Dear Mr Wexler

I would like to thank you for your excellent article in the

Indianapolis Star of August 22,2004

I am glad the we have people outside the state that see though the

special interest of the Commission.

 

As I have wrote, everyone will be making money, everyone will

benefit except the family and the children.

 

The truly sad thing is in the last two years since I and others started

to spearhead the fight against what CPS has been doing.In these last

two years NO one has listened, Daniels has said he wants to separated

CPS from Fssa, But I am afaid that this is just lip service.

 

We have been trying to get in front of some of these committees to be

heard, but are never called.

Are you surprised?

We'll not, I have over 640 contacts from victims of CPS, a vast

majority are to afraid to speak out.

But we have 30- 40 parents with really big mouths , that demand to be

heard.

 

But never are.

Are you surprised?

We'll not

I plan to sit down tonight and email mail this to every one of

Indiana's rep, every political party, every newspaper

Every person I have spoken with in the last two years about this

 

We are having a rally, right outside the Governor's window on the 16th

of Sept.

This is a time for us to speak up, If you are In Indianapolis, I invite

you to speak at our rally.

I am hoping that a national noted expert, such as your self might spur

our lawmakers to hear us.

 

 

 

Regards

Bif

Indiana jail4judges

g16@...

812-986-3434

 

 

The commission that was supposed to help Indiana's most vulnerable children has betrayed them. Instead of a visionary document that embraces the best practices of child welfare systems around the country, the Indiana Commission on Abused and Neglected Children and Their Families produced a document that largely regurgitates failed conventional wisdom.

The commission ignored the fundamental problem at the heart of the crisis: Indiana takes away too many children.

Indiana tears children from their parents at a rate more than 20 percent above the national average, when poverty rates among the states are factored in. Indiana's rate of removal is more than double that of Illinois, which has slashed its foster care population while improving child safety. And Indiana uses the form of substitute care that is most harmful to children and most expensive, institutionalization, at a rate 80 percent above the national average.

Illinois and other innovative systems have succeeded because most children in foster care don't fit the common stereotypes. Far more common than the sadistic brute is the parent who can't afford decent housing. Far more common than the hopeless addict is the mother who must choose between losing the job that puts her on the first rung out of poverty or leaving a child home alone when the sitter doesn't show. By keeping these children safely in their own homes, workers' caseloads are cut and they have more time to find the relatively few children in real danger. These systems understand that child safety and family preservation are not competing values. Rather, you can't have child safety without family preservation.

When substance abuse is the issue, research has shown that even infants born with cocaine in their systems develop better when left with birth parents than when thrown into foster care.

Yet the commission's $212 million plan offers not one dime for drug treatment or day care or housing assistance. In contrast, another system in crisis, New Jersey, proposes to spend nearly $90 million on housing and drug treatment. The New Jersey plan explicitly recognizes that the state is taking away children needlessly, even though New Jersey's rate of removal is lower than Indiana's. And while New Jersey pledges to slash institutionalization of children by one-third, the Indiana commission is silent on the issue. Well, not quite silent: It did stress the urgency of paying the people who run the institutions on time.

Indeed, the Indiana plan is silent about every successful child welfare system and every successful innovation in child welfare except one: an "alternative response" system for diverting low-risk cases. There is not a word about the success of Illinois, or Alabama, or county-run systems in Allegheny County, Penn. and El Paso County, Colo., all of which slashed their foster care populations, while improving child safety.

Worse, some of the Indiana recommendations smack of pork-barrel politics. Even as it ignores some of the best research in the field, a commission chaired by a social work school dean calls for a new research institute at a university. A commission staffed by the Indiana chapter of Prevent Child Abuse America calls for spending millions on a worthless PR campaign like one being developed by Prevent Child Abuse America. A commission with a representative from the Court Appointed Special Advocates program seeks more money for CASA, even though research commissioned by the National CASA Association itself shows that, at best, the program does no good, and it may well do harm. (CASA and the researchers insist that, since the results didn't come out as they expected, the study must be flawed. To read the study, go to Indystar.com/starlinks)

The problem isn't the cost. The New Jersey plan also is expensive, and it, too, calls for hiring new caseworkers. But those caseworkers will be part of a whole new approach to child welfare, modeled on what has proven to work all over the country. The Indiana commission simply proposes to graft new caseworkers onto the old system. That will leave Indiana with the same lousy system only bigger.

The legislature should accept two of the commission recommendations, a small improvement in provision of defense counsel for families and the "alternative response" system. It should discard most of the rest, until they are accompanied by a real reform agenda.

Money for vulnerable children is scarce and it is precious. It is a sin to waste it.

Wexler is executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform in Alexandria, Va