Governor Mike DeWine succeeded in getting the Ohio
General Assembly to double state funding for foster care. Unfortunately,
I have seen no signs of a change in county agency practices with respect to
"negotiating" adoption assistance. Agencies appear to be
continuing the practice of aggressively pushing for adoption assistance
payments that are significantly lower than individual children's family foster
care maintenance payment rates.
The Children Services Transformation Advisory
Council, created through Executive Order 2019-27D, has been
holing a series of Foster Care Forums around the state. Adoption is
mentioned as an invited topic. Go to https://governor.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/governor/priorities/foster-care-forums/
There, you will be invited to submit written
testimony or to register to attend a forum in person. Adoption
Assistance does not seem to constitute a burning topic for the Children
Services Transformation Advisory Council, but you have nothing to lose by
submitting horror stories involving the attempt to negotiate agreements for
adequate adoption assistance payments if that has been your experience.
I submitted the remarks below
to individual members Advisory Council.
Kristi.Burre3@jfs.ohio.gov,
Kristi Burre, Chair
Kari.Akins2@jfs.ohio.gov, Kari Akins
Karen.McGormley@jfs.ohio.gov Karen McGormley
Kari.Akins2@jfs.ohio.gov, Kari Akins
Karen.McGormley@jfs.ohio.gov Karen McGormley
You can submit testimony to them
directly and/or send it in the space provided on the web site. Please submit you own stories, but feel free
to use any portions of the following remarks or the previous blog
post if you find them helpful.
post if you find them helpful.
Major Deficiencies in Ohio’s Title IV-E Adoption
Assistance Program and Some Modest
Suggestions for Reform
Deficiencies of Ohio’s County Administered Child Welfare System and the
Negative Impact on the Federal IV-E Adoption Assistance Program and the Special
Needs Children It Is Supposed to Serve
Ohio maintains a county administered,
state supervised child welfare system, which results in widely inconsistent
practices, knowledge of federal and state policy and procedures by county
children services agencies. There are no
statewide payment schedules for foster care support or adoption
assistance.
As a consequence, there are substantial inequities in levels of support foster care support and adoption assistance among Ohio counties. To a considerable degree, the level of foster care payments and
adoption assistance is determined by geography.
As a consequence, there are substantial inequities in levels of support foster care support and adoption assistance among Ohio counties. To a considerable degree, the level of foster care payments and
adoption assistance is determined by geography.
Federal State and
Local Financial Participation in Foster Care Payments and Adoption Assistance
Problem: Many Ohio county agencies are uninformed about federal and state
policies and procedures pertaining to adoption assistance and fail to
administer the program in compliance with those policies and procedures.
Specifically,
1. County agencies’ failures to negotiate adoption
assistance agreements in compliance with federal and state policy, result in
pressure on the adoptive parents to accept inadequate levels of support that
may be less than half or even one third of the foster care payments, which were
actually established by the county agencies.
This common practice places the adoptive parents in a cruel dilemma;
accept an inadequate level of adoption assistance placing their child’s needs
at risk; or contest the agency’s proposal by relying on an appeal system that
does not resolve the contested issue. Agencies often to pressure adoptive parents to accept their
proposed adoption assistance payment by threatening to place their child with
another family, despite the strong emotional bond that has developed between
foster parent and child.
2.
ODJFS has not provided comprehensive guidance on the
purpose of the adoption assistance program or training on policies and
procedures for interacting with adoptive parents. This deficit is most glaring
in providing direction on procedures for negotiating the amount of adoption
assistance.
a.
Throughout its history, the federal government has
administered the Title IV-E adoption assistance program through policy
issuances that are now consolidated and
updated in the online Child Welfare
Policy Manual. Although ODJFS
references the Child Welfare Policy Manual in certain instances, it has
not taken steps to inform county agencies and hearing officers the federal
manual is the most authoritative source for the interpretation of federal
adoption assistance law. When informed
adoptive parents cite specific provisions of the Child Welfare Policy Manual to advocate for their children, county
agencies and hearing officers often refuse to accept their validity.
b.
Due to a lack of comprehensive policy clarification and
training, county agencies routinely convey false and misleading information to
adoptive parents regarding the criteria for negotiating the amount of adoption
assistance.
c.
Sections of the Child
Welfare Policy Manual can be used as a resource for developing models for
the negotiation of adoption assistance agreements between parents and county
agencies. There has been no effort to
develop such models for negotiation.
d.
Adoptive parents have the right to appeal adverse
decisions by county agencies, including the denial of the parents’ request for a
certain amount of adoption assistance.
County agencies often do not provide “adequate notice” of appeal rights
as required by federal and state law.
e.
