Broad improvements are under way in Washington state’s foster care system – changes that 20 years ago could have prevented the heartache of Ruth and Paul Brandal and their adopted daughter Tiffany Copeland.
Just this year, both an unfavorable federal review of the system and a landmark class-action lawsuit settlement, Jessica Braam vs. DSHS, have triggered ambitious reforms in the Department of Social and Health Services.
DSHS is rolling all of its Child Welfare System improvements into a $50 million plan called Kids Come First.
One of the proposed changes would do away with the wall that sometimes exists between a child’s biological family and foster parents, said Darlene Flowers, executive director of the Foster Parents Association of Washington State.
Instead, all of the adults in a child’s life can work collaboratively to determine the child’s best interests.
An open dialogue of this sort between the Brandals and Tiffany Copeland’s birth mother might have saved her from a youth spent bouncing between relatives and foster homes.
“That is really, really exciting,” Flowers said. “I think that’s going to be so much better for kids.”
This includes family, current and former foster parents as well as teachers and community members, said DSHS spokeswoman Kathy Spears.
“DSHS is a big part, but we’re just one part of the overall system,” Spears said. “We’re trying to engage people from every corner … we need those partnerships. These are times of limited resources.”
DSHS’s other emphasized changes include:
* Providing timely mental health care for children.
* Giving better training, support and information to foster parents and caregivers who are relatives.
* Keeping siblings together in foster care whenever possible, and if not, arranging them frequent visits.
* Helping adolescents receive a quality education and resources that will prepare them to live independently.
* Reducing the number of teen runaways from foster care.
As part of the Braam lawsuit settlement, an independent panel of experts will make sure the department enacts these and other reforms.
“I believe that they are a very good first step,” said state Sen. Val Stevens, R-Arlington. “I’ve been around long enough to know that some of them will work, and some of them won’t.”
Stevens is chairwoman of the Senate’s Children and Family Services and Corrections Committee.
In tough state budget times, she’s concerned about the $50 million price tag on DSHS reforms that she calls “common sense.”
“We are paying a lot of money for this agency. We’re paying out millions and millions of dollars a year,” she said. “So if they’re doing it wrong, why should we have to pay more money to do it right?”
She believes the changes, although sweeping, are more about the culture of DSHS. Reforms must come from its administration, but also from caseworkers and others on the front lines, she said.
“This cannot be a 50 percent change. It’s like if we suddenly decided that half of the freeway would drive the opposite direction – it has to be 100 percent to work,” Stevens said. “It really is about attitude. It can work if they will.”
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