Decreases in Child Protective Services Reports and Children Served in the Foster Care System Are 2020 Data and Do Not Reflect System Improvements
In an effort to improve Pennsylvania’s child welfare system, the 12th annual State of Child Welfare report released by today by Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children raises concerns about the need to strengthen the child welfare system as it uses data from 2020 – only the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic – that shows decreases in child protective services reporting and the number of children placed in foster care statewide.
In 2020 there were 32,919 CPS reports, which was a 22% decline in reports from 2019, but the substantiation of reports was the highest in the last five years, with 14% of reports being investigated and found to be true. Notably, stay-at-home orders, moving to virtual learning, and less contact with medical professionals created a significant decrease in mandated reporting trends during the year for which the most recent data is available.
“While substantiation rates did increase, data from 2021 will be significant to see how trends shift as schools resumed in-person instruction. There was subsequently more interaction between mandated reporters, such as teachers, with children and families,” said Kari King, President and CEO of Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children. “We anticipate the 2021 data will show an increase in referrals and a potential decrease in substantiation, as the system struggles to respond to the needs of children experiencing abuse and neglect during an unprecedented time of crisis.”
In 2020, 21,689 children were served in the Pennsylvania foster care system, a 12% decrease in the total population from the prior year.
“With overall reductions in placement, one could assume this translates to better interventions on the front-end of an investigation and correspondingly stabilizes families. However, when we look at the totality of the data from the start of an investigation through placement, the overall reduction correlates to the challenges we know were present due to the pandemic,” said King. “Again, fewer referrals being made by mandated reporters means fewer occasions to identify abuse leading to placement.”
She noted hiring and retaining qualified staff is the first step in effectively serving children and youth in the child welfare system. Even before the pandemic, the system suffered from high turnover rates as the work was traumatic, complex, and often thankless.
“Front-line workers, those we think of as essential in our communities and across the Commonwealth, include the child welfare caseworkers who hold high-stress, low-reward jobs to help the children and families they serve,” she said. “During the pandemic and beyond, the foster care system works best when it works to keep families together and expedite permanency for foster youth.”
The state Department of Human Services does not produce real-time data, and outcomes from 2021 on reporting, investigations, and foster care will not be available until 2022 to compare against pandemic outcomes.
Policy recommendations in the 2021 State of Child Welfare: Navigating the Uncertainty of the Pandemic to Strengthen the System include:
- Continuing to invest in and build a robust prevention services system that aims to mitigate non-abuse factors, keep families and communities together, and reduce the amount of time formal child welfare intervention is necessary. The Family First Prevention Services Act allows Pennsylvania to capitalize on expanding an evidence-based services continuum. However, this is only one step in the process, and we should continue to analyze where gaps in services exist. This would include increased state funding for prevention services that may not be eligible for federal Title IV-E funding, such as programs that show promising outcomes but may not meet the rigor needed to achieve an evidence-based rating.
- Acting on PPC’s kinship care report recommendations to increase opportunities for children to be placed with kin. This includes eliminating arbitrary barriers to licensure, having a seamless waiver process, a fair appeal process, and addressing policies that create subjectivity and bias in decision-making. The report, Kinship Care in Pennsylvania: Creating an Equitable System for Families, was released in February 2021.
- Continuing to invest in and build a robust prevention services system that aims to mitigate non-abuse factors, keep families and communities together, and reduce the amount of time formal child welfare intervention is necessary. The Family First Prevention Services Act allows Pennsylvania to capitalize on expanding an evidence-based services continuum. However, this is only one step in the process, and we should continue to analyze where gaps in services exist. This would include increased state funding for prevention services that may not be eligible for federal Title IV-E funding, such as programs that show promising outcomes but may not meet the rigor needed to achieve an evidence-based rating. Additionally, the service array should address non-abuse factors that often lead to child welfare involvement, such as homelessness and poverty. This includes coordination and collaboration between the offices within DHS, especially where there is the ability to look at braided funding.
- Acting on PPC’s kinship care report recommendations to increase opportunities for children to be placed with kin. This includes eliminating arbitrary barriers to licensure, having a seamless waiver process, a fair appeal process, and addressing policies that create subjectivity and bias in decision-making.
- Increase supports for transition age youth to ensure they are prepared to successfully exit the system to adulthood by consistently offering permanency services and appropriate transition plans, so they are connected to community-based supports and do not exit to homelessness.
- As DHS builds a new state information system, increasing data sets required from county agencies. All data should be disaggregated by age, gender, race, ethnicity, and county and should be available to the public. Advocates, researchers, and families should be engaged in the development process.
- Developing forums – both within the state and with external advocates – to obtain the lived experiences of children and youth who have been involved with the child welfare system to help shape practice and enact policy change.
- Investing in the child welfare workforce at the state and county levels, in addition to meeting the needs of private providers, by analyzing recruitment and retention trends and developing an understanding of the federal and state funding options to support it. These investments were highlighted in PPC’s fact sheet Unacknowledged Protectors: Consequences and Costs of Turnover in the Child Welfare Workforce, released earlier this year.
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