Foster care in idaho

THE BIG STORY Sunday, April 2, 2017 | magicvalley.com | SECTION E

DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS‌

Tina Baker holds her adopted son Josiah, 3, after coming home from grocery shopping Feb. 24 in Twin Falls. Josiah, born Robert Welch Jr., still suffers the consequences of his biological father’s felony injury to a child: permanent brain damage and developmental delays.

Children in

DANGER Neglect, abuse, drug culture overwhelm Idaho’s foster system

JULIE WOOTTON, TETONA DUNLAP AND ALEX RIGGINS

About this series

jwootton@magicvalley.com tdunlap@magicvalley.com ariggins@magicvalley.com‌

Idaho’s child welfare system is overwhelmed, with a shortage of foster parents, heavy caseloads for social workers and other widespread problems, state auditors concluded in February. And south-central Idaho has fewer foster family placement options than anywhere else in the state.

‌TWIN FALLS — Robert Wayne Welch’s girlfriend discovered something worrisome in 2014: His infant son was losing weight and vomiting. The baby’s head appeared larger than normal, too.

Paranoid that his heavy methamphetamine use would be discovered, Welch didn’t take baby Robert Welch Jr. to a hospital, prosecutors said later. But his girlfriend did.

Doctors in Boise found a fractured skull and a brain bleed. The infant appeared to suffer from shaken baby syndrome and was severely malnourished, getting only enough calories to keep his heart beating. He needed emergency surgery.

Welch would lose his parental rights and be sentenced for felony injury to a child. His son would suffer the consequences forever.

The boy is Josiah William Baker now — fostered, then adopted, by Jon and Tina Baker of Twin Falls, who picked up the 4-month-old from the hospital. Now 3 years old, he has permanent brain damage and developmental delays. He’s non-verbal and can’t be left alone.

For Josiah and other neglected, abused or abandoned children, Idaho needs a foster care system.

But it’s an overburdened system with a shortage of foster parents, overworked social workers, a lack of systemwide oversight and a culture “undercut by a constant feeling of crisis,” said a February report by the Legislature’s Office of Performance Evaluations.

The need is especially pronounced in south-central Idaho, where far fewer foster placements

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The TimesNews’ threeWootton part series, beginning today, illuminates the needs and the system’s flaws and points to potential solutions.

Reporters Riggins Julie Wootton, Alex Riggins and Tetona Dunlap are collaborating to tell the story in a deeply personal way, through the Dunlap eyes of the people with the most at stake.

TETONA DUNLAP, TIMES-NEWS‌

Sara Bloss holds her 3-year-old son, Gus, as his foster mother, Amanda Connors, pushes them in a swing at First Federal Bank Park in Twin Falls. Gus was put into foster care while Bloss was in jail on a drug charge; her husband is in prison in Kuna. The March 18 trip to a park was one of the weekly supervised visits Bloss is allowed with Gus. are available than anywhere else in the state. And the number of children removed from their homes is on the rise.

Last year, 181 south-central Idaho children were removed —

most due to neglect — compared with 161 in 2012, according to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.

Idaho legislators in March passed a resolution to create a committee

to study Idaho’s foster care system and recommend improvements. But as lawmakers debated more funding for child welfare and

MORE INSIDE: How Idaho intervenes for endangered children, E2

Please see CHILDREN, Page E3

Today: When children are neglected, abused or abandoned — why Idaho needs foster care.

April 23: Recruiting, training and retaining foster families — why there’s a shortage.

May 14: How Idaho can improve its overloaded system, and what happens when children exit foster care.

BIG STORY

E2 | Sunday, April 2, 2017

Times-News

How Idaho intervenes for endangered children ALEX RIGGINS AND JULIE WOOTTON

ariggins@magicvalley.com jwootton@magicvalley.com ‌

‌Taking children from dangerous home situations and putting them into foster care is a complicated process with a lot at stake.

Especially for the children — like the 181 in south-central Idaho who entered foster care in 2016.

Law enforcement and social workers from the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare typically share the job of determining when a child is endangered.

But the responsibility to declare a child in imminent danger — the standard for removing a child — ultimately rests with police officers and sheriff’s deputies.

Initial response‌

How do officers and social workers come into contact with these cases?

Sometimes police responding to a call — a welfare check, reports of drug use, domestic violence — happen upon a child in need of help. Other times, Health and Welfare receives a report about possible child endangerment and asks an officer to assist.

Two less common ways children can be taken from family and placed in state custody: A judge can sign an order upon Health and Welfare’s request, or a juvenile corrections case can be expanded to include child-protection proceedings when a juvenile can no longer be kept in detention but can’t be sent back to a problematic home environment.

Calls about possible child welfare issues go to Health and Welfare’s Boise office, said Marjean Hazen, child welfare supervisor for the agency’s Twin Falls office. Some referrals come from community members who notice something suspicious.

Hazen Cases are prioritized from one to three. For instance, if a person who has committed sexual abuse has access to the child victim, Hazen said, that’s a priority-one case, the highest.

In January, 83 calls for the Burley and Twin Falls offices became child-protection cases, Hazen said. But many more phone calls came in that didn’t meet the guidelines to investigate.

Summers tend to be the slowest for child-protection phone calls, she said, because “schools are a big reporter.”

Mandatory reporting‌

State law requires mandatory reporting within 24 hours by any person who “has reason to believe a child … has been abused, abandoned or neglected.” But the statute specifically lists physicians, nurses, coroners, schoolteachers, day care personnel and social workers as mandatory reporters.

Bill Brulotte, federal programs director for the Twin Falls School District, said he interprets the law to say teachers have “the same responsibility as every other citizen” to report sus- Brulotte pected child-protection issues.

“In my opinion,” he said, “it’s our civic duty to report it.”

In the school district, teachers must report within 24 hours to a school administrator or counselor.

Two adults at the school talk with the child, Brulotte said, then a call is made to Health and Welfare.

School officials talk with employees at the start of the school year about reporting suspected issues, school district spokeswoman Eva Craner said, and the topic is often revisited in spring.

Teachers are the first line of defense, Craner said, because they build relationships with their students and can notice if something changes.

Sometimes a physical indication — such as bruises — raises suspicions.

The school district, through federal Title I funding, helps make sure foster children can stay at their home schools by busing those who move outside the school’s attendance area.

“We try not to interrupt their school of origin,” Brulotte said.

Imminent danger‌

David Coach and his wife have been foster parents and adopted 10 children. Now they’re child welfare social workers for the Health and Welfare’s Twin Falls office.

“It’s difficult and rewarding,” said Coach, who has been on the job for about six months.

“Sometimes more difficult than rewarding, probably.”

A safety assessor, he goes into homes Coach when a child-protection call comes in.

“I go out to a family’s home to determine if they’re safe,” he said.

