Child Welfare

Baltimore is the preferred venue for same-sex adoptions. That makes me so proud to be born and bred in Baltimore. The city's circuit court obviously puts the welfare of the children before politics. What difference does it make if it is a "same-sex" or "traditional" couple as long as the child or children will be raised in a loving environment? How many children have been abused or killed in "traditional" households? How many children are in foster or other care in need of a loving home?

Baltimore is the preferred venue for same-sex adoptions. That makes me so proud to be born and bred in Baltimore. The city's circuit court obviously puts the welfare of the children before politics. What difference does it make if it is a "same-sex" or "traditional" couple as long as the child or children will be raised in a loving environment? How many children have been abused or killed in "traditional" households? How many children are in foster or other care in need of a loving home?

LIKE MOST states, Maryland faces the enormous challenge of significantly improving the way we protect our most vulnerable children. Many problems have existed for far too long in our child welfare system. One example is the Baltimore City Department of Social Services, the largest of our local agencies, which has operated under a federal consent decree for child welfare for 15 years in the child abuse case of L. J. vs. Massinga. The consent decree requires the state Department of Human Resources to comply with certain conditions to protect children.

Maryland has one of the lowest rates of childhood poverty in the nation, but is in the middle of the pack in overall children's well-being, according to a report released Wednesday by the Baltimore-basedAnnie E. Casey Foundation. The state is 23rd overall in the 2011 Kids Count Data Book, an annual assessment of child welfare organized with the help of local child advocacy groups. Maryland ranks two spots better than last year's report, but continues to have relatively high child and infant death rankings.

Two days after a state senator said Maryland Human Resources Secretary Brenda Donald's signature child welfare program was "not working," Donald received a warm reception - even applause - when she appeared before another group of lawmakers Thursday. At a briefing for the Joint Committee on Children, Youth and Families, Donald summarized how she believes "Place Matters," which she launched two years ago, is working to improve outcomes for vulnerable children. Under this new approach, the department focuses on reuniting foster children with their own families or keeping them in family settings, which has reduced the state's reliance on group home beds by nearly half.

A hearing on the status of Maryland's child welfare programs turned confrontational yesterday as legislators in Annapolis grilled Department of Human Resources officials on an audit that exposed flaws in the agency's staffing numbers, abuse and neglect investigations, and recordkeeping. DHR Secretary Christopher J. McCabe, responding publicly for the first time to the audit that was released last week, said he and his team of administrators recognize that there is room for improvement, but emphasized that they have made important changes, such as increasing staffing.

Reform of child welfare systems in Maryland and several other states is hampered by "misguided and secretive policies" that restrict disclosure of information about deaths and serious injuries resulting from abuse or neglect, according to a report to be released today by two national child advocacy groups. Maryland was among 10 states that received an "F" grade because they "place confidentiality above the welfare" of children. The report by the University of San Diego School of Law's Children's Advocacy Institute and Washington- based First Star argues for greater transparency so child welfare systems can be held accountable and future tragedies can be averted.

The O'Malley administration's spending plan doesn't provide enough money to carry out reforms of Maryland's child welfare system, which has come under increased scrutiny in the wake of a Baltimore toddler's death, children's advocates told a legislative panel yesterday. The proposed $606 million budget for the Department of Human Resources provides a 3.2 percent increase that fails to keep up with the rate of inflation, advocates told members of a House appropriations subcommittee. They say up to $30 million more is needed to pay for enhancements at the agency, which is struggling to respond to the death of 2-year-old Bryanna Harris after local child protective workers allowed her to stay with her drug-addicted mother.

Legislative auditors issued a stinging rebuke of Maryland's child welfare system yesterday, charging in a special report that state officials misreported caseworker staffing numbers, failed to initiate or complete investigations into reports of abuse, and provided unreliable information to advocates. As a result of the audit, top lawmakers vowed to investigate the deaths in 2004 of 11 children who were under the care of the state Department of Human Resources, which oversees child welfare programs, including foster care.

Shirley E. Marcus, who in 1989 took over a Baltimore welfare department that was reeling from efforts to unseat former director George G. Musgrove, yesterday announced plans to resign in August to take over as deputy director of the Child Welfare League of America."

