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Friends of the Fourth
District:
Los Angeles County’s foster youth system will soon benefit from a
simple, yet revolutionary change in the way child welfare programs
are funded.
This past month, at the urging of the State of California and Los
Angeles County, the United States Department of Health and Human
Services agreed to significantly reform the way federal child
welfare dollars can be spent at a local level. The bottom line is
this; almost $370 million of the $480 million in federal funding
that Los Angeles County receives annually to protect children –
approximately one-third of the entire budget -- can be used more
flexibly than ever before. I believe this historic decision can be
directly attributed to Los Angeles County’s efforts to show that a
child welfare agency can not only provide for the safety of abused
and neglected children, but also improve outcomes by reducing the
amount of time children spend in foster care.
The problem with the federal model is that funding could only be
accessed once a child was pulled from their home. The funding did
not match the need. Now it does.
Several years ago, over 50,000 children were in out-of-home
placement in this County, with little prospect of ever going home.
We recognized that this was unacceptable. As a result, Los Angeles
County has been at the forefront of groundbreaking initiatives that
have radically shifted the focus of our child welfare agency from a
“detain first” approach to a more precise and thoughtful approach
that puts the well-being of the entire family at the forefront. The
Department first looks at how to reunify families broken apart by
detainment. If that’s not an option, then they immediately focus on
planning a permanent arrangement for the child such as placement
with a trustworthy relative or adoption. These activities are
initiated practically at the moment the Department gets involved
with the family. Today, this shift in focus has reduced the number
from 50,000 children to 20,000 children in foster care.
Up to now, to get to this level of success, we had to be very
creative in Los Angeles County in order to make our efforts fit the
outdated federal funding model.
With our new federal waiver, we can effectively enhance our efforts
to offer services that would help children stabilize, return to a
home-based setting and give them an even better chance to grow and
thrive. This new flexible funding will also allow us to expand
several initiatives that I have personally advocated for: to connect
foster children with mentors and to develop services that keep
families out of the child welfare system and support them in a
positive way.
I applaud the US Department of Health and Human Services for their
sound decision, as well as the Los Angeles County Department of
Children and Family Services for their hard work on obtaining this
waiver. However, this is only half of the battle. Since lack of
flexible funding is no longer an issue, our focus must be fully
placed on realizing the vision of providing child welfare services
that can both protect kids and strengthen families.
This funding waiver will not compromise the fundamental
responsibility the County has to protect at-risk children and
families. We will still be here to catch them when they fall. My
hope is that with efforts like this, we can prevent them from
falling in the first place.
DON KNABE
Supervisor, Fourth District
County of Los Angeles
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