As we move on to foster care in Connecticut, I am reminded of the need for a common way for all the states to handle foster care. The idea that the federal government provides funding for foster care for each state, with no direction on what to do and how, is pretty crazy, especially when the states try to get creative in solving the problem, and are then limited by the federal guidelines.

Connecticut’s reform efforts have been hampered by rigid federal financing rules that stifle innovation and severely restrict spending federal dollars on services that could actually help reduce the number of children in out-of-home placements.

“Current federal funding rules can be a straitjacket to state and local efforts to reform our troubled foster care systems,” said Jess McDonald, Co-Director of Fostering Results and former Director of the Illinois Department of Children & Families. “This report shows that when states are given the freedom to innovate and are granted more flexible, accountable use of federal dollars, they can getbetter results for children and families in need.”

As part of a federal court-ordered plan to reform services for Connecticut’s foster care system, the state’s Department of Children and Families (DCF) had to meet 22 specific goals for improvement by this year (2006). The goals included reducing the proportion of children in residential treatment programs and expediting children’s return home when reunification with parents is appropriate.

While achieving both goals required a well-functioning system of home and community-based services for children and families, Connecticut lacked such a system, in part because federal matching funds were not available for such services.

“We need the federal government to be a partner, not an obstacle to improving Connecticut’s foster care system,” said Shelley Geballe, Co-President of Connecticut Voices for Children and a member of the advisory panel to the federal court monitor who co-administers DCF. “Connecticut should be able to expect the same level of federal financial support when we try to keep kids in their homes and communities as is currently provided when kids are placed into state custody with DCF.”

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Federal financing rules favor keeping children in foster care over providing services that can help keep children at home or support other permanent, stable arrangements for children like legal guardianship. States are currently reimbursed by the federal government for caring for children in foster care, but extremely limited in their ability to spend those same federal dollars on services like mental health and substance abuse treatment or alternatives like subsidized guardianship, that give abused and neglected children more stable, permanent homes.

Nevertheless, despite thesecurrent federal funding restrictions, some states, when granted flexible use of federal funding through "waivers," have succeeded in
reducing the number or length of stay of children in foster care in part by using federal funds to pay for those alternative services.