All Opinions Are Local - Taking toys from foster kids won't fix D.C. child services
By Marcia Robinson Lowry, New York
In light of the difficult decisions reflected in the budget amendments passed last month by the D.C. Council, it is particularly important to ensure that the discussion of budget cuts affecting vulnerable children and families is as accurate as possible.
In his Dec. 26 Local Opinions column, “Sacred cows in D.C.’s child services budget,” Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, seemed to disregard the core value of any child welfare system — that children deserve to be raised in families — and suggested that money could be saved by cutting payments to foster families who care for abused and neglected children.
Comment from Richard Wexler
It’s always fascinating when Marcia Lowry starts debating Marcia Lowry. It was Marcia Lowry’s own report which found that DC pays its foster parents *more* than they need to cover almost every conceivable expense, including every toy, every game, every movie ticket and every amusement park ride (Think I’m kidding? Read Marcia’s “technical report” accompanying the study which explains the calculations. It’s available here: http://bit.ly/fvyts7 then check the table in the main report http://bit.ly/hL7aAf to see how DC compares.)
Indeed, the basic foster care payment in DC is $10,428 per year for younger children $11,280 per year for teenagers, again according to Marcia’s own report. And that’s tax free.
Marcia apparently believes that if foster parents don’t get that much they’ll stop buying toys for their foster children. I happen to think more highly of foster parents. I think most really aren’t in it for the money. So the real question is this, Marcia: Do you really think that the only way a foster parent will give a foster child “a few small pleasures of childhood” is if the government pays them to do it? Would you want *your* child placed with someone who would demand government reimbursement for buying that child a teddy bear? Or a sanitary napkin?
I’m not making that last example up. Check out the comments following my original op ed, (http://wapo.st/gPEmgK) and you’ll find one from a foster parent with a six-figure income, plus her husband’s income, who complains that the more than $45,000 per year she received tax free to care for four foster teenagers wasn’t enough to pay for things like sanitary napkins.
Overpaying foster parents attracts more such foster parents and fewer of the kind we all want – the kind who understand that if you really care about a child, if you are engaging in an act of charity and love, it’s worth it to dip into your own pocket, just a little. Foster parents like the one who wrote this for the Los Angeles Times: http://lat.ms/6QRj3
As for pitting birth parents, relatives and foster parents against each other, that’s Marcia Lowry’s specialty. Her settlements in Michigan and Georgia led those states to cut help for low income families and programs to keep families together in order to fund hiring binges for child abuse investigators and foster care workers.
And Marcia has been silent about the fact that DC takes away children at rates far higher than many cities, including cities that do a far better job of keeping children safe.
In tough times, everyone has to sacrifice. Is it really too much to ask that DC foster parents accept a little less than $10,000 per year, tax free, to take in a foster child?
Richard Wexler
Executive Director
National Coalition for Child Protection Reform
http://www.nccpr.org
Posted by: rwexlernccpr | January 6, 2011
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