After experiencing a rocky transition from foster care to adulthood, Shawna Thomas, 23, pictured with her 2-year-old-son Ayden, feel's California's decision to extend foster care will help more foster youth achieve success.

For most, turning 18 is a milestone to celebrate.

But for thousands of kids in foster care it is a huge source of anxiety.

In states throughout the country, when kids turn 18 they age out of foster care. After suffering abuse and neglect at the hands of family members, bouncing between foster families, group homes and other facilities, and switching schools often, vulnerable teens reach “adulthood” and are left to fend for themselves.

According to studies conducted at Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago, within four years of aging out of foster care more than thirty percent of the studies’ participants had experienced homelessness or had couch surfed, a quarter had not earned high school diplomas or GEDs and two thirds of women had been pregnant. It is little surprise, then, that young people who age out of foster care often end up living on the streets, spending time in prison and struggling to find work.

Think about it. How many of us were actually prepared to live on our own — without any support from family – at 18? Not many.

Shawna Thomas sure wasn’t.

“Knowing that I didn’t have family and wasn’t in the system, and was on my own, and an adult was a scary thing,” said Shawna, now 23.

Shawna was never taught how to budget. Within six months of aging out of foster care, she spent all of her money and racked up credit card debt. She was confused about which community college classes to register for, so she didn’t do well in her first semester. Upon learning she was pregnant, she moved eight times in one year just to have a roof over her head.

This month, a law took effect in California, making the state the latest to allow young people to stay in foster care until the age of 21.

It is a change that Shawna applauds. “I feel that if there were more resources and more time for those in foster care they would be a lot more successful,” Shawna said.

The Children’s Rights’ legal advocacy team has pushed for reforms in other states like New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, where children can now stay in foster care and receive services past their eighteenth birthdays. If states fail to reunify children with their families or place them in permanent adoptive families, the least they can do is continue to support them while they transition to adulthood.

Studies show that when youth stay in foster care until they are 21, it cuts their risk of homelessness and leads to more education and higher lifetime earnings. It also gives child welfare workers more time to help young people plan for their futures.

Shawna now has an apartment with her son, is in college and has two part time jobs, one as a peer mentor to young people aging out of California’s child welfare system. She said she is a lot better off than she was at 18, “but it took a while to get here.”

“I am happy that the government is finally realizing the need for this,” Shawna said.

Note: Photo used with permission of Orange County Register www.ocregister.com/articles/youth-334766-foster-thomas.html

But the monitoring report also identifies major challenges still facing the new administration — most significantly, the agency is only fully meeting the basic needs of abused and neglected children 60 percent of the time.

Under Commissioner Joette Katz, the agency achieved 16 of the 22 areas of court-ordered system-wide improvements to better serve children and families who are the subject of abuse or neglect. These reforms include minimizing traumatic multiple moves of foster children from one home or facility to another, promptly and safely reuniting foster children with their parents, and when that’s not possible, promptly finding them permanent adoptive homes.

“We continue to be extremely impressed with the Commissioner’s ability to take on remaining problems at DCF that are harmful to kids, especially in the first three quarters of her tenure,” said Ira Lustbader, Associate Director of Children’s Rights. “But there’s still a long way to go.”

On the positive side, the report (PDF) found that DCF significantly reduced the state’s historic over-reliance on institutional placements for young foster kids, cutting the number of children age 12 and younger housed in institutions and facilities from 201 in January 2011 to 105. The department also increased the use of relatives to care for abused and neglected kids, from 15 percent of foster children in January, to 19 percent by the end of September.

“Commissioner Katz is dismantling the agency’s expensive and often harmful overuse of institutions and facilities for foster kids, something prior administrations simply ignored,” said Lustbader.

Last January, Joette Katz stepped down from the bench as a State Supreme Court Justice to become the new head of the Connecticut Department of Children & Families. The prior DCF leadership engaged in an expensive and lengthy court battle to prematurely exit from the ongoing federal court order. The federal court firmly rejected those efforts because the state had not accomplished what it promised to do for kids and families.

