There is hardly a day that goes by that I don't think of Doug, Ann Marie, and Alexis Stuth.Tomorrow Senator Chase and I will meet again with Senator Regala to discuss DSHS/CPS and the budget. Shielded from budget cuts ("for the sake of children"), there may be nothing done to stop the industry known as CPS. The agency is a labyrinth of government and non-profit organizations all kept alive by the need to self sustain and the need to fill the demand for healthy adoptive children.
If the state would follow the law by placing with relatives there would be huge savings to taxpayers. Protectors feel there would be a collapse of the industry and job losses in the mansion of cards. Yeah. This out of control agency has too many rooms and too many "in only" doors.
Other states have shown that sending all but 30% of kids to their own qualified family members can be done without harm to kids and millions of dollars are saved. WA keeps 85% in the system. Secretary Susan Dreyfus personally told me that the number of children out of family care needs to be vastly reduced. (VASTLY was my word.) But if you reduce from 85% to 30%, the number of children taken from homes and housed with non-relatives...that would be a VAST improvement.
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So,how did other states cope with the change to relative placement? They must have had a successful transitional plan that addressed those issues. We need a transitional plan that changes the focus from stranger placement to relative care while adapting agencies. I do NOT understand why this state is so resistant to Fostering Connections provision of relative care fostering to guardianship. There is a huge segment of relative caregivers that could benefit from it with the budget cuts. The state gets the same reimbursement so I don't get it. Are they just wanting to tear apart families for the purpose of social manipulation and conditioning?
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