At the beginning of the O'Malley-Brown administration, Maryland had far too many children in foster care, too many foster children in group homes and too few foster parents. The law virtually required the Department of Human Resources to license any new group home meeting minimum standards, despite the fact that most of the state was already oversaturated with group homes. Our procedures for processing applications for social service programs were outdated and inefficient. It had been more than 20 years since the law was changed to update the amount of child support a parent had to pay. We knew our reforms would require a steady commitment, patience, tenacity and a willingness to challenge the status quo. We faced budget cuts, staff shortages and a skeptical group of advocates — most of whom were unconvinced that a historically troubled and underfunded agency could make real progress.

In recent days, a misguided and unfocused debate related to the closing of group homes serving foster children would have us believe providers' only interest is self preservation. This has obscured issues of far greater importance to the safety and well-being of abused and neglected children. For more than a decade, the state allowed unprecedented, unplanned and unguided growth in the number of group homes, concentrated in a handful of least resistant communities. This development did not result in the most beneficial array of services, nor did it ensure the development of services where they are needed.

Two days after a state senator said Maryland Human Resources Secretary Brenda Donald's signature child welfare program was "not working," Donald received a warm reception - even applause - when she appeared before another group of lawmakers Thursday. At a briefing for the Joint Committee on Children, Youth and Families, Donald summarized how she believes "Place Matters," which she launched two years ago, is working to improve outcomes for vulnerable children. Under this new approach, the department focuses on reuniting foster children with their own families or keeping them in family settings, which has reduced the state's reliance on group home beds by nearly half.

The stories were horrifying and heart-wrenching: a boy beaten bloody while in foster care; a 15-year-old girl tortured and starved to death by a mentally ill guardian; a 5-year-old fatally scalded by his mother after state officials removed him from a safe foster home. It's no wonder such egregious cases of abuse and neglect have helped drive a 25-year-old lawsuit over how the Maryland Department of Human Resources and the Baltimore Department of Social Services care for the state's most vulnerable children and adolescents.

For a quarter-century, lawyers for Baltimore foster children have been telling a judge horrific stories of abuse and neglect and indifference. The child welfare system itself, the attorneys said, failed these children time and again by shrugging off reforms it was ordered to make as a result of a federal lawsuit. That has changed, the lawyers said Tuesday. Convinced that the state Department of Human Resources, which oversees child welfare and the city's more than 5,000 foster children, has finally made enough progress on changes first ordered by a judge in 1988, the lawyers on Monday filed a motion that could eventually end federal court oversight.

Statistically, the most likely profile of a neglectful or abusive parent is a 30-year-old, college-educated white woman who has a job. Yet in Maryland, African-American children are far more likely than their white counterparts to be removed from their homes by child welfare officials because of maltreatment. A recent study by Advocates for Children and Youth, a group that lobbies for children's issues in Maryland, found that while African-Americans make up only a third of the state's children, they constitute nearly three-quarters of the children removed from their homes, and are five times more likely than white children to be placed in group or foster home care.

WASHINGTON -- They lived to be only 2 and 4, and much of that time was spent in homeless shelters and motel rooms and with different men that their disturbed mother clung to here and there. When they died, it was at the hands of the woman who should have been their fiercest protector.Yesterday, blown-up pictures of Natalie Aulton and Christina Lambert put a human face on an otherwise antiseptic Senate hearing room, where an Ohio senator sought support for legislation that could change the way social workers approach cases like theirs.

Connie Tolbert Public information officer Maryland Department of Human Resources, Baltimore Salary $48,000 Age 47 Years on the job 15 How she got started As a former welfare recipient, Tolbert was asked to serve on a welfare reform commission during the early 1990s put together by then-Gov. William Donald Schaefer. Tolbert was working then as an administrative assistant for a nonprofit organization, but she had been on and off welfare for a number of years. After her work on the volunteer commission, she got a job with the Department of Human Resources certifying nursing homes.

When it comes to releasing information about life-threatening child abuse and neglect cases, Maryland gets a failing grade in a national study by child advocates. Regrettably, it's well-deserved, since repeated efforts to shine more light on these cases have been rebuffed in the General Assembly. The advocates' sensible push for more public disclosure is meant to expose - and correct - child-welfare system failures that may contribute to whatever harm a child may suffer at home. Maryland's abysmal showing should finally spur the legislature to make changes, but state and local child welfare officials should voluntarily be more forthcoming whenever possible.