Increasing incentives is not the answer to help our families. It is a known fact that Child Protective Agencies are in it for the money, not for the children. A better incentive would be to help the families in need to keep families together, not award those who take children from parents with little or no proof of abuse.

Great answer

In order to justify an increase of incentives, there must be a balance in the transparency, accountability, and oversight of the child welfare industry. Child welfare agencies consistently violate material provisions of law and policy on a daily basis and shall now be rewarded for such egregious activities from this legislation. The time has come to measure these Child Welfare Agencies with the rule of law.

Poverty is, once again, codified as a crime under this bill. The time has come to end the reward system for the improper removal of children.

To make the historic story of foster care and adoption short and sweet, allow me to cost-effectively sum up the policy for the Industry of Child Welfare: Poverty is abuse and neglect. Abuse and neglect is a crime. A parent(s) who is poor has abused and neglected the child for failure to provide for the welfare of the child. The state must protect the welfare of the child. People and corporations make tax write-off financial contributions to child welfare agencies. Children get medicated; pharmaceutical companies get profit; social workers get jobs. The longer a child is in foster care; the more jobs are sustained. Sustaining and creating jobs saves money for the states. Foster parenting is a job. The states and child welfare agencies are given financial incentives and receive financial rewards for each child transitioned into adoption. States need to create more jobs. Foster parenting is significantly more economical than providing services to birth parents. Adoptive families receive financial rewards for each child adopted. Child Welfare Agencies receive financial rewards for each child adopted. The states are no longer financially responsible for the child. The states are no longer financially responsible for the birth parent. Everyone contributes to the economy. A stronger economy eradicates poverty. Poverty is a crime. When you stop poverty, you stop abuse and neglect.

The passage of this bill justifies human trafficking as there are no checks and balances are in place.

Increase incentives of oversight.

In order to justify an increase of incentives, there must be a balance in the transparency, accountability, and oversight of the child welfare industry. Child welfare agencies consistently violate material provisions of law and policy on a daily basis and shall now be rewarded for such egregious activities from this legislation. The time has come to measure these Child Welfare Agencies with the rule of law.

Poverty is, once again, codified as a crime under this bill. The time has come to end the reward system for the improper removal of children.

To make the historic story of foster care and adoption short and sweet, allow me to cost-effectively sum up the policy for the Industry of Child Welfare: Poverty is abuse and neglect. Abuse and neglect is a crime. A parent(s) who is poor has abused and neglected the child for failure to provide for the welfare of the child. The state must protect the welfare of the child. People and corporations make tax write-off financial contributions to child welfare agencies. Children get medicated; pharmaceutical companies get profit; social workers get jobs. The longer a child is in foster care; the more jobs are sustained. Sustaining and creating jobs saves money for the states. Foster parenting is a job. The states and child welfare agencies are given financial incentives and receive financial rewards for each child transitioned into adoption. States need to create more jobs. Foster parenting is significantly more economical than providing services to birth parents. Adoptive families receive financial rewards for each child adopted. Child Welfare Agencies receive financial rewards for each child adopted. The states are no longer financially responsible for the child. The states are no longer financially responsible for the birth parent. Everyone contributes to the economy. A stronger economy eradicates poverty. Poverty is a crime. When you stop poverty, you stop abuse and neglect.

The passage of this bill justifies human trafficking as there are no checks and balances are in place.

Increase incentives of oversight.

Beverly Tran

Beverly makes some good points. I can only add that in the long run if every effort is made to keep families together, it would actually be more cost effective in the long run. There is alot of waste in spending so Child Welfare Agencies can stay afloat. I recently learned that the Federal Government gives 1 Billion per year. However, and so unfortunately, less than 10% is used for Family Preservation. I say, shame on you.

Also, here is, a very recent letter presented to the Reps. on thinking about the whole picture ie Family, Spending, Funds, that one should think about: http://nfpcar.org/States/WA/#Letter_to_WA_Representative

How long are we going to support an agency that IS NOT WORKING???? Our families are the greatest Resource in our Nation and should be treated as such.
May you find strength in you Higher Power,
GranPa Chuck

If, as GranPa said, the Federal Government gives 1 billion per year, I am taking it he means to Child Welfare Agencies and as Bev said previously, Foster Care is a job, ie this home gets financial help for taking these children in and Lord knows what kind of care and love they are getting in these homes, Why doesn't grandparents raising grandchildren get financial help? The children are taken out of foster care and put in a home, such as ours, that has had all the home studies, social service inspections, family finger prints and back ground checks on all the other relatives that come into contact with these children as the foster care home does and has visits from the social worker monthly, not only at the school to see that the children are in school, how they are doing and if they look like they are being taken care of properly and the home is inspected monthly until the grandparent gets legal custody and finally guardianship. The children are with family, not strangers. They know where their relatives are, they know that they are loved and are in a safe place.

