State officials over the past two years have more than doubled the percentage of children entering the foster system who are placed with a relative.
The achievement -- a key metric for improving state care of what was a growing number of foster children -- was announced Wednesday in a news conference at the Department of Human Services. Arkansas now places 28.8 percent of foster children with relatives, instead of 14 percent.
Since beginning a series of changes and hiring more employees starting in November, the total number of children in foster care plateaued. The number totaled about 5,040 a year ago and was projected to grow to 5,800. However, it's now at 5,035.
But officials say there's work to be done, including recruiting enough foster families to handle 200 more children in Sebastian County. While the county contains only about 4 percent of Arkansas' population, about 20 percent of foster children come from that county.
Other goals include hiring and training more workers, continuing to reduce caseload for employees, finding more foster parents for older children and those with special needs and reuniting more children with their families.
In November, Children and Family Services Division officials held a news conference at which they said the foster system was in "crisis." For the first time, more than 5,000 children were in the system and the number was expected to continue rising.
At the time, officials said they planned to hire 228 new employees in fiscal 2018 and fiscal 2019, speed the rate that paperwork would be processed, increase the number of foster parents and increase family placements.
Lawmakers approved a nearly $27 million budget increase that went into effect July 1. The one-time money, drawn from surplus funds, jump-started the changes.
A change in the state pay plan also increased minimum wages for caseworkers. Many caseworkers were paid a minimum of about $30,713 annually. That increased to $36,155 on July 1.
Children and Family Services officials said they have reduced caseloads per worker to 22, down from 28 in November, but did not have figures on how many people have been hired. The national caseload standard is 15, according to a report from the division.
Over the past year, the number of overdue investigations -- which kept children from leaving foster care -- has dropped from 721 to 51.
Mischa Martin, director of the Children and Family Services Division, said she wants to decrease the time it takes to open a foster home to five months. The total time has averaged nine months.
Officials said Wednesday that since 2016, the total number of new foster parents has exceeded estimates, growing from 1,549 to 1,821 families. Martin and Gillespie praised Christian nonprofits like The Call and Christians 4 Kids that recruit foster families.
They also touted the 28.8 percent family placement rate for foster children. The national average is 29 percent. State officials said they want relative placements to increase to 33 percent next year.
Increasing family placements has been a goal for years. In 2015, the state hired a consultant who said placing children with family members instead of unrelated families was key to solving the growing crisis of the foster system.
In the report, Paul Vincent, director of the Child Welfare Policy and Practice Group, said Arkansas lagged behind every surrounding state in its 14 percent relative placement rate.
"Attitudes toward the suitability of relatives as caregivers on the part of some staff, judges and other legal partners were frequently mentioned as a barrier," he wrote.
"Our judges had to be able to trust us to be able to know that we've truly vetted a relative and that the relative was safe and appropriate," Martin said Wednesday. "That was one of the issues. Some of the judges maybe didn't feel that we properly vetted them, so they didn't have confidence that that relative was safe and appropriate."
While the division has seen statewide improvement, Sebastian County has been a microcosm for issues present statewide, Martin said.
The issue has less to do with the number of children entering care, and more to do with the rate at which they leave, she said.
"As the [number of] kids grow, you get higher cases. As you get higher cases, you get more workers leaving. You get more workers leaving, you get people who know less about the case, which means less investment in reunification," Martin said. "You know, Sebastian has a lower rate of reunification -- something we're really working on."
Martin said a new interim area director for Sebastian and Cleveland counties -- Melanie Cleveland -- has been working to improve those numbers, and Casey Family Programs is serving as a consultant for that area.
One issue was a breakdown in paperwork transfers required to allow children to be adopted.
Lauri Currier, executive director of The Call, a nonprofit that recruits and trains foster families, said in an interview that local officials have laid out a blueprint for improvement.
"There are a lot of reasons why children are coming into care in Sebastian County. That makes it a unique situation," she said. "As noted in the report, there are some staff related issues that are ongoing there, but I believe with the installation of a new area director, that there will be significant improvement in that."
At the state level, "I'm really pleased with the progress that's been made over the last year under difficult circumstances. I'm really excited about the changes that have been made and I'm in agreement about the things that still need to be done," Currier said.
One key goal, Currier said, is increasing the number of families willing to foster children more than 6 years old and those with special needs. There aren't enough homes for those children.
Sen. Alan Clark, R-Lonsdale, who co-chaired the Joint Performance Review committee as it investigated the foster-care system last year, said in an interview that the state's improvements were encouraging.
"I get less calls than I got -- considerably less calls for more than one reason," he said. "It's not perfect. It's far from perfect and they know it's far from perfect. That being said, I think they're improving as quickly as they can. I'm impressed."
Clark sponsored Act 1116 of 2017, which requires the division to conduct an immediate assessment when it removes a child to locate noncustodial parents, relatives and close family friends who would care for the child.
"Not every child has family that's suitable, but many, many children do and if you've got a grandparent, an aunt, an uncle, a neighbor, someone that keeps the disruption in that child's life to a minimum if they've got to be removed," he said.
"One of the things that we all lament -- and it's not that [the Children and Family Services Division] doesn't know this -- is even when you have to remove a child for the worst reason, you still do harm with trauma. And when we have to move that child multiple times, we can do serious harm."
In a statement, Gov. Asa Hutchinson praised the changes.
"While there's still much work to be done, this report shows we are headed in the right direction with fewer children in foster care, a higher number of children placed with relatives and reduced caseloads," he said.
Metro on 09/07/2017