Center for People in Need

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ACTION ALERT: Children Caught in Middle of Child Welfare Changes

The Center for People in Need is continuing to urge people to contact the Governor, State Senators and the Director of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) about recent developments in child welfare programs. Although the state continues to try to smooth the transition to private agencies, reports persist of disruptions in the system.

DHHS is responsible for more than 6,000 children in the Child Welfare System, including foster kids, kids on probation, wards and kids otherwise under state supervision. It contracted with private agencies to carry out these responsibilities. Of the original five provider agencies, only three remain. There were early reports of unpaid caseworkers, sudden changes in custody status, failures to report to courts, interrupted and cancelled visitations, and other lapses. In addition, DHHS admitted that some foster parents and caseworkers were not timely paid. In May DHHS reported to the Legislature that they believe they must use the funds appropriated for child welfare reform, and mentioned no intentions to seek more.

The Nebraska Legislature is trying to address this by introducing several bills during the 2011 session.

Voices for Children in Nebraska reported on Feb. 9, 2011: “The state has been in the midst of a challenging child welfare reform, called Families Matter, since 2009. Part of the reform, designated to reduce the number of children served in out-of-home care, has been the increasing role of private agencies. Unfortunately, since November 2009, four of six original lead agencies have withdrawn from their contracts, based at least in part on the financial burden placed on them. On Jan. 3, two remaining lead agencies, KVC and NFC, assumed case management responsibility in the Eastern and Southeastern Service Areas. While this may be an improvement, questions remain about the financial sustainability of the effort as well as the slow progress towards reducing the number of children in out-of-home care. All the change in the system has also been confusing for Nebraska’s most vulnerable children and families.

LR37 provides a way to address some of these concerns, which is why Voices for Children has been strongly supportive of this measure. We are hopeful over the next few months the HHS committee will use LR37 to capture what has gone wrong and its impact on Nebraska’s children and help chart a sound path forward.”

Please contact state officials now to let them know we care about these children. Ask them to increase funding for this transition and urge DHHS to protect kids from disruptive changes. These children cannot ask for themselves; they must rely on adults to do their speaking for them.

ACTION REQUESTED:

1.  Use the sample letters below to WRITE your state senator, Governor Heineman and Director Winterer urging them to put Nebraska’s foster children first by investing more money in this transition, speeding up the transition and preventing the disruptions from the transition that have been noted in the media.

2. FORWARD this Action Alert to the people you know who are involved in the Child Welfare System in Nebraska, and also NOTIFY your friends who do not have computers.

Your response to this alert is your voice for foster kids. Make it count!

Thank you for your support of Nebraska’s children.

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