Despite progress, the report makes clear that major problems remain. The report reviewed hundreds of children’s cases and ranked the overall quality of caseworkers’ visits with abused and neglected children. The results were dismal, with 24 percent of cases graded poor or adverse. Only 32 percent of children consistently received the required twice monthly visits.

Additionally, the report notes continued “service gaps” that include mental health services, substance abuse and domestic violence services, and critical life-skills training to allow older foster children to live independently when they are discharged from state custody. Without critical services and support before they leave DCF custody, many foster youths are unequipped to lead productive lives as adults. They are left vulnerable to high incidences of poor educational attainment, homelessness, deterioration and mental illness, incarceration, drug or alcohol dependency, and needing public assistance.

“With the overall statewide results of the agency’s ability to meet children’s needs scoring at only 60 percent compliance, much work needs to be done in 2012,” said Lustbader.

Children in the class action known as Juan F. v. Rell, originally filed in 1989, are represented by Children’s Rights and local co-counsel Steven Frederick of the Stamford law firm Wofsey Rosen Kweskin & Kuriansky. The case was filed against state officials on behalf of the approximately 6,000 children in the custody of the Connecticut child welfare system and thousands more at risk of entering custody.

For more information about Children’s Rights ongoing campaign to reform the Connecticut child welfare system, please visit www.childrensrights.org/connecticut.

Kelsey Smith-Briggs, 2, suffered a host of injuries, including a broken collar bone and two broken legs, before dying from a blow to her stomach while in the care of her mother and stepfather. She had been receiving regular visits from Oklahoma child welfare workers.

More than 8,000 abused and neglected children depend on the Oklahoma child welfare system for care and protection. But the very system charged with protecting Oklahoma’s kids had continuously failed to fulfill its obligation to these already vulnerable children.

Now, thanks to the unwavering advocacy of Children’s Rights and Tulsa-based law firm Frederic Dorwart Lawyers, there is hope, will, and most importantly, a solid agreement, for change.

In a landmark victory for Oklahoma, its children and those who care about the way vulnerable children are treated, the state’s Commission for Human Services approved a settlement agreement Wednesday to resolve a lawsuit seeking widespread reforms throughout the Oklahoma child welfare system.

“For far too long the people of Oklahoma have been forced to tolerate a child welfare system that lacks basic standards and allows children to be abused at alarming rates,” said Marcia Robinson Lowry, executive director for Children’s Rights and attorney for the plaintiffs. “This agreement will change the way foster children are treated. It gives experts the power to diagnose problems that have allowed the system to be so bad for so long, and requires the state to develop and implement strategies to address them under the oversight of these experts.”

Oklahoma’s child welfare system has operated without standards or accountability, and for years children have suffered as a result. High rates of kids suffer maltreatment while in state care. Children stay too long in inappropriate shelters instead of family environments. Kids are bounced between foster care placements too frequently. And costly delays and incorrect findings in child abuse and neglect investigations are common.

Prior to the settlement, Oklahoma officials had continuously fought the notion that their system was in desperate need of repair. Their challenges came despite widely reported deaths of children in foster care, tragic accounts of children languishing for years in state custody and unreliable sources of information about the true state of child welfare.

After mounting pressure from the public and Children’s Rights, Oklahoma officials agreed to enter into a court order to mandate reforms to its child welfare system, and to develop a real plan that sets standards and addresses the cause of maltreatment of kids.

The strength of the settlement lies in the authority it gives to three national child welfare experts, or co-neutrals, to set targets and require the state to take specific actions to meet them. The settlement requires that standards and performance targets be set in 15 critical areas such as the numbers of available foster homes, times a child moves between placements, cases on a child welfare worker’s caseload, visits between child welfare workers and children and children exiting the system with permanent families. The expert’s findings and recommendations will become enforceable court orders.

The settled lawsuit was filed in federal court in February 2008 by Children’s Rights, Frederic Dorwart Lawyers and international law firm Kaye Scholer.

The lawsuit asserted that the state fails to protect children in foster care. Under the settlement, the Department of Human Services (DHS) is mandated to operate under a set of standards and required outcomes governing the foster care system and report its progress to three “co-neutrals,” child welfare experts chosen by the state and plaintiffs.

