(published in the Waco Tribune, March 18, 2005)

Senske: Best welfare reform: privatize care for children

KURT SENSKE Guest column
Friday, March 18, 2005

Long before there was a child welfare system, faith-based organizations like my own, Lutheran Social Services (LSS), Catholic Charities and Baptist and Presbyterian children's homes filled the void and established programs to help and protect children in crisis.

With all the debate over proposed reforms to the child welfare system, what is often overlooked is that 75 percent of the children in the Texas child welfare system currently are cared for by private providers like these.

Children and taxpayers both will benefit if private providers are allowed to care for and manage the treatment plans for all the children.

Currently, when LSS receives a child from Child Protective Service at one of our four Texas treatment centers, we have no control or input into what happens to the child after he or she leaves.

For example, at the end of February we had eight children at one center waiting to be discharged. Yet four days before their discharge, they were still waiting to hear from CPS where they were going to be placed.

It makes no sense to work with an emotionally disturbed child in a therapeutic environment without knowing where the child is going after discharge. While there may be uncertainty about the child's legal status in some situations, privatization would give child-placing agencies the ability to do a better job of providing care and treatment through concurrent planning around the various options that will affect the child.

If case management is privatized, when a child with severe emotional and behavioral problems enters one of our treatment centers we could match that child with a prospective foster family, if appropriate.

During the child's stay at the center, the family and the child could participate in joint family sessions and begin to build relationships and bond in a protective environment.

With that foundation, the result is likely to be shorter lengths of stays at the treatment centers, which would save taxpayer dollars, and a lower rate of recidivism because of failed placements.

Under the current system, private child placing agencies have no role in reunification. We have no contact with the birth family and we receive little or no information on whether the family is meeting their goals to become a functional.

Under privatization, provider agencies could have a seat at the table. They would developing a treatment plan that takes the family's situation into account, and when appropriate, involve the family in the treatment plan.

A recent Trib editorial suggested that profits would drive case management decisions under this arrangement. Proposed legislation, which awards both authority and responsibility to private providers, protects the interests of children and taxpayers.

We welcome the reforms that call for more aggressive monitoring, licensing and regulation of private providers by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services and performance-based contracts to ensure that taxpayers are getting their money's worth from providers.

However, these systemic reforms will fail without proper reimbursement. Along with privatization, foster care reimbursement rates must be restored at a minimum to previous levels to enable providers to properly care for the children.

If the system is not fixed promptly and the needs of these children aren't addressed properly, taxpayers in the future will bear the toll in terms of increased demands on the health care, mental health, criminal justice and welfare systems.

Dr. Kurt Senske is CEO of Lutheran Social Services, which has foster care and adoption offices in Waco and throughout Texas.

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