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Now, the system puts children first Fewer kids are languishing in foster care By Chris Bristol of the Mail Tribune Midway through his final State of the Union address, President Clinton said a mouthful. "Thanks to overwhelming bipartisan support from this Congress, we have improved foster care," the president said Thursday in the nationally televised speech. "We've helped these young people who leave it when they turn 18, and we have dramatically increased the number of foster care children going into adoptive homes." That's certainly the case in Oregon, where the number of foster children placed for adoption has nearly doubled over the past five years. Terminations of parental rights -- the rights of parents with kids in foster care -- have increased a similar amount. According to figures released by the state Office for Services to Children and Families, 523 foster children were placed for adoption in the 1994-95 fiscal year. Last year it was 922, an increase of almost 90 percent. State officials say adoptions are up as a direct result of sweeping changes in federal and state law, changes that impose strict limits on the time children can spend in foster care before the state must put them up for adoption or find some other permanent home. According to Kathy Ledesma, manager of the state's Adoption and Permanency Unit in Salem, the reasoning that sparked reform is simple. "For you and me, a year goes by quick," she said. "For a child, it's a fourth of their life. It's huge." At the heart of it is the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act. The 1997 law, better known as ASFA, was passed by Congress on the belief that too many children were languishing for too many years in foster care because their parents were being given too many chances to clean up their act. In Oregon, second chances (and sometimes third, fourth and fifth chances) are a thing of the past. The new time limits give parents about a year to straighten up, and courts must now decide within 14 months whether to terminate their rights. "The clock now starts ticking as soon as the child enters state care," said Susan Kaough, SCF branch manager in Medford. "We want to make that message loud and clear. Foster care is definitely temporary. It's not a place to grow up." "The past system definitely favored the parent," added Patricia Feeny, a spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Human Services. "This new legislation puts the best interests of the child at the forefront, where it should be. Now, it's either fast-track to adoption or get them back home." Nationwide, almost 500,000 children were in foster care by 1996, the year that Clinton first took steps to reform the system. Of that number, about 115,000 were free for adoption but mired in the courts. As an incentive, the federal government last year divided $20 million among 35 states that met or exceeded higher adoption "baselines." Oregon, which passed its own Best Interests of the Child legislation in 1997 to complement ASFA, was awarded nearly $587,000 of the money as one of the top three performers nationwide. Adoptions are up in Oregon largely because roughly half of the state's 6,000 foster children have been in the state's custody for more than two years, officials said. Nearly 1,000 have been in foster care for more than five years. In Jackson County, up to 275 kids are in foster care at any given time. The courts terminated parental rights in 17 of 18 cases last year. Under the new time lines, the courts must decide within 60 days from the time a child has been removed from home whether to dismiss the case or take jurisdiction. At the same time, SCF caseworkers must draw up two plans for the child's future. The first plan (euphemistically known as "Plan A") documents the steps parents must take to get their children back; "Plan B" is for adoption or some other permanent placement. Drugs and alcohol play a role in 66 percent of foster care cases, according to Feeny, and many parents must get treatment and counseling before their kids can return home. Other frequently cited problems include domestic violence and mental illness. One year after the 60-day hearing, the state must hold what is called a permanency hearing. The deadline stems directly from ASFA, which forces courts to decide whether to terminate parental rights for children who have been in foster care for 15 of the past 22 months. Ledesma said the shortened time frames are an improvement because deadlines were almost nonexistent under the old system. "We had kids in temporary custody sometimes for years" before the courts even declared jurisdiction, she said. "It was grim." The law also makes it easier to terminate parental rights within just 30 days and go directly to adoption when a parent commits a specific "heinous" act. Examples include killing another child. And it shortens the length of time -- from 12 months to six -- that the state must monitor a child in a prospective adoptive home before the courts finalize the deal. Exceptions exist. A parent might be on the verge of completing drug treatment, for example. Other "compelling reasons" include the age of foster kids (some are too old for adoption) and whether they are part of a large sibling group. And the state doesn't have to file for termination when a child has been placed in the home of a relative who is willing to become a permanent guardian. About 40 percent of foster parents are relatives, although not all become permanent guardians. But the days when a parent routinely could seek last-minute postponements are over. The new legislation comes with a $12 million infusion of funding, including $2.4 million for drug and alcohol treatment to help parents get their kids back before time expires. "Parents used to come in to court and show that they just started their drug treatment that was ordered six months ago," Ledesma said. "That's no longer acceptable in court." The reforms were made in large part because the longer children spend in foster care, the harder it becomes to find adoptive homes for them. A majority of Oregon's pre-adoption foster children are defined as "special needs." They may have a physical or emotional disability, or be part of a sibling group or an ethnic minority. Finding adoptive families becomes more difficult when children reach age 6. Among these children is a 9-year-old Jackson County boy who has been in foster care since he was a toddler. The boy has been available for adoption since 1996, but he was born drug-addicted and has severe emotional and learning disabilities. As it stands, Oregon has more foster children ready for adoption than adoptive parents. The state (which added 36 caseworkers to handle the surge) is recruiting adoptive homes for 286 children statewide, including three from Jackson County. "We don't have any babies," Ledesma said. "If we have babies, they're drug babies." The reforms were not intended merely to punish troubled parents, officials said. Reunification of families is still the goal, only now it's not the No. 1 priority. Children are the priority now, officials said. No longer can parents use foster care to take the childhood of their kids hostage. "It really puts a lot of responsibility on all of us, to keep focused on the child, what the child needs, and meeting those needs as quickly as possible," Ledesma added. "The clock is ticking." Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA