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County foster care system sees 12% increase

A national trend four years in a row

Isabel Braverman - Staff Writer
Posted 9/20/18

MONTICELLO — “I've never seen anything like that,” said William Moon, Deputy Commissioner of Family Services. As Moon reported to the Sullivan County Legislature's Health and Family Services …

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County foster care system sees 12% increase

A national trend four years in a row

Posted

MONTICELLO — “I've never seen anything like that,” said William Moon, Deputy Commissioner of Family Services. As Moon reported to the Sullivan County Legislature's Health and Family Services Committee last week, he informed them that the Department of Family Services last month saw a 12 percent increase of intake into foster care.

Moon said many of the children have behavioral issues. “These are children that have been subjected to moderate to severe trauma,” Moon said. “They come in with behaviors that are challenging and very difficult.”

The department has historically seen foster children in the 12 to 13-year-old range and into the teens, but now they are seeing even younger children, in the six to nine-year-old range.

Moon gave the example of an eight-year-old girl who had to be placed in a psychiatric setting. “They haven't even begun to get her under control; it's very sad,” Moon said. The child has a difficult time with speaking because she experienced trauma at a very young age during pre-language development, Moon explained.

Children like this eight-year-old girl many times have to be sent out of the county to places that can meet their needs, explained Melissa Stickle, Director of Community Services.

“In many cases we have to refer those children outside the area,” Stickle said. “So we're talking about establishing a team in the Department of Community Services, a specialized team regarding trauma, that we can treat those children right here in their own environment.”

Moon elaborated that those children often spend 30 to 90 days at a diagnostic center. The costs for that range from $600 to $1,000 a day, he said. If the children could stay in county, the costs would be lower.

One of the major reasons for the increase in foster care is because of the opiate crisis the county is currently facing. “The parents fall under an influence and they become neglectful; neglect in many ways causes more trauma than abuse,” Moon said.

It's a national trend

Sullivan County isn't the only area with an increase in the number of children in foster care. Across the country, there has been an increase for four years in a row.

According to a report issued by the Administration for Children and Families of the Department of Health and Human Services, the number of children in foster care at the end of 2016 increased to 437,500 from the 427,400 reported at the end of 2015.

The report also showed that substance abuse of the parents was a major factor. Of the 15 categories states can report for the circumstances associated with a child's removal from home and placement into care, drug abuse by a parent had the largest percentage point increase, from 32 percent in 2015 to 34 percent in 2016.

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