The co-neutrals have authority to set standards and outcomes and evaluate the state’s progress toward meeting them. The co-neutrals may obtain enforceable court orders for remedial actions when the co-neutrals determine that DHS is not making sufficient progress.

“The system has long operated without standards or accountability, resulting in serious harm to Oklahoma’s children,” said Marcia Robinson Lowry, executive director for Children’s Rights and an attorney for the plaintiffs. “The settlement completely changes this. DHS will now be subject to the oversight of qualified experts who will ensure that necessary steps are taken to protect foster children. It is significant that these children will finally have the right to basic protections that should have been a given.”

The settlement agreement requires that standards and performance targets be set in 15 crucial areas, including:

• Child abuse and neglect in care
• The number of available foster homes, including homes for children who need therapeutic care to
  address behavioral or psychological needs
• The frequency and continuity with which child welfare workers visit children
• The number of placements that children receive
• The number of children in shelters and how long they remain there
• Permanency, as in the number of children exiting the system with permanent families
• Adoption, including adoption failure rates
• Reasonable caseloads for child welfare workers

DHS is required to develop a plan to meet the targets, including any necessary organizational changes, by March 30, 2012. If the co-neutrals reject the plan DHS has an additional 30 days to submit a new plan. If the co-neutrals reject the plan a second time, the co-neutrals can designate a 3rd party to develop the plan or write it themselves. Once the plan is issued by the co-neutrals it is considered operative and DHS is required to implement it.

“The settlement is a major accomplishment for the governor, the legislative leadership, the attorney general, the magistrate judge supervising the settlement and the commissioners,” said Fred Dorwart, co-counsel for the plaintiffs. “This is an exciting and positive move forward for Oklahoma.”

DHS is required to provide “free and complete access” to all DHS records and personnel to the co-neutrals for the purpose of monitoring this agreement. The co-neutrals will report periodically on whether DHS is achieving substantial and sustained progress toward each of the target outcomes that they have approved.

DHS will be released from the terms of this settlement agreement if the co-neutrals determine, in a final report due on Dec. 15, 2016, that DHS has made necessary progress toward each target outcome during the previous two years. If the co-neutrals do not make such a finding, DHS will continue to be subject to the settlement agreement for successive one year periods until the goal has been achieved.

Any decisions made by the co-neutrals will be entered as judgments of the court, and can be enforced by the lawyers for the plaintiffs.

Children’s Rights, a national non-profit advocacy organization, Oklahoma law firm Frederic Dorwart Lawyers, and the international law firm Kaye Scholer filed the lawsuit in federal court in February 2008.

For more information about efforts to reform Oklahoma’s child welfare, please visit www.childrensrights.org/oklahoma.

As of June of this year, 99 percent of case managers had appropriate caseloads; some had even fewer cases than required, making it the state’s best performance on caseloads to date. The state also turned in its best-ever performances with reducing maltreatment in foster care and the rate of “re-entry” — children who leave the foster care system, usually through reunification with their parents or adoption, and then suffer further abuse or neglect and re-enter foster care.

“We’ve found DHS Commissioner Reese very willing to discuss the agency’s progress and its remaining problems, and to be accountable for meeting all of the court-ordered reforms to improve the lives of foster children,” said Ira Lustbader, associate director of Children’s Rights, the national advocacy organization that filed the suit. “While the state has improved in a number of key areas, it’s falling far short on others. We will remain vigilant to ensure that all of the required improvements for children are realized.”

One problem is that despite an agency policy that requires every report of abuse or neglect of a foster child to be fully investigated, the independent monitors found multiple cases of reports of abuse or neglect of foster children were “screened out” without the required investigation. Another issue is that foster kids are not getting their required health checks ups — 52 percent of kids did not receive timely initial dental exams, 42 percent of kids did not receive timely initial mental health or developmental exams and 30 percent of kids did not receive a required medical exam before leaving state custody.

There is also a failure to provide timely permanent homes for foster children. The report found that only 67 percent of children who had been freed for adoption were adopted within one year, despite a requirement that at least 80 percent of children get adopted within that timeframe. While the agency has been doing better on this measure, significant improvements are still needed to ensure that foster children do not languish in state custody.

Children’s Rights, along with the Atlanta law firm Bondurant, Mixson, and Elmore LLP, filed the reform class action known as Kenny A. v. Perdue against the state of Georgia in 2002, on behalf of all children in foster care in Atlanta. In 2005, Children’s Rights and its Atlanta co-counsel reached a court-enforceable settlement agreement with state officials requiring Georgia to make sweeping reforms to the Atlanta-area foster care systems and to achieve specific benchmarks for progress. Today’s six-month progress report is the eleventh issued since the Kenny A. case was settled.

The full text of today’s report and all previous monitoring reports, as well as the initial complaint and recent contempt motion that Children’s Rights filed against the state of Georgia, can be found at www.childrensrights.org/georgia.

“This is great news for the more than 8,000 abused and neglected children who are in foster care in Oklahoma. The vote shows that DHS commissioners are coming to grips with problems in the system and are taking first steps toward the wide-scale reform that Oklahoma’s children so desperately need. We are grateful for the leadership that the governor, attorney general and the new members of the commission have demonstrated to move this agency in the right direction. We are hopeful that the state Contingency Review Board and the federal judge will also approve this landmark settlement.”

Children’s Rights and Oklahoma law firm Frederic Dorwart Lawyers filed the lawsuit in federal court in February 2008.

On December 1, 2011, the judge ruled that the class action suit could move forward on a single, substantial claim. That ruling allowed the case to move forward on its claim that the Oklahoma child welfare system subjects all children in DHS custody to harm or an imminent risk of harm in violation of their constitutional rights.

For and more information about Children’s Rights’ efforts to reform Oklahoma’s child welfare, please visit www.childrensrights.org/oklahoma.

Tulsa — Children’s Rights today applauded a federal judge’s legal support for a class-action lawsuit that seeks widespread reform of the Oklahoma child welfare system. U.S. District Judge Gregory K. Frizzell rejected the State’s effort to dismiss the case on the basis that it interferes with the Oklahoma family courts.

“In allowing this case to go to trial, Judge Frizzell has demonstrated a clear understanding of just how dangerous and damaging the Oklahoma child welfare system is to its foster children, and how they can only rely on the federal court to protect them,” said Marcia Robinson Lowry, executive director of Children’s Rights. “We respect the ruling’s careful analysis, which demonstrates respect for the rights of Oklahoma’s children.”

In the ruling, Judge Frizzell found “the general forms of relief requested by plaintiffs do not pose a risk of interference with state court proceedings,” including case load limits, education and training of DHS employees and foster parents, additional foster homes and improved safety monitoring.

“The court refused to reject any of the remedies we have sought to protect the state’s children,” Ms. Lowry said. “The state asked the court to reject all of these remedies. They lost resoundingly.”

Children’s Rights joined local Oklahoma law firms Frederic Dorwart Lawyers and Seymour & Graham and the international firm Kaye Scholer in filing a lawsuit in federal court in February 2008. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of more than 10,000 abused and neglected children statewide who depend on the child welfare system for protection and care.

According to DHS’s own reports and staff, the state has been acutely aware of how overwhelmed and overworked their caseworkers are –with many children served by caseworkers who have caseloads two to three times the national standard. Actual caseloads are likely even more burdensome because DHS does not have an effective caseload tracking system. Due to this, and inadequate support from DHS, Oklahoma’s child welfare workforce has an extremely high turnover rate — as high as 24 percent in 2011 — and more than one-third of all caseworkers have less than two years of experience.

Judge Frizzell denied a motion by DHS to dismiss the case in January 2009, and, in May 2009, ruled that the case could proceed as a class action on behalf of all children in DHS custody. DHS subsequently appealed that decision and lost. In July 2011, DHS once again tried to have that decision reversed by Judge Frizzell, but he refused holding that “plaintiffs have presented ‘significant proof’ of exposure to an impermissible risk of harm.”

