The goal, established in 2006 for Casey Family Programs, was to reduce the number of children in foster care by 50 percent by the year 2020. Here’s a look at how Casey was approaching that milestone as of 2009 – and, soon to come, a preview of a 2010 update.

In 2009, Casey took a look at its goal of reducing the number of children in foster care – and to improve education, employment and mental health support for the children who do remain in the foster care system.

William C. Bell, president and CEO, describes the 2009 report as including: “stories of commitment, stories of hope, stories of success, stories of a common purpose, stories that demonstrate the power of working together across boundaries and in new and different ways to do what needs to be done in the best interest of children.”

In fact, Casey considers stories and communication critical. As the 2009 report notes, “We help spread our work across America by sharing our experiences and knowledge with child welfare systems, assisting them as they put innovations into practice.”

Since we at CA360 are so invested in solutions story telling ourselves –( see our continuing series on Who’s Doing What That Works at www.childadvocacy360.org )--- we thought we should recap a few of those success stories from Casey:

• The Georgia Department of Human Resources is taking an assertive approach to find permanent homes for children who have been in foster care the longest. The Georgia Permanency Roundtable project, supported by Casey Family Programs, put more than 500 cases before a team of five to eight caseworkers, supervisors and experts from inside and outside the department. In an intense process, 10 roundtables were conducted simultaneously each day for five consecutive weeks until every case had been scrutinized. The effect was to’ jump start’ cases that had been stuck in the system. While results are not complete, early indications are positive, and other states are already interested in replicating the project. And Casey Family programs continue to be involved.
  
  
• In Austin, Ingrid Vogel, child welfare supervisors for Casey Family Programs’ Austin field office, initiated a project that got the state to re-evaluate the field office cases in which long-term foster care was settled upon as the “permanency plan for the child.” Vogel approached the Central Texas regional director of Child Protective Services about forming a team of CPS managers and Casey Family Programs staff to formally reconsider the cases. In 2008, 18 cases managed by Casey Family Programs went through the permanency project --- about one third of the Austin caseload. Most of the 18 have been placed with a permanent family – or are in the process of being placed. The state’s regional CPS office wants to spread the permanency project across its entire Central Texas caseload.

  With the assistance of Casey Family Programs, the state of Texas implemented a plan to eliminate the institutional and systemic racism within its child welfare system through staff training and working within communities. The impetus are stark statistics about the disproportion of children of color in foster care. Result: in four of the five plot counties, disproportionality rates have gone down.

Editor’s Note

In 2007, we heard Mr. Bell speak at a Harvard Law School --ABA Conference and quoted him in CA360 as saying: “ Think of the additional value we can bring to this process and to children when we think in the context of building a community around children; a community that knows them and that has a vested interest in meeting their most critical needs. How many people might play a significant role in the lives of vulnerable children, but are never fully engaged within the legal process? Extended family; caseworkers, birth parents and teachers. Now think of the value to a child and to their legal process if the attorney, the CASA, and/or the guardian ad litem could work in tandem with this community of support. Think of the value of this 'community,' this 'conference'.