During his six months on the job, DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS‌ Coach has been on only a couple of Chloe Baker, 4, plays with her brother Josiah Baker, 3, on Feb. 24 in calls where children were removed from homes. Watching that hap- their Twin Falls home. Unable to return to their biological parents, both pen is the toughest part of the job, children were fostered, then adopted, by a Twin Falls couple. he said.

But neither schools nor social guardian ad litem, tasked with looking out for the child’s best workers can declare a child in interest, Emory said. If children imminent danger. By statute, if it doesn’t come from are appointed a guardian ad litem, a judge’s order, law enthat person is represented forcement must ultimately at the shelter care heardeclare a child in imminent ing and later hearings by danger when that child is necourt-appointed counsel. glected, abused, abandoned, And children 12 and older homeless or living with a parent can get their own attorney. or guardian who “fails to provide a stable home environment.”

Judge’s order‌ At the conclusion of a shelReasons for declaring‌ ter care hearing, if the judge finds it was reasonable to That clause — “fails to provide a stable remove a child from a home, home environthe judge must sign an order ment” — gives placing the child in the temlaw enforceporary legal custody of Health ment wide leeand Welfare. The standard of way to make deciproof in these hearings is “any evidence … which is of the type sions based on common sense, Twin Falls County which reasonable people may Sheriff’s spokeswoman Lori rely upon.”

Stewart said.

That’s a low bar for evidence, so “The presence of drugs, no parents often don’t argue their case food, disgusting and unsanitary at the shelter care hearing.

“For the most part, they stipuconditions — those are the things late,” Harris said. “They’ll say, for we really look for,” Twin Falls County care of a relative or foster parent, example, ‘We agree. They came Sheriff’s Sgt. Dan the clock starts ticking. Within 48 out to our house, we didn’t have Thom said. “If hours, except on weekends and any running water, we both lost there’s meth or holidays, there must be an initial our jobs, we don’t have much food heroine involved, court hearing, called a shelter care … It would have been a bad thing to that child gets hearing. First, the law enforcement leave them in the house, so it was taken out of the officer must fill out a petition, OK to take them into foster care.’” house.” signed by a prosecutor, which deTypically, parents and their Rosemary Em- Thom tails the facts that bring the child lawyers save any evidentiary arory, a Twin Falls within the court’s jurisdiction. guments for later hearings.

County deputy prosecutor who If the child is declared in immiThe initial order after the shelhandles child-protection cases, nent danger and taken from the ter care hearing, while establishing said children aren’t taken from home immediately, the Health and legal custody of a child, also serves homes that are simply messy.

Welfare social worker must also another important purpose. It’s “We’re talking rundown, filthy, provide a detailed affidavit. through these orders that the state animal feces everywhere,” Emory The petition must make the receives federal funding through said. “This is not for a cluttered finding that remaining in the home the Social Security Act. house, this is for houses that are a was contrary to the child’s welfare Judges have to make certain their health hazard.” and reasonable eforders include Thom said police also look for forts were made to certain findings — things like: Does the child have a keep the child in such as the absence safe, comfortable place to sleep? the home. of an alternative, safe family placeIs there healthy food in the house?

At the shelAre the children being sexually or ter care hearing, ment — to ensure physically abused? prosecutors must the state receives federal funding to “I’ve seen houses where there convince the court are only cigarettes and booze,” there was a “reapay foster families Thom said, “but there’s no food sonable reason” Harris for the children’s Campbell for declaring the for the child to eat.” care.

“If you don’t get that initial orchild in imminent danger, Magisder right, you can’t fix it,” Magistrate Judge Roger Harris said.

Safety plans‌ trate Judge Calvin Campbell said.

In homes where conditions are not quite bad enough for a child to The prosecutor’s role‌ “Then the entire time that kid is be taken away — “borderline deCounty prosecutors or the in care, there’s no funding for that cisions,” in Thom’s words — social state’s attorney general can han- child.” workers can create a safety plan dle child-protection cases. Some and follow up later to make sure counties rely completely on the Adjudicatory hearing‌ AG’s office, while others handle parents are complying.

Within 30 days of the shelter all child-protection matters them- care hearing, there must be an The drug problem‌ selves. In Twin Falls, county prose- adjudicatory hearing. Before that, Usually, if a child is removed, cutors handle initial hearings, but a Health and Welfare must invesit’s due to problems related to a lawyer from the AG’s office handles tigate and prepare a report that’s parent’s substance abuse, Hazen parental termination hearings. later submitted into evidence. said, or to physical or sexual abuse.

“The main concern is the welfare Emory described the adjudiThom estimated 60 to 80 percent of the child,” Emory said. Prosecu- catory hearing “like a trial for of the child welfare cases he’s seen tors typically are not adversarial in child-protection cases.” stem from drugs. child-protection cases, “though But there is no jury, only a judge, It’s difficult for the sheriff’s sometimes there are competing and the standard of proof is the sergeant, a father, to witness such goals.” “preponderance of the evidence,” things.

But the ultimate goal for pros- a higher standard than the shelter “Do I want to take some of these ecutors and all other parties in care hearing but a lower standard kids home?” he asked. “Hell, yeah.” child welfare cases: reunification than in criminal cases.

But he knows he can’t. He has of families.

At this hearing, prosecutors “The goal is not for the state to present their evidence based on the a job to do on a child welfare call.

“I get angry, I want to punish raise children, but to make sure Health and Welfare investigation, these people who are so self-ab- they’re not in danger,” Twin Falls and parents present their evidence. sorbed that they get high and stay County Prosecutor Grant Loebs “At the adjudicatory hearing,” stoned all the time and don’t take said.

Harris said, “the parents can come care of their kids,” Thom said. “I back and say, ‘We disagree with evwrestle with my own moral judge- Many parties to a case‌ erything that was done, and now ment — sometimes I want to beat A child-protection case has a lot that we’ve had a couple of weeks someone’s a—. But it’s not my job more players than a criminal case to prepare, we think we should get to judge. I have to do my duty and or another type of civil case, Em- our kids back, and here’s why.’” not put my moral judgement in ory said.

At the end of this hearing, a front of that duty. But it’s hard on Parents summoned to the ini- judge has several options, but the me when I find parents not doing tial shelter care hearing — often in most common are dismissing the their jobs.” custody or facing charges related to petition and sending the child back the child-protection case — get a with parents, or placing the child in Shelter care hearing‌ public defender if they can’t afford Health and Welfare custody until Once a child is declared in im- an attorney, Emory said. the parents can successfully comminent danger and placed in the Children can be appointed a plete their case plan.

Case plans‌

A case plan is crafted by Health and Welfare social workers with input from the judge, the prosecutors, the parents and the guardian ad litem. A case plan hearing in which the plan is finalized, agreed upon and signed by the judge must be held within 30 days of the adjudicatory hearing, and foster parents are allowed at this hearing so they know the plan their foster child must follow.

“This is to fix whatever is causing the child to not be safe,” Emory said.

When the root problem is parents’ drug use, the case plan always includes drug counseling. The other most common requirement for a parent is mental health counseling. Parents also can be ordered to take classes on parenting, anger management, nutrition, finances, basic homemaking and more.

The plan also identifies services to be provided to the child “to meet any educational, emotional, physical or developmental needs the child may have,” according to the state statute. For children 14 and older, the plan must also “identify the services needed to assist the youth in making the transition to successful adulthood.”

“If we know the parents are not involved — say the dad is in prison and the mom is in the drug culture — the case plan is a lot different than if the parents are working to regain custody,” Emory said. “In that case, it focuses on longer-term placement, independent living skills, things like how to balance a checkbook.”

The one thing required on all case plans: a goal of reunification, though it’s not always achievable.

“The reunification plan shall identify all issues that need to be addressed before the child can safely be returned home without department supervision,” the state statute says.

Other hearings‌

As parents work on their case plans in an attempt to regain custody, the court holds review hearings at least once every six months to evaluate the parents’ progress and check on the child’s welfare.

If needed, the court can call status hearings, less formal review hearings that don’t require the same reports from a social workers or guardian ad litem.

Permanency hearings are held within a year of a child being taken from a home and continue once a year if a permanency plan has been established. Each permanency plan includes one of three goals: reunification, termination of parental rights and adoption, or — for children 16 or 17 — another planned living arrangement.

Termination of parental rights‌ Parental rights can be terminated quickly if there is an aggravating factor like physical or sexual abuse. Parental rights can also be terminated if parents fail to successfully complete case plans within about two years.

Idaho’s statute says there must be a petition to terminate parental rights if a child is in Health and Welfare custody for 15 of the most recent 22 months. But there is leeway to work with parents who are progressing more slowly than that.

Reunification‌

When the system works as it’s supposed to, children are taken out of foster care or other living situations decided by Health and Welfare and returned to their families.

“We’re always happy when parents do a good case plan,” Emory said. “We don’t expect parents to be perfect, but we expect them to be better.”

“It’s awesome, it’s incredible,” Campbell said of seeing a family reunited. “To see what they’ve struggled through, and to see the journey they’ve gone through …

It’s important to be able to see those victories, because you also see the failures, too.”

The judge said it’s worth the struggle whether families are reunited or not, because these are important cases.

“The way I look at it, no matter what we do, we’re always trying to do what’s best for the kids,” Campbell said. “And hopefully, that’s to get back with their parents and be reunified and be a family again.

That’s the gold standard.”

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BIG STORY

TIMES-NEWS

SUNDAY, APRIL 2, 2017 |

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PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS

Baylee Brown, 17 — taken from her mother three years ago — lines up balls before the start of her dodgeball tournament March 4 at the 7th Street Gym in Buhl. Baylee, a foster youth advocate, organized the tournament as part of her senior project in an effort to collect hygiene products for foster children.

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higher payments to foster parents, south-central Idaho still faced an extreme shortage of licensed foster parents.

And the need can’t wait. A child removed from a dangerous situation needs a bed to sleep in that night. Food and clothing. A sense of security. Love.

Someone has to be willing to help.

‘All kinds of drugs’

Baylee Brown was one of those children.

Hospitalized as a high school freshman, she was interviewed by child protection workers.

Whatever they learned resulted in Baylee staying with a half-brother instead of returning home to her mother and stepfather.

“They did drugs continuously.

All kinds of drugs,” said Baylee, now a 17-year-old Buhl High School senior. “My stepdad was abusive — not toward me, but my little sister.”

Baylee tried to protect her younger sister. Then, she said, her stepfather started directing the anger toward her. Baylee didn’t want to elaborate.

In January 2014, the night “everything happened,” family friend Brenda Hoover received a phone call from Health and Welfare asking if she could help.

Hoover had been friends with Baylee’s mother and stepfather since they were teens and had known Baylee and her sister since their births.

“The kids all grew up calling me aunt Brenda,” she said.

After that nighttime call, Hoover looked after Baylee’s half-sister, now 6, under a 30day safety plan from Health and Welfare. Baylee spent that time with her older half-brother, but he couldn’t become a foster parent because he was only 20.

Hoover wasn’t sure she was fit to be a foster parent. Toward the end of the 30-day plan, she said, “I threw my hands up in the air.”

She prayed, asking God for direction.

The next day, Health and Welfare called, asking if Hoover could become both girls’ foster mother.

She took the Health and Welfare training, negotiated the difficult emotional waters and helped Baylee become a student athlete and a foster youth advocate.

And in October, after 2 1/2 years of fostering, Hoover became Baylee’s legal guardian. Their relationship would be permanent.

‘I wasn’t a good parent’

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Other parents with drug problems, like Sara Bloss, try to beat the drugs and reunite their families.

In a Plant Therapy warehouse smelling of lavender, citrus and peppermint, Bloss gave a cheerful

DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS

Sara Bloss talks about her new job March 13 at Plant Therapy in Twin Falls. Getting a job was one of the requirements she must meet before her son can return to her care.

DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS

Jon Baker plays with his son Josiah, 3, on Feb. 24 at their Twin Falls home. The Bakers fostered Josiah before adopting him.

Entering foster care The number of children removed from homes in south-central Idaho — Blaine, Camas, Cassia, Gooding, Jerome, Lincoln, Minidoka and Twin Falls counties — and the reasons: Abandonment

Homelessness

Neglect

(Categories are in the same order as the graph below.)

TOTAL: 161 TOTAL: 167 149

Physical abuse

Sexual abuse

TOTAL: 132

TOTAL: 187 169

Voluntary placement TOTAL: 181 166

147 116

4

0

4 4

0

2012

9 4

2 5

0

2013

3

0

9 4

0

1 4

2014

8 4 1

1 0

2015

Exiting foster care

12

1

1

2016

Average number of months spent in foster care

The percentage of south-central Idaho children exiting foster care who were reunited with a biological parent. On average, those children spent 4.2 fewer months in foster care than the overall average.

All children exiting foster care 13.6

80%

Children reunited with parents 9.4

75% 70% 65% 60%

Total exits: 169

Total exits: 146

2012

2013

Total exits: 154

Total exits: 159

2014

Source: Idaho Department of Health and Welfare

“Hi!” and a wave to a co-worker sealing a package of essential oils March 13. Before starting her afternoon tasks, Bloss showed a photo taken with her husband that weekend — the first time she’d seen him in nine months. He wore a blue prison suit.

“He told me, ‘When you talk to

2015

Total exits: 176

2016 Lee Enterprises graphic

the reporter, you tell her it was all my fault,’” said Bloss, a 30-yearold Twin Falls mother with a 3-year-old son.

Bloss’ husband violated his probation, was charged with felony possession of meth and is serving 2 1/2 years in prison in Kuna. In November, Bloss was charged with

the same crime and sentenced to 30 days in jail. She left her son, Gus, with a friend.

But that friend got arrested after police found drugs in her vehicle, and Gus was put into foster care.

“It wasn’t neglect,” Bloss said.

“Not all children are taken because of neglect.”

Now Bloss has to prove to Health and Welfare that she deserves to have her son back, she said as she double-checked the essential oils inside a box headed for Canada and taped it up.

When her son entered foster care, Bloss didn’t know where he was living. She was scared.

“You don’t know who he’s with because you are in jail,” she said.

“It was the most stressful 30 days of my life.”

Then she met Gus’ foster mother — Amanda Connors, who grew up in foster care in Twin Falls and Jerome — and her worries subsided.

“She’s a young girl paying it forward,” Bloss said. “I know he’s in good hands with her.”

Growing up, Connors bounced around different foster homes and group homes. Her father committed suicide when she was young.

Her mother and stepfather used drugs; today, she has a good relationship with them, though they don’t talk much.

Connors, 29, has fostered eight children and has four in her home now — including Gus, who ran over to Connors as she sat at the dining room table Feb. 13.

“Mom!” he yelled, clutching a bag of Skittles. Connors tried to refuse the yellow candy he pushed toward her mouth but eventually ate it.

“Ahh!” Connors said. “No more. Thank you.”

Connors is glad to hear her foster children call her Mom. They must feel secure, she figures.

“It’s pretty neat to watch the kids grow and feel safe,” Connors said, “and see how happy they are when they see their family.”

Of all the biological parents Connors works with, Bloss is the only one who consistently shows up for scheduled visits.

“I need to be there for my son,” Bloss said. She wishes she could see him every day. “That just kills me.”

But before Gus can return to her Please see CHILDREN, Page E4

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| SUNDAY, APRIL 2, 2017

BIG STORY

TIMES-NEWS

DREW NASH PHOTOS, TIMES-NEWS

Sara Bloss works March 13 at Plant Therapy in Twin Falls. ‘My goal is to stay sober for the rest of my life,’ she says. ‘I wasn’t a good parent before. I wasn’t being the best mom I could be.’

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care, Bloss must complete a fourhour online parenting class, have a job and finish a twice-weekly drug treatment program at the Walker Center in Gooding. Bloss has the Plant Therapy job and completed the parenting class, but the third requirement remains. After work March 13, she planned to drive to Gooding for three hours of the drug treatment class.

Bloss is allowed supervised visits with Gus for an hour each week.

Instead of doing it at a Health and Welfare office, they play at parks or JumpTime Idaho and get ice cream at Arctic Circle.

“I’m blessed we get to have those kinds of visits,” Bloss said.

She often brings toys for the other foster children in Connors’ home, so they don’t feel left out.

Gus would start play therapy in mid-March. Bloss’ social worker said Gus was having trouble expressing himself with words.

“It kind of confuses him,” Bloss said. “Playing shows kids love.”

Connors sends Bloss photos of Gus on the swings and the slides.

“He’s at the park and it lets me know he’s OK,” Bloss said. “The foster mom is amazing. She’s so cool.”

With a court date approaching, Tina Baker plays with her adopted son Josiah, 3, after coming home from grocery shopping Feb. 24 as daughter Taren Baker, 9, looks on from the Bloss hoped to get unsupervised couch. Josiah, severely injured by his biological father, is like an infant but more demanding, Baker says. He’s ‘super smart’ but yells if left alone. visits with her son. And at the next court appearance, in June, she hopes the judge will let her have enforcement declaring a child in In 2016, the Twin Falls Police Gus back. imminent danger.

Department received 46 calls to “My goal is to stay sober for the In 2016, Twin Falls sheriff’s assist an Idaho Department of rest of my life,” she said. “I wasn’t Health and Welfare social worker deputies also responded to two a good parent before. I wasn’t bedrunken driving incidents and one with investigating a possible ing the best mom I could be. My domestic violence call that child-endangerment situation, son needs me.” and the Twin Falls County Sheriff’s became child-protection situations.

Office received 24 such calls.

‘How can you But law enforcement agencies Sometimes social workers send them back?’ have difficulty tallying all cases determined there was no child-protection issue; after some that become child-protection And what did the baby with a cases. A better way to track them calls, social workers created a fractured skull need? Not what is through county magistrate safety plan for the parents and his biological dad could provide, courts. child; and some ended with law a court concluded.

When doctors found infant 80 Twin Falls Jerome Robert Welch Jr.’s skull fracture 70 and brain bleed, Welch’s ex-wife * through early March told police he’d blamed the injury 60 on their two children jumping on 50 the bed the infant lay on.

And, court documents say, she Robert Welch is sentenced in February 2015 at the Twin Falls County 40 told police how Welch had replied Courthouse on a charge of felony injury to a child. His infant son — sufferwhen she confronted him: “Am I ing a fractured skull, a brain bleed and severe malnutrition — was placed 30 supposed to tell the cops that I in foster care and later adopted.

20 beat the s— out of my own kid so they can put me in jail for the next time soon. Welch gave up his pa- or failing to seek treatment. A 10 15 years?” rental rights in a child-protection second count of felony injury to In February 2015, Welch was case, and a plea agreement in his a child, dropped in the plea deal, 0 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017* sentenced to a therapeutic pro- criminal case restricts Welch from said Welch failed to feed the baby.

Lee Enterprises graphic The Bakers, already foster pargram with the Idaho Department seeing the boy until he’s 16. The of Correction, known as a rider, birth mother wasn’t in the pic- ents for other children, thought daughter, two foster children and Botox injections — eight in his and then to seven years of super- ture in 2014; she went to prison six they would be providing hospice three children the couple fostered calves and two on the soles of his vised probation starting in Octo- days after giving birth for a parole care during the baby’s final days then adopted. feet — to counteract the curling of ber 2015. violation on a forgery conviction, on Earth. But that was three years “How can you send them back his toes, a result of his brain injury. ago, and now the renamed Josiah when you love on them?” Jon said.

“I’m very sorry for the things according to court records.

Tina and her husband usually I’ve done,” Welch said at his senWilling to speak only briefly last is their adopted son. He’s like an Adopted daughter Chloe Baker, say yes to taking in foster chiltencing hearing. “I realize I do have month, Welch defended himself, infant, but more demanding, Tina 4, carried a pink florescent bal- dren. But the night before Josia problem. I love Junior more than pointing out he was convicted for Baker said. He’s “super smart” but loon around the living room that ah’s procedure, when they got a anything. I pray for him every day.” neglecting to seek medical care, yells if left alone. afternoon and showed off her call about an 11-year-old girl who During a brief phone interview not for beating the infant; he said On a Friday afternoon in stuffed animal, Olaf from the Dis- was suicidal, they were maxed out March 20, Welch blamed the ne- he still doesn’t know how the ba- mid-February, Tina pulled a photo ney movie “Frozen.” A 6-month- and said no. glect on his heavy meth use. by’s skull was fractured. He called off her refrigerator: Josiah as an old foster girl napped in another “I didn’t want an extra worry “I was not a good person,” Welch losing Junior “heartbreaking” but infant, at the Boise hospital where room. On a kitchen chair, Josiah on my plate,” said Tina, who was already stressed out. remembered. “I did my rider — said he’s trying to put those events they took him in. watched a video on an iPad. Health and Welfare would have pretty much six months of an in- in his past.

About 45 foster children have Josiah was recovering from a tense in-patient program — and it Welch’s conviction was for cre- come through the Bakers’ doors procedure earlier that day at St. to find the girl a different home changed my life for the better.” ating an environment that allowed since 2011. Six children live under Luke’s Magic Valley Medical Cen- in Idaho’s overburdened foster But he won’t see the boy any- his son to sustain a skull fracture their roof now: Jon’s biological ter, Tina said. Sedated, he received system.

Child-protection cases

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SUNDAY, APRIL 23, 2017 |

SUNDAY, APRIL 23, 2017

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magicvalley.com |

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SECTION E

“

They think you are getting these terrible children who will destroy your home and be mean. Most of these children, they are being taken away from their parents.

That’s really hard and confusing, but that doesn’t mean they are bad kids.

Krystle Baker, interested in foster parenting

DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS

Taren Baker, 9, hangs out in the kitchen with her family Feb. 24. Taren’s biological mother gave up her parental rights, and her Twin Falls foster parents adopted her five years ago. Many people approach foster parenting with the hope of adopting, but the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare’s primary goal is reunifying foster children with biological parents.

SEVERE SHORTAGE Idaho foster parents quit almost as fast as they’re recruited

TETONA DUNLAP, JULIE WOOTTON AND ALEX RIGGINS

tdunlap@magicvalley.com jwootton@magicvalley.com ariggins@magicvalley.com

JEROME — Couples sat at a horseshoe of tables, in a room decorated with motivational posters. “Vision” depicted a boat on still water, and “Leadership” featured the silhouette of a horse.

Propped on the tabletops were paper tags scrawled with first names. The couples snacked on chips and sipped bottled water. In front of the room, foster parent recruiter Susan Baca and social worker Nick Wolfrey rattled off topics the would-be foster parents might encounter.

Physical abuse. Sexual abuse. Multicultural misunderstanding. AIDS. Krystle Baker, 25, came alone to the first of nine Pre-service Foster and Adoptive Parent Training classes in mid-February. One of three requirements was already fulfilled: She had three letters of recommendation but needed to complete the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare’s PRIDE classes and a home study.

“It’s something I always wanted to do,” she said. “I just like kids.”

While the need escalates, south-central Idaho suffers from a severe shortage of people who, like Baker, want to become foster parents.

But it takes more than interest. Prospective foster parents must complete a months-long process to become licensed. They must face whatever problems the children bring from situations of abuse or neglect — burns, violent outbursts, distrust. And they often feel overwhelmed, asked to take on more and more children.

“We are overburdening foster parents,” Baca said, “and that makes it difficult.”

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Worst in the state Though the statistics fluctuate daily, south-central Idaho consistently has the fewest general foster family beds available of anywhere in the state. And it has by far the fewest available per population of minors.

General beds available – licensed but not taken – on Jan. 1, 2017 Available beds in general foster homes (July 2016) for every 1,000 children younger than 18 in the general population (using 2015 population estimates)

124 2.6

NOTES: “Available” beds sometimes aren’t actually available for placements; for instance, if a foster family is licensed for four children but takes in two special-needs children, it may not be willing to take in more.

“General” foster families don’t include relatives or fictive kin – people who foster because they feel family-like bonds with particular children.

51 2.7

117 1

81 1.1

About this project Idaho’s child welfare system is overwhelmed, with a shortage of foster parents, heavy caseloads for social workers and other widespread problems, state auditors concluded in February. And south-central Idaho has fewer foster family placement options than anywhere else in the state.

Wootton

Today’s coverage is the second part of the Times-News’ three-part series illuminating the needs and the system’s flaws and pointing to potential solutions.

Reporters Tetona Dunlap, Julie Wootton and Alex Riggins are collaborating to tell the story in a deeply personal way, through the eyes of the people with the most at stake.

Riggins

April 2: When children are neglected, abused or abandoned — why Idaho needs foster care. Find this coverage at Magicvalley.com/ bigstory.

Dunlap

163 2.3

21 0.4

89 2.4

Sources: Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, Legislature's Office of Performance Evaluations Lee Enterprises graphic

Today: Recruiting, training and retaining foster families — why there’s a shortage.

May 14: How Idaho can improve its overloaded system, and what happens when children exit foster care.

MORE INSIDE: Inside a Twin Falls foster home: The big-bed deal and the soggy stickers, E2 | Inside a Twin Falls foster home: Snotty noses and a rare heart condition, E3

BIG STORY

E2 | Sunday, April 23, 2017

Times-News

INSIDE A TWIN FALLS FOSTER HOME

The big-bed deal and the soggy stickers TETONA DUNLAP

tdunlap@magicvalley.com‌

day sign still hung next to the table. Connors’ 6-year-old foster son, who celebrated a birthday in February, emerged from the hallway with damp hair.

“How was your bath, buddy?” she asked.

“Good,” he replied.

“I think your shirt is on backwards,” she said.

Asked if his pants fit, he nodded, looking down, as his pant legs dragged on the carpet. Connors asked if he was hungry, and he nodded again.

“Yeah? What do you want?

You want a sandwich? You want peanut butter, or you want ham?”

The boy chose ham along with string cheese and juice in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cup. He pulled the cheese apart and let it hang from his mouth. Connors’ dog, Layla, barked from the backyard.

The 6-year-old shares a room with another foster child, 3-year-old Gus. They sleep in a bunk bed with basketball- and baseball-printed sheets. Soon Connors will start potty-training Gus — a new endeavor for the foster mother. When the children A 6-year-old boy who recently had a birthday eats lunch in his Twin Falls foster home March 6. get upset or act up, Connors puts them in timeout or has them sit in their rooms.

Connors once lived in the home of a woman who spoke Spanish and very little English. They had a lot of problems communicating.

The woman worked evenings, Connors recalled, and didn’t let her stray far from the front yard. Connors felt more connected with the woman’s mother-in-law but eventually ran away to a bowling alley.

“Bless her soul for taking me in, but I was a teenager,” she said.

After that, a friend’s grandparents, who were foster parents, opened their home to her.

‌TWIN FALLS — Amanda Connors cradled a baby girl dressed in pink as she tried to maneuver tiny feet into new boots from which tags still dangled. The baby reached for Connors’ silver cross necklace with chubby fingers just as she got the second boot on.

“Every time I go to the store I come back with something for them,” Connors said.

She remembers the first time the baby rolled over without getting stuck on her shoulder. It was seven months ago, while Connors was changing her at 2:30 a.m., and the 2-monthold had just come to live with her.

