Child advocates are increasingly concerned that the District’s foster care system could get more clogged as the result of the surge in abuse and neglect reports after the tragic deaths of four D.C. girls.
Calls to the Child and Family Services Agency about possible abuse and neglect have increased four-fold since the bodies of Banita Jacks’ four daughters were found and Jacks was charged with murder, The Examiner reported last month. One result of that jump is that CFSA staff members have to place more children outside of the home, agency spokeswoman Mindy Good said.
“Anecdotally, we’re seeing [increases to the foster care system],” she told The Examiner. “We’ve still been able to make the placements for them … but it’s an added challenge.”
Specific numbers to quantify the extra burden are not yet available, according to Good. At this point, 1,222 D.C. children are in foster homes, and 150 more children are in need of adoptive parents and are waiting to be placed.
Meanwhile, reports of child abuse and neglect have not slowed. Currently, the number of hot-line calls workers are fielding is averaging between 130 and 160 daily.
“Jan. 28 was our big day for calls at 210,” Good said. “We’ve plateaued, but at a very high level.”
That’s exactly what worries Margie Chalofsky, co-founder of the Foster and Adoptive Parent Advocacy Center.
“The system is already overburdened and we don’t have the resources,” she said. “What’s scary about a tragedy is it puts a system in crisis, and everyone responds out of a crisis mentality.”
The added scrutiny brought on the child welfare system by the Jacks case could also deter potential foster parents, Chalofsky said. Having a steady supply of qualified and willing foster parents has always been an obstacle, she said.
A recently implemented policy has also decreased the foster parent pool. CFSA used to allow Maryland residents to take in D.C. children, Good said, but now Marylanders can only foster D.C. youths if they are relatives. The agency implement the rule to decrease competition between the neighboring jurisdictions and minimize trauma to the children by moving them around less.