Grandparents and other relative care givers need financial help. We are in our late 60's and living on our social security and teacher pension trying to give these children the kind of life they deserve and yet we get no compensation what so ever. We love these children but worry if we will have money left over for us after the children reach 18. We got them when they were 3,7 and 12. They are now 7,11 and 16. Once we got legal custody of the children foster care payments stopped.
Their cases were closed(CPS) and Social Service cares less what happens to them now. We took these children out of foster care so they could be with family. We are keeping the family together because their parents didn't and the children have not had any physical contact or financial help for the past 4 years because one parent is in prison for several years and the other only thinks of themself.

TO THOSE CONCERNED IN CONGRESS PLEASE PASS SENATE BILL 661, HILLARY CLINTON'S RELATIVE CAREGIVER SUPPORT ACT BUT INCLUDE FINANCIAL HELP FOR ALL GRANDPARENTS RAISING GRANDCHILDREN NOT JUST THOSE GRANDCHILDREN THAT ARE RECEIVING FOSTER CARE. THIS NEEDS TO BE DONE ASAP.
BIG BUSINESS IS GETTING BAILED OUT WITH BILLIONS OF DOLLARE. WE ONLY WANT WHAT IS NECESSARY TO HELP RAISE OUR GRANDCHILDREN. WITH THIS FINANCIAL HELP, WE WOULD BE ABLE TO HELP OURSELF. WE RETIRED FOR 2 NOT 5. AFTER ALL THIS TIME WITH US IT WOULD NOT BE IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILDREN TO RETURN THEM TO STRANGERS IN FOSTER CARE AND THAT IS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF WE DON'T GET FINANCIAL HELP.
grammyh

This is institutional evil at its finest. Using children to retrieve dowrys, giving away dollars to foster families so they can purchase houses in California, drugging the children and costing medicaid billions of dollars without consent from anyone, placing little children with teens and they are sexually abusing and harming these kids, allowing parents to foster when they don't even have income to support the kids, they do this for money (easy to see that one).

Mandating every family affected to obtain a mental health evaluation, just pumping up the dollars of the drug industry, almost every case a family member has a mental problem. Mandating people so report abuse, so you get to hire more people into this system for more dollars, no mental health check for foster families, soft background checks, incentives. The state is taking dollars from us tax payers and putting it into the pockets of the foster families, the kids even get college if adopted, yet refuse to pay for college for us tax payers.

Literally the states are taking away what we pay in taxes, put us through the ringer with an abuse "allegation" and then mandating us to take these case plans, ruin our reputation, our jobs, our families, and then give everything that perhaps the natural family needed to prevent an allegation, such as shortage of food, or utilities, or home payments and giving it to a family of their choosing. They have programs such as FAST to assist foster families who may be a target of the abuse hotline, and are protecting them. They are bringing in people from outside of our country with degrees held outside of our country and giving them the jobs of taking children away, in a misinterpretation of abuse. What do these families know, they are not even from this country. They will do whatever is told because they don't want to go back home. So, where does the best interest of the child fit here. Nowhere, because the child's name is not even mentioned. And social workers are trained to not attach themselves to any child, they even get paid to adopt the children. I for sure am not going to pay anymore taxes for these people to continue to launder money into their pockets in the name of child protection.

There needs to be a complete turn around in Children's Services. The simple and most basic change would be, if their "allegations" of abuse don't meet criminal standards then removal is not appropriate.
Parents are forced to spend money they don't have for services they don't need.There needs to be universal laws for removals, definitions of abuse-neglect, and strict, legal and monetary punishments against false statements from any one.

Obviously, foster care doesn't work. How many kids graduate? We hear all the time kids aren't prepared to live on their own, when they age out of the system. Then why aren't these agencies being charged with neglect? We must start revoking licenses of workers, Dr's. who over medicate, and Judge's who rubber stamp orders. Kids are so disregarded in this society, most don't even see a Judge, they get a referee. We must elect officials who have reform has their number one priority. Looking at many officials pages, I don't even see the issue mentioned. Children's Services doesn't work, how long are we going to keep failing these children? They deserve better. We must DEMAND, not ask, DEMAND better.