On December 1, 2011, the judge ruled that the class action suit could move forward on a single, substantial claim. That ruling allowed the case to move forward on its core claim, that the Oklahoma child welfare system subjects all children in DHS custody to harm or an imminent risk of harm in violation of their constitutional rights.

For and more information about Children’s Rights’ efforts to reform Oklahoma’s child welfare, please visit www.childrensrights.org/oklahoma.

“While DCF clearly is focused on making its system work better for the children and families who depend on it, some reforms simply are not happening quickly enough,” said Marcia Robinson Lowry, executive director for Children’s Rights. “The state must redouble its efforts to ensure that vulnerable kids receive the best attention and services possible.”

Today’s report, issued by an independent monitor appointed by the court to track the state’s reform efforts, does show continued success– such as building a network of available foster homes, dramatically reducing the number of children sent to other states for mental and behavioral health treatment, and improving the overall level of child healthcare being provided by the state.

While these improvements are important, progress in many of the problem areas outlined in previous monitoring reports is far too slow. The monitor notes key areas where DCF must ramp up its efforts, including:

• Children are not getting enough visits with their caseworkers and parents. Only 58 percent of children in foster care were visited by their caseworkers twice per month during their first two months in state care. Furthermore, only 38 percent of parents had weekly visits with their children. While this is an improvement over the prior six months, the monitor expressed deep concern over the state’s failure in this area given the importance of regular caseworker and parent visits with children in care.

• Case plans for children in care are not being completed on time. Case planning is critical to caseworkers’ ability to properly map out what children and their families need to succeed. New Jersey’s own case practice model calls for case plans to be created within 30 days of a child entering care, but this only occurred in 61 percent of all new cases. The state continues to show steady improvement in this category, but is still well short of its 95 percent goal.

• Safety and risk assessments are not being completed before cases close. It is critical that DCF fully assesses how safe children are in their homes before closing a case and ending the state’s involvement. Only 25 percent of families were adequately assessed for safety and 35 percent of families were adequately assessed for risk of harm within 30 days of closing the case. This performance falls far short of the state’s 98 percent goal.

Despite the significant work left to be done, the monitor notes many key areas in which DCF continues to meet or exceed the expectations of the federal court order mandating reform:

• New foster home recruitment and licensing continues to surpass goals. In this monitoring period DCF recruited and licensed 750 new foster homes — exceeding its target by nearly 50 homes. Because of the state’s strong performance in this area, New Jersey now has capacity for more than double the number of children currently in care.

• Children are being placed in family or family-like settings. Nearly 90 percent of all children in foster care are living with families, or in family-like settings. This improved practice helps ensure that children are not inappropriately placed in institutions or shelters. Additionally, DCF has remained committed to keeping children with mental and behavioral challenges closer to their homes. Only nine children receiving treatment had been placed out of state as of July 1, 2011.

• DCF has fully implemented a robust qualitative review process. During 2011, DCF successfully implemented a statewide qualitative case review process that will enable the state to assess the quality of care and services that it provides to children and families. DCF will now be able to use the case review findings to identify strengths and promote practice improvements on qualitative issues.

“New Jersey’s success in many vital areas of the federal court order shows that the state can become a national leader for child welfare reform,” said Jodi Miller, staff attorney for Children’s Rights. “We remain cautiously optimistic that DCF will resolve the ongoing problems in its system while sustaining the many improvements already made. The children and families of New Jersey deserve nothing less than the state’s very best from here on out.”

Issued by the Center for the Study of Social Policy, today’s monitoring report is the tenth since the 2006 modified settlement of a class action brought against New Jersey by Children’s Rights and co-counsel on behalf of the more than 7,000 children in custody of the state child welfare system. It evaluates the progress made by the state over the six-month period between January 1 and June 30, 2011.

Children’s Rights filed the child welfare reform class action, now known as Charlie and Nadine H. v. Christie, and was joined in 2003 by co-counsel Drinker Biddle & Reath. In 2006, after a previous settlement agreement failed to yield positive results, Children’s Rights reached a new agreement with state officials, mandating sweeping reforms and resulting in DCF’s creation.

The complete monitoring report and more information on Children’s Rights’ campaign to reform New Jersey’s child welfare system can be found at www.childrensrights.org/newjersey.