Adoptive parents may elect to try mediation before
exercising their right to a state administrative hearing. The mediation team at ODJFS, however, is not
adequately informed about the IV-E adoption assistance program. In some mediation meetings adoptive parents
have been pressured to comply with the county agency’s position on the amount
of adoption assistance, even when it was hundreds of dollars below what the
adoptive parents’ believed was adequate to meeting their child’s extensive
needs.
f.
If mediation fails, the parents may request a state
administrative hearing. ODJFS hearing
officers have not been trained to recognize the complexities of adoption
assistance and the ways it differs from other federal assistance programs. Hearing officers have not been trained to use
the federal Child Welfare Policy Manual
as the primary authority for interpreting adoption assistance law. Hearings conducted by untrained hearing
officers frequently result in inconsistent and incorrect decisions.
g.
ODJFS has no procedure for final resolution of
conflicts over the amount of adoption assistance. Because there is no state guidance, hearing
officers do not feel authorized to make decisions about the amount of adoption
assistance a child should receive. In
sustaining an adoptive parent’s appeal, the hearing decision finds, at best,
that the county agency did not negotiate in a manner consistent with state
regulations. The hearing decision
remands the matter back to the county agency for further negotiation.
In spite of hearing decisions ordering county agencies to re-enter
negotiations with adoptive parents, agencies have come to realize that there are no adverse consequences for ignoring hearing decisions. Negotiations often go
nowhere. When parents contact ODJFS,
they are told that the remedy is to request another administrative
hearing. One official even wrote that hearing
orders were not actually orders, but recommendations. The official’s response was out of compliance
with federal hearing regulations at 45 CFR 205.10. Cases often drag on for months, and adoptions are delayed while the parent's commitment to the child is questioned. In reality, adoptive parents endure the stress of negotiating adoption assistance precisely out of dedication to their child's welfare.
Some Modest and Inexpensive Recommendations
The funding
scheme for adoption assistance services as a disincentive for county agencies
to support adequate payments. The state
first agreed to pay the non-federal share of adoption assistance only in the
case of payments of $250 a month or less in 1986. The state’s level of financial participation
in adoption assistance payments remains the same today, some 32 years later.
At
the present, I will follow Colorado’s Child Protection Ombudsman Report and
suggest measures that can dramatically improve the adoption assistance program
and curb many of the practices that adoptive families significant emotional and
financial distress without proposing a massive budget increase.
Education and
Training
Training should by
grounded in the overriding purpose of adoption assistance. State and county officials should direct
their energies toward finding ways of supporting permanent adoptive families. As one observer put it, “looking for reasons
to say ‘yes’ instead of ‘no.’ ”
Who Should Receive
Education and Training?
What Are Some Key
Components of Education and Training?
Education and Training should include:
- · The establishment at the state and county level of the online federal Child Welfare Policy Manual as the primary resource for the interpretation of adoption assistance law. Ohio’s IV-E State Plan already promises compliance with “official policy issuances” as a condition for federal funding. The Child Welfare Policy Manual is a compendium of "oficial issuances."
- · Model procedures and practices for negotiating agreements for the amount of adoption assistance in compliance with federal and state law.
- · Regular forums for discussing various policy issuances with parents, state officials and county staff, participating by video conference, teleconference or other electronic medium.
- · Comprehensive topic by topic training on adoption assistance, eligibility, negotiation of payments, appeals and other topics.
Oversight and Dispute
Resolution
In addition to establishing a training resource, a small
policy, education and training unit should be created to:
- · Respond to questions and complaints from parents and agencies.
- · Arbitrate unresolved disputes over the amount of assistance, when negotiations remain stalled and hearings fail to resolve disputes over the amount of adoption assistance. Arbitration must be consistent with due process rights of both parents and agencies.
- · The small unit should be independent of ODJFS and supported by the Governor’s Office, at least until vital education and training, arbitration and trouble-shooting measures are sufficiently integrated into state agency culture. Given the current culture of ODJFS, the lack of expertise in adoption assistance and the lack of coordination between policy sections and hearing divisions, the unit charged with implementing the changes must be outside the authority structure of ODJFS in order to be effective.
·
Selecting the
Person(s) to Implement the Above Changes
It is strange but true that a
relatively few people possess sufficient understanding of the purpose of the
adoption assistance program and its evolution over time to illuminate currents
policy requirements. The person or
persons asked to put the education, training, outreach and oversight measures
discussed above should be carefully selected.
The North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACA) located in St.
Paul Minnesota is highly regarded national advocacy and information
organization. NACAC would be a good
place to contact.