“Now she’s just all over,” Connors said.

Connors, 29, isn’t the baby’s biological mother, but as a foster mother she has stepped into the role of a parent in every way.

Connors was there when the baby crawled for the first time and opened her first Christmas presents — more interested in the wrapping paper than the gifts inside.

The baby is happy most of the time. She likes rice cakes and loves the taste of bacon.

She also likes other children interacting with her.

Recently, the girl has been trying to pull herself up to walk. She likes playing with trucks belonging to Connors’ two foster sons because they help her walk. On March 6, she pushed a yellow backhoe across the carpet in Connors’ Twin Falls home.

In four days, she would be 10 months old.

The last time Connors was in court for the baby, she told the judge she’d like to adopt her. The baby’s grandmother was there and said she was open to the idea.

But Connors knows not to get her hopes too high. The baby could go back to her ‘She’s come mother or father. a long way’‌ “You got to keep that thought in the back of your Recently, Connors’ mind,” Connors said. “It’s 16-year-old foster daughter bittersweet.” wanted a bigger bed. Connors made her a deal: If she made her bed every day, she’d get a ‘So many calls’‌ Connors has been a foster bigger one. parent for only nine months On March 6, a Care Bear but has cared for nine chil- was propped against the pildren. lows of the teen’s neatly made “There are so many kids in bed. A deflated Valentine’s foster care,” Connors said. “I Day balloon was tacked to the get so many calls.” wall near her tidy desk. ConLicensed for three chil- nors kept her promise, and so dren, she has four in her care. has her foster daughter.

A wall in her living room “She’s come a long way,” features photos of children Connors said. “I’m so proud Connors has fostered. In of her. She’s got A’s and B’s. one, two boys are dabbing — She’s pretty open with me; posing with their arms across a lot of my personal experitheir faces. In another Con- ences are hand in hand with nors sticks out her tongue hers.” with a boy whose eyes are And because Connors can wide and mouth open. provide her with a stable A sign on another wall says: home, the 16-year-old has “Family Rules — Always tell been able to participate in the truth, laugh, dream big.” high school sports.

On March 6, clothes “Sometimes you don’t sloshed in a washing machine know where you’ll sleep,” in the hallway. In Connors’ Connors said. “You just have home, laundry is a nonstop a feeling when you know it’s not your home.” chore.

“I can’t believe how many In the living room, the clothes they have,” she said. 6-year-old started to unbox But when the children ar- one of his birthday presents rive, they often show up with — a Hot Wheels racecourse. little or nothing at all. The Connors helped him find baby came with a basket of pieces to snap together. The belongings, and the 16-year- baby helped too; she had old had a box. The 6-year-old one Hot Wheels sticker on had a few outfits, but none fit. her hand, and the rest of the Connors keeps spare clothes sticker sheet in her mouth. on hand in case a child arrives “You see this one right with nothing. here,” Connors said, pointing Though Connors has been to a purple plastic piece. “You a foster parent for less than a want one of those. Yeah, this year, she isn’t new to the fos- one right here.” ter care system.

They searched for a piece Growing up in Twin Falls in the pile before realizing and Jerome, she was 11 when the baby had it all along. The she entered foster care, re- stickers were a bit soggy.

“Ewww!” the boy said. moved from the care of a mother and stepfather who His cars took a few turns used drugs. Her experiences down the spiral course before shaped her desire to be a fos- they had to put on their coats ter parent. and shoes to walk to the bus.

During Christmas, Con- The boy attends half-day nors raised enough money kindergarten, and the next from donors to hold a holiday time Connors would see party for 260 foster children him, he’d be asleep. Connors at Radio Rondevoo. works from 2 to 10:30 p.m.

“Being a foster parent has and picks up her foster chilchanged my life for good,” dren from day care after she said. work.

Connors’ mother and stepConnors reminded the father give birthday presents boy to grab his glasses, and the dryer’s buzzer sounded to all her foster children.

“My whole family is really just before they walked out supportive with it,” she said. the door.

“It definitely surprised me.”

It was a blustery but short In the dining room, a birth- walk to the bus. A mother and

DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS‌

DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS‌

DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS‌

Amanda Connors puts new shoes on a 9-month-old foster girl Amanda Connors plays with a 9-month-old foster daughter March 6 at her Twin Falls home.

March 6. son emerged from a nearby house just as the bus pulled up. The woman called to her son, “Bye, buddy. Love you.”

Connors held a blanket over the baby’s head as the 6-year-old boarded the bus.

“All right, buddy,” she said, “have a good day at school.”

‘Mom! Mom!’‌

When people sign up to become a foster parents, they take on not only the responsibility for children, but also interactions with biological parents.

Connors brought Gus to First Federal Bank Park on March 18 for his weekly onehour visit with his mother, Sara Bloss, who lost custody while jailed on drug charges.

Usually biological parents have their supervised visits at the Idaho Department of Heath and Welfare, but Bloss said she’s doing so well that the judge agreed to let Connors conduct the visits.

Connors said Bloss is the only parent or other relative who shows up every time she schedules a visit. When relatives don’t show up, Connors tries to make her foster children feel better by taking them for ice cream or letting them pick out a toy at the dollar store.

The park swarmed with children gliding on swings, sailing down slides and scrambling up fake rocks.

Gus — wearing a Superman hat and black and red jacket — smiled widely, taking off across the park.

“Gussy!” Bloss called, chasing him.

Connors hung back by the entrance, taking out her cellphone as she sat on a bench.

Connors likes to keep her distance so mother and son can play without distraction.

Once in a while she looked up and scanned the park for the pair.

“Oh, my! That’s so cute,” Connors said as Bloss pushed Gus on a zip line swing. Then Gus ran toward the empty splash pad on the other side

TETONA DUNLAP, TIMES-NEWS‌

Sara Bloss pushes her 3-year-old son, Gus, on a First Federal Bank Park swing March 18. Gus was put into foster care while Bloss was in jail on a drug charge; the park trip was one of the weekly supervised visits Bloss is allowed. of the park. Bloss followed and asked where he was going.

“You’re a crazy guy,” she told him.

Gus walked under the water-stained multicolored rings. Bloss picked him up and hugged him, and he squirmed to get out of her embrace.

“Let’s go play on the toys, silly,” she said.

Gus ran behind the bathrooms before making his way toward a slide in the middle of the park.

Bloss dialed her cellphone, holding it to her ear.

“Hi, Daddy,” she said.

“Yeah, I told you I got him at 4.”

At first, Gus ignored the phone his mother held out.

He started climbing the slide’s ladder, but Bloss held the phone to his ear. He smiled at his father’s voice,

speaking from a Kuna prison.

Bloss followed Gus as he slid down, the phone in her hand on speaker mode. The phone sat on Gus’ lap when he wanted to swing.

“Mom!” Gus yelled, looking in Connors’ direction.

“Mom! Mom!” Bloss also turned and tried to get her attention.