According to today’s report (PDF), the monitor has expressed serious concerns about a number of areas the District’s Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) has failed to show any meaningful improvement, and in some cases, has even begun to backslide. Among the most critical of these areas include slow progress improving outcomes for youth aging out of the child welfare system and the District’s poor efforts to engage relatives as potential homes for children in care.

Furthermore, the monitor concluded that “CFSA’s overall performance is still not achieving the outcomes expected by the Court’s Order, the community or its own standards for practice.” The report notes serious concerns about the lack of a permanent director for CFSA, which has been operating under the leadership of an interim director since May 2011.

“Unfortunately the District’s tepid performance over the last six months is not that surprising, given that CFSA is still without a permanent director,” said Sara Bartosz, senior staff attorney for Children’s Rights. “We are hopeful that Mayor Vince Gray will appoint a permanent CFSA director very soon to tackle these serious and persistent problems.”

Despite the overwhelming challenges that still lie ahead for District officials, the monitor’s report did note some amount of headway improving areas such as providing critical in-home services for more children and families, assessing the health of children before they enter foster care, and better collaborating with community-based programs to connect vulnerable families and teens with much-needed support.

Today’s report was issued by the Center for the Study of Social Policy, the independent monitor appointed by the federal court to track reforms required by LaShawn A. v. Gray, the federal class action lawsuit brought by Children’s Rights on behalf of thousands of children dependent on the District’s child welfare system.

In April 2010, the District’s attempt to be released from federal court oversight was rejected, and the District and then-Mayor Adrian Fenty were held in civil contempt of court. CFSA was ordered to not only fully implement the reforms outlined by the consent decree, but also to allocate significant new funds to support youth who have aged out of foster care.

Children’s Rights filed the LaShawn A. case in 1989. Following a 1991 trial on the merits and a finding by the court that the District’s child welfare system violated applicable law, a court-enforceable reform plan was negotiated between Children’s Rights and defendants and approved by the court in 1993. In the years that followed, the District made only minimal progress toward achieving court-mandated reforms, prompting the court to impose the extreme remedy of a federal takeover of the system’s management in 1995.

The District regained control of the beleaguered agency in 2000, after establishing the cabinet-level Child and Family Services Agency and committing to major reform. CFSA initially made some improvements, but then began to deteriorate, and 10 years later the District remains in violation of the court-ordered reform plan.

The full text of today’s report and a complete collection of materials related to the LaShawn A. reform class action are available at www.childrensrights.org/dc.

There are more than 400,000 children in American foster care right now. Over 100,000 of them are waiting to be adopted. In honor of National Adoption Month, Children’s Rights salutes each of the inspiring adoptive families that stands up and fights to make sure that’s not the end of the story.

Families come in all shapes and sizes. Whether it’s with their birth parents, relatives or in foster or adoptive homes — kids need families to be loved and protected.

National Adoption Month is about celebrating families who do just that. Families like the Winners, who have adopted six beautiful girls through the New Jersey foster care system. Families like the Rudolphs from Milwaukee, who have opened their doors and their hearts to three young children in foster care. And families like the Parrishes (pictured above), who have given a bright future to the three New Jersey brothers they adopted.

This year, the Ad Council — along with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families and AdoptUSKids — has launched a new set of PSAs focused on recruiting new prospective families to adopt. The theme? “You don’t have to be perfect to be the perfect parent.”

We encourage you to check out and share those fun and inspiring ads, and to watch Children’s Rights’ short film below, which reveals the brighter side of Children’s Rights efforts — what is possible when foster care systems work the way they’re supposed to. Children’s Rights works tirelessly to reform foster care so there are more stories like the ones you are about to see.

Happy National Adoption Month!

Learn More:

• Learn how you can support our work on behalf of abused and neglected kids nationwide.
• Read more facts about adoption in the United States and this year’s National Adoption Month.
• Sign up to receive important e-mail updates about our ongoing reform campaigns.
• Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
• Spread the word: tell your friends that you are ONE who stands up for American’s abused, neglected, and foster/adopted youth — and encourage them to BE ONE TOO.