CHILD REMOVAL TAKEN TO TASK

Contrary to popular opinion, Texas should leave more children suspected of
being abused or neglected in their homes.

That's the word from the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform,
which will offer 25 suggestions for reforming child welfare to state
lawmakers at a news conference in Austin today.

"Child removal does not equal child safety," said Richard Wexler, the
coalition's executive director. "The only child welfare systems that have
dramatically improved child safety are those that have rejected the 'take
the child and run' approach and embraced safe, proven programs that keep
families together."

Texas removed 13,431 children last year, a rate almost twice that of 1998,
according to the NCCPR.

One reason is "foster care panic," set off by a handful of high-profile
child abuse deaths in Bexar County last year, Wexler said.

No one involved in child protection wants another Jovonie or Diamond or
Daisy on his or her hands, Wexler said, referring to children who died in
high-profile abuse cases, so children are removed for the slightest of
reasons, cramping a court and foster care system already stretched to the
breaking point.

Instead of increased removals, the NCCPR advocates spending more money on
prevention and "hard services," such as rent and child care subsidies, and
more intensive family preservation efforts.

The coalition was established in 1991 at a Harvard Law School conference.
It aims to influence public opinion regarding the best practices in child
welfare, in part by tackling what it calls the "widespread misconceptions
about what works and what is safe" for children.

The group includes child welfare experts, academics and family law
attorneys. Financial backers include the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the
Open Society Institute, part of the Soros Foundations Network.

Wexler, a former journalist and author of "Wounded Innocents: The Real
Victims of the War Against Child Abuse" stressed the "proven" factor of the
NCCPR's approach. He cited several counties and states that have lowered
foster care populations while increasing child safety.

One, Pennsylvania's Allegheny County, is often touted as a national model
for reform.

Officials there started programs that put family preservation first, seeing
parents not as villains but as victims — of poverty, circumstance,
drug addiction — and made removal the absolute last resort.

In many cases, problems can be addressed while the child is still in the home.

Wexler offered the example of a single working mother whose baby sitter
doesn't show up. Does the woman go to work and risk leaving her children
open to reports of neglect? Reliable child care might be all this family
needs, he says. The same is true for the family in unsafe housing. An
emergency grant for a deposit may be all the family needs to move to a safe
place.

"Poverty exacerbates stresses that can cause maltreatment," Wexler said.
"The solution is to ameliorate the stresses, not take the children."

Unnecessarily removing a child from a home can cause as much harm as
leaving a child behind, Wexler said.

Bolstering his argument, he said, are several studies, including a report
in April from Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn on the Texas foster
care system, which found incidences of abuse, overmedication, low standards
and little oversight.

By putting money into prevention and family preservation, Wexler said,
children and families receive help so removal and foster care become
unnecessary.

However, far from removing too many children, Texas doesn't remove enough,
said F. Scott McCown, a former Travis County judge who now heads the Center
for Public Policy Priorities.

Though agreeing with the NCCPR that Texas needs to radically increase its
funding of child welfare, McCown's organization sees the NCCPR as a fringe
group too focused on family preservation.

"The system must be funded in a balanced way," said McCown, who sounded the
alarm about the impending implosion within Child Protective Services more
than six years ago. "And that means we must fund the current crisis,"
including more money for investigations, removals and foster care.

But more of the same, Wexler said, simply means a larger, more costly
system that still doesn't protect children.