LOCAL NEWS:

Child Welfare Advocates Urge Comprehensive Reform in Maryland

The task force was formed during the last legislative session, and was charged with the task of identifying a means for evaluating how well the system keeps maltreated children safe.

The report calls for substantial investment of public funds and energy. "Maryland's child welfare system is deeply inadequate and needs an overhaul," said Jann Jackson of Advocates for Children and Youth (ACY) in a prepared statement to the press. "New Jersey and Maryland each have about 12,000 children in the out-of-home placement system, but for 2004 New Jersey spent nearly $800 million to protect children, while Maryland's child welfare system budget was only a bit more than half that. "These are different systems, but we still need to understand a gap of this magnitude."

Both the Maryland legislature and the US Congress have investigated the turmoil in the child welfare system. Maryland was audited by the federal government last year in its Child and Family Services Review (CFSR), and failed in several categories, such as achieving timely permanent placements for children and having an adequate information system. This fall, the state's Department of Human Resources failed to meet a legislative requirement to hire sufficient numbers of caseworkers.

Further impetus for the task force's work came from the publication of a Department of Legislative Services report two years ago that was critical about out-of-home care in Maryland. Also, over the past year, several high-profile child deaths were widely publicized, spurring a public outcry.

As a result of failing its CFSR review, Maryland has been required by the federal government to confront its deficiencies by developing a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP). The soon-to-be-released PIP is widely considered a cursory and modest prescription for change by advocates who have seen early drafts. "Doing the bare minimum won't cut it, and that's what we believe the PIP promises," said task force member Jim McComb, chair of the Coalition to Protect Maryland's Children.

The Task Force stated at the time of announcing its report, "The bottom line is that accountability and quality in a child welfare system depends on the basics that system has in place. Maryland has yet to achieve the basics. When caseworkers and managers have trouble addressing minimum requirements, any attention to overall quality is 'hit or miss,' rather than systematic."

The Task Force cited "the lack of a functional data system" as one reason that child welfare workers have made decisions based on "best guesses" and "intuition" rather than sound data and analysis.

The Task Force report includes sixteen recommendations calling for, among other things, increasing funding; achieving Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) caseload standards; developing a new set of principles for the child welfare system by which workers, supervisors and administrators operate; clarifying the roles of staff of state and county offices; adopting an "outcome measurement system" to assess quality of service; establishing a statewide child welfare information system (CHESSIE) as quickly as possible; and developing a DHR quality assurance system.