testimony, which will be presented shortly, I have some grave concerns about CFSA's abilities. I am curious to see how the Court Monitor's recommendation comports with the disturbing picture that GAO's findings paint.

For example, the GAO has determined that CFSA is not meeting the most crucial requirements of the Adoption and Safe Families Act. This law—which I sponsored and which has been in effect since November 1997 -- includes a number of specific provisions that require states to change policies and practices to better promote children's safety and adoption or other permanency options. In fact, since this law has been in effect, adoptions have increased by nearly 40 percent!
According to the GAO, though, while some improvements have been made, the CFSA has not adopted some key policies and procedures for ensuring the safety and permanent placement of children.

Furthermore, caseworkers have not consistently implemented or documented some of the policies and procedures that have been adopted. In fact, CFSA is not meeting the Adoption and Safe Family Act standards in the following ways: (1) initiating proceedings to terminate parental rights for children in foster care for 15 of the most recent 22 months; (2) notifying parties of reviews and hearings; and (3) requiring mandatory annual permanency hearings every 12 months for a child in foster care.
Another troubling finding that the GAO will elaborate on further is the District's inability to track its children in foster care. In fact, Data is not even available for 70 percent of the District's children in foster care. This is true even though the District has invested resources in a new automated information system that has been operational for over three years! How can we track these children and determine their well being when they are not even entered into an automated system? How can the Court Monitor be sure that CFSA is meeting its standards if CFSA cannot even electronically track the children in its own care?

I am very interested to hear the testimony of Anne Schneiders, Chair of the National Association of Counsel for Children, who has said that children wait weeks or months before a foster care placement is available. Some older children wait at group homes or overnight at CFSA offices. They are often placed in whatever home has a vacancy—irrespective of the needs of the child or the preference of the family.

In addition to the new GAO findings, other studies and newspaper investigations paint equally disturbing pictures. For example, according to a recent study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, District children were in foster care an average of 65 months before they achieved a permanency plan! That is over five years in foster care before a plan is even determined!

And, of course, none of us can forget the tragic and troubling accounts detailed in the September 2001 Washington Post's Pulitzer Prize winning investigative series on the state of the district's child welfare system. But, even after that series ran, the Post identified additional cases of abuse and neglect.

In a December 2001 story, the newspaper reported that at least 10 children under District protection died between June 2001 and December 2001, and that in one case, an infant died of starvation after a City social worker failed to visit his family for seven months.

Then, an August 2002 story reported that it took the CFSA nearly three months to remove an 11 year-old mentally retarded boy from a District group foster care home after he reported being sexually abused by a 15 year-old fellow resident. In this particular case, the District social worker learned of the incident on April 9, 2002, but didn't actually report it until July 2, 2002! And furthermore, when police finally interviewed the 11 year-old boy, they found out that his 12 year-old roommate also had been sexually assaulted.

These kinds of reports make me sick. And the CFSA needs to understand that I'm not going anywhere until these kids are protected.

I have made the welfare and safety of these children my top priority, and as Chairman of this subcommittee, I'm going to keep having hearings, and we're going to keep digging for facts and findings, and we're going to do everything we possibly can to save these children.

I recognize that the District's child welfare system did not collapse over night. And, we are well aware that it will not be fixed over night. However, one month—let alone 65 months or five years—is a very long time in a child's life. How many more months and years can we ask these infants and children and teens to wait until they have a safe and loving home?
When we look at the District's child welfare system in it's totality, we must not view its reform in a vacuum. The reform of this system is about a lot of things. This is about resource needs. This is about proper management of those resources and the services provided. This is about accountability. And ultimately and most importantly, this is about putting the safety and health and well-being of thousands of children first—above all else.

I know that Chairman Davis shares these concerns and is standing ready and willing to work together to help make life better for these children. I thank him for requesting the GAO report and welcome now his testimony.