“Amanda!”

Bloss said she often tells Connors to join them during their visit, but Connors never does. Today, however, Connors pushed mother and son as they lay on a red swing big enough for two. The smell of burning irrigation ditches infiltrated the park, and bubbles from a nearby bubble machine drifted toward the three.

“How is this swing?” Connors asked.

“Relaxing,” Bloss replied, holding Gus on her stomach

so they were face to face.

After Gus had enough swinging, he spotted a bench full of McDonald’s Happy Meals and grabbed one, but Bloss took it from him before he could open it. In response, Gus emptied the blue Tic Tacs she gave him on the green turf. When the container was empty, he threw it.

Later he grabbed his mother’s sunglasses and threw them. A lens popped out when they hit the ground.

“That’s OK,” Bloss said, retrieving them.

Gus crawled inside a red plastic dome and plopped down. He was tired of the park and wanted ice cream.

“Are you going to be nice?”

Connors asked when he emerged.

Gus said he would, and his mother kissed his cheek as he stared across the park at no one in particular.

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BIG STORY

Times-News

Sunday, April 23, 2017 | E3

INSIDE A TWIN FALLS FOSTER HOME

Snotty noses and a rare heart condition JULIE WOOTTON

jwootton@magicvalley.com ‌

‌TWIN FALLS — This afternoon, Tina Baker’s quiet time was an hour of running errands.

She and her husband, Jon, have six children living under their roof. And on Feb. 24, the entire crowd was home because it was Jon’s day off work and snowfall cancelled school.

Tina returned home with full WinCo and Old Navy plastic bags, set them on the kitchen island, greeted Jon and picked up adopted 3-year-old son Josiah.

Soon, the Bakers’ 5-year-old foster son came into the house DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS‌ crying because his feet were wet Chloe Baker, 4, gives a tour of her family’s basement Feb. 24. Unable to with snow. He wiped his runny return to her biological parents, Chloe was fostered, then adopted, by a nose on his shirtsleeve.

“Mom, can I have a snack?” ad- Twin Falls couple. opted 4-year-old daughter Chloe asked, and Tina passed out small packages of Dole fruit snacks.

Since gaining their foster parFill out an online survey on the Idaho Department of Health and Welent license in 2011, the Bakers have fare’s website: http://bit.ly/2nIZyL6 seen 45 children come through their home.

After that, you’ll be contacted by an experienced foster parent and/or “We get calls quite often to take a social worker. more,” Tina said.

They’ll ask questions and talk with you about the next steps in the Her original thought was they’d process, including an orientation meeting, application, 27 hours of take in foster teenagers and their training, home study and licensing. babies, but that never happened.

“God had a different plan for us.”

Interesting in foster parenting?

‘Always wanted a big family’‌ The six at home now are Jon’s biological teenage daughter, two foster children and three former foster children the Bakers adopted.

“I always wanted a big family too, so here we go,” Tina said.

She’s not sure exactly when she and Jon decided to adopt multiple children. It just happened over time. And they continue to foster.

Their 6-month-old foster girl has a rare heart condition called tetralogy of fallot — a combination of four heart defects present at birth — and had open heart surgery at 3 months old. On the afternoon of Feb. 17, Jon rested her on the kitchen counter and lifted up her fuzzy shirt to reveal a large, red incision on her chest.

The 5-year-old foster boy was at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Magic Valley that afternoon. He loves

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The alternative is difficult, too: Placing a child in a foster home that’s too far away, breaking ties with churches, schools and neighbors.

Health and Welfare’s Child and Family Services has struggled for at least 13 years to improve Idaho’s worsening shortage of foster parents. But the parents quit at nearly the same rate they are recruited.

From March 2014 to March 2016, the number of Idaho foster homes dropped by 8 percent, or 88 homes. Officials attribute that decline to foster parents’ frustrations with the system, to life changes or to successful adoption. And others who became foster parents to care for specific children dropped out after that need passed.

Some stop after fostering just one child. Idaho’s foster system stresses reunification with birth parents, but for some new foster parents it’s just too hard to give up the children.

“We do ask people to open their homes and hearts, and they have to send them back, and that’s hard to do,” Baca said.

In 2015, Child and Family Services licensed 352 foster parents statewide but saw a net increase of only 33 by 2016.

That’s excruciating math. Put another way: For every 11 foster parents recruited, trained and licensed, the total increased by only one. That means Child and Family Services would need to license an estimated 936 foster parents in a single year to replace the 88 lost since 2014.

A February report by the Legislature’s Office of Performance Evaluations suggested a more efficient solution: retention.

If Child and Family Services continued to recruit foster parents at the same rate but increased retention by 5 percent, the OPE wrote, it would see the same increase but have more experienced foster parents available.

Idaho’s Legislature this year took the first steps to address widespread problems laid bare in the OPE report, approving a $69.5 million budget for the Division of Child Welfare that increases payments to foster families by 20 percent and beefs up staffing. The

it there. He’d recently missed a week of school while sick; his fever climbed to 103.8 degrees.

“It seems that the kids we get have immune systems that are no good,” said Tina, who’s a nurse.

Minor illnesses such as colds seem practically constant, she said. “Everybody’s got snotty noses all the time.”

Because she’s a nurse, Tina and Jon are often asked to take in foster children with complex medical issues.

“There’s no such thing as a normal foster kid,” Tina said.

“Or a normal kid,” Jon chimed in.

Tina had her first son at age 14 and her second at 18, and she married their father when her oldest boy was 8 months old. They divorced after 18 years.

Tina’s sons from that marriage, now 21 and 26, live in the Magic Valley and stop by often. “They both hang out,” she said. “We usu-

ally just have a revolving door.”

Jon also has two biological children: 13-year-old Abigayle and her DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS‌ 19-year-old brother.

Taren Baker, 9, adopted five years ago, spins around in costume in her Together, Jon and Tina adopted family’s downstairs play area Feb. 24 in Twin Falls.

Taren five years ago, then last year Josiah and Chloe.

Josiah, who suffers from perma- age Mutant Ninja Turtles shirt — “I was the first one to get ad- nent brain damage and develop- she found it on clearance — out of an Old Navy bag and took it to the opted,” chimed in Taren, now 9. mental delays.

One of the family’s three dogs, living room.

Roscoe, was inside, his feet skitPoop and puke‌ “Josiah, look at what Mom On the afternoon of Feb. 24, tering across the kitchen floor. found you,” she said, holding it up. with the children home for a The two other dogs peered into The three other youngsters, snow day and Jon off work, Tina the house from the other side of after dancing in the living room, received a call saying she didn’t the sliding glass door. headed to a playroom downstairs need to come to the Sawtooth Outside, Abigayle and Taren to play dress-up. Soon, Taren Surgery Center, where she works shoveled snow together in the emerged wearing a dark red coson Fridays. So the whole family front yard, but they started fight- tume dress. ing. So Jon sent Taren to work in was home.

The 6-month-old was asleep in The television in the living room the backyard instead. another room. She’s teething and displayed a video and lyrics to the After finishing the driveway, is pooping frequently, Tina said. song “Itsy Bitsy Spider.” Josiah Abigayle ate chips and played “Now she’s got a sore bum.” and Chloe played on the living phone games on a bar stool at the As she unloaded baby food from room floor. kitchen island. Tina unloaded the WinCo bag, she said the baby Jon held Josiah, who stood up items from plastic bags onto the also has acid reflux, but solid food dancing to the song. “Blah,” said counter. She pulled a green Teen- helps. It means there’s less puke.

department will get two new social worker positions, bringing the total to 266, and six more foster care support staff, bringing that total to 20.

“Lawmakers recognized the needs we have,” Health and Welfare spokeswoman Niki Forbing-Orr said.

The Legislature also approved a resolution continuing the duties of a committee created last year that’s tasked with studying the foster care system and working with Health and Welfare on ways to improve it.

Monthly payments, however, aren’t sufficient motivation. Foster parenting takes something more.

‘Not the best time’‌

Baker, who found out a few years ago that it would be difficult for her to have children of her own, thought foster parenting might provide an opportunity to adopt.

Many of the couples at the same February training also expressed desire to adopt.

But Baca and Wolfrey quickly reminded them that foster care is about safe reunification with biological parents.

Another obstacle for many who consider fostering is the idea that the children had something to do with their situations.

Baker said her relatives didn’t like the idea: You’re going to let these strange kids into your house? But Baker, believing foster children are wrongly stereotyped, signed up for PRIDE anyway.

“They think you are getting these terrible children who will destroy your home and be mean,” she said. “Most of these children, they are being taken away from their parents. That’s really hard and confusing, but that doesn’t mean they are bad kids. It just means they need a little extra help. We should all do our part in the community, and that’s the path I chose.”

At the end of the night, Baca told the trainees that even if they decide not to become foster parents right now, they should complete the class. PRIDE certification is good for five years.

“We’ve given you a lot to think about, especially those in preadopt,” she said. “Don’t quit the class. Come do the journey with me.”

Baker dropped out after the third class. Her reasons were sim-

DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS‌

Few foster children are immediately available for adoption, says Susan Baca, a foster parent recruiter for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. ‘Other than that you are signing on to work with the system for reunification.’

Leavitt, who has licensed foster parents for Health The average number of licensed foster families in south-central Idaho and Welfare since fell over the past five years, while the region's average number of 1996. They just children in foster care rose significantly. need to be willing 246.5 Foster families to try their best.

Children in care A key to suc211.5 Leavitt cess is being able 204.8 198.4 to work with a 188.7 foster child’s biological parents, she said. “That’s something that scares a lot of people. But we try to train them how to go about it.”

Foster parents don’t have to al113.5 106.8 low biological parents into their 103 103.8 94.8 homes, Leavitt said, but they’re encouraged to invite them to a child’s medical appointments, for example. It’s important to learn how to co-parent.

“A lot of people have issues with that,” she added, because they’re afraid of the birth family.

2015 2016 2012 2013 2014 “It’s very rewarding to them if they’re willing to try and willing Lee Enterprises graphic Source: Idaho Department of Health and Welfare to learn.” ilar to others who came before: time around,” Baker said in late When Leavitt receives a licensIt wasn’t the right time. One of March. “But I’m going to do them ing application from a prospective her dogs wasn’t compatible with again. Something happened where foster parent, she sends a packet children. The classes were too far right now is not the best time.” with forms to fill out. Applifrom home. cants must also be fingerprinted, She plans to re-enroll by the ‘If they’re willing to try’‌ undergo a criminal background end of summer.

Potential foster parents don’t “I didn’t end up finishing this have to be perfect, said Ellen Please see SHORTAGE, Page E4

Foster family shortage

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| SUNDAY, APRIL 23, 2017

TIMES-NEWS

Shortage From E3

check and have a medical reference and three personal references. Also, a home study usually requires a couple of visits to a potential foster parent’s home.

Social workers doing home studies talk with parents about their histories, Baca said. They ask the families’ biological children how they’d feel about foster siblings. They check for safety such as locks for guns and medication, fire detectors in every room and a second exit in case of fire.

Then Health and Welfare determines the number of children for which a home will be licensed.

Factors that affect the decision: the number of biological children, space available and the parents’ feelings on how many foster children would work in their family dynamics. The license maximum of six children in a foster home includes biological children.

Under special circumstances, Health and Welfare’s program manager can approve a foster family taking in more children than the license allows. Most often, Baca said, this occurs to keep a sibling group together.

It’s extremely common, Leavitt said, for people to drop out during the licensing and training process.

Some, for instance, can’t accept the policy of no corporal punishment. Some just can’t devote the time.

Many people are upset about having to undergo training, she said, particularly those wanting to care for a relative. “In the beginning, they can be awful angry they have to go through that.”

But by the end, Leavitt said, many say they’re thankful for the instruction and wish they’d had those resources when raising their own children.

If people can get through training, she said, “there’s a big factor that they can follow through and become a foster parent.”

‘Not an adoption agency’

The trainers at the Feb. 17 session at Con Paulos Chevrolet’s Jerome conference room stressed confidentiality.

“It could be a kid from your same town,” Baca told the class of prospective foster parents. “It almost puts a label on them.”

For married couples, Baca and Wolfrey told the class, it’s highly encouraged that both partners attend training.

“Why do you think they want both parents to attend?” Wolfrey asked.

“On the same page,” a man said.

“More support,” a woman offered.

Wolfrey elaborated. When people sign up as foster parents, he said, they are signing up to work as a team with social workers and birth parents.

“The department is not an adoption agency,” Wolfrey said.

“As kids come into care, our goal is reunification in almost all of our cases, and that can be really hard.

We all love kids and we all want to be in their lives, but remember we are here to help the biological parents too.”

A woman, her brow furrowed, raised her hand. “If your goal is to adopt, are you saying this is not the place to be?”

Baca reassured her and others interested in adoption that most foster parents she knows have a chance to adopt eventually. But very few children are immediately available for adoption.

“Other than that you are signing on to work with the system for reunification,” she said.

If a child comes up for adoption, Baca said, a family he or she stayed with will be the first notified.

And it’s not just youngsters who need permanent homes.

“You get just as attached to the teenagers,” she said. “The teens need just as much love and attention as the younger ones.”

‘Change a child’s life’

How do recruiters find the people to do this difficult job? They seek out ones who have toyed with the idea of foster parenting but haven’t acted on it. Then recruiters try to make sure those who sign up actually complete the process that leads to the first placement.

Baca was a foster parent to seven teens for two years but quit fostering to focus on recruiting. It was more important.

“I made the decision I could do better with training and recruiting,” said Baca, recruitment coordinator for Health and Welfare’s Region 5, at her Twin