By Chris L. Jenkins
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) said he would announce reforms today to improve the state's child welfare system by adding money to help local governments place troubled youngsters and foster children in family settings instead of large group homes.

If approved by the General Assembly, the initiative will increase payments to foster parents who care for children in their homes and boost funding to recruit and retain foster families. The $36 million in additional funding would also help pay for more caseworker training and a system to track the program outcomes.

Another part of the initiative, which would be phased in over several years, seeks to stimulate local governments' efforts to develop more home placements. Currently, the state gives cities and counties the same amount of money whether a child is placed in a group facility or a home. Kaine's plan calls for providing more funds to localities if a child is placed with a foster family and less if he or she is placed in a group facility. State officials said this could save Virginia money because group care is more expensive than community placements.

"We've had very anemic funding . . . in terms of providing foster care and some adoption services," Kaine said. "That's a very important factor in helping people make the sacrifice to become a foster parent."

The announcement is the first of several initiatives Kaine said he would unveil this week as he prepares to present his two-year budget to lawmakers.

Today's initiative coincides with a national child advocacy group's findings that Virginia relies on large group homes more frequently than nearly every other state in the nation and has trouble finding permanent families for foster children.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation's report, to be released today, is the first to provide a comprehensive analysis of how many foster children live in Virginia and where they are placed.

The study found that more than 43 percent of Virginia's roughly 900 foster children age 12 and over find a permanent home, well below the national average of 72 percent. In addition, 23 percent of Virginia's 8,100 total foster children are discharged without any significant connections to family or friends that could ease their transition, the highest rate in the country. Experts said those numbers indicate a deficiency in getting children adopted or placed with a stable, permanent family.

Researchers attributed the lack of stability to the low rate of payments to foster parents and poor recruitment initiatives. Federal law requires that child welfare systems reimburse foster parents for the cost of meeting children's basic needs. But Virginia for years has ranked at the bottom of payment rates.

"There isn't a very strong foster parent recruitment and development system in Virginia," Tracey Feild of the Casey Foundation said. "It's an area that's been neglected for the past 10, 20 years."

For instance, a national report published this fall found that in Virginia, reimbursements range from $368 to $546 a month, although the cost of raising a child ranges from $605 to $760. By contrast, in the District, foster parents are reimbursed $869 to $940 a month, although the actual cost of raising a foster child there is lower, ranging from $625 to $790.

The Casey report also found that Virginia lags in placing children with family members, which experts say benefits children being taken from their homes. The study found that less than 5 percent of the state's foster children are placed with family members; the national average was 23 percent in 2004, according to the Child Welfare League.

To reverse these trends, Kaine is hoping to get local governments to increase the number of community options for foster children and youngsters with mental health problems. But several local officials said yesterday that the governor's efforts are somewhat misplaced. They said that in many cases, local social services agencies are placing children in residential settings because that is the best treatment option for them.

"We recognize placing a child out of the community is a hardship . . . for the child and family," said George Drumwright Jr., deputy county manager for community services for Henrico County. "We try to avoid doing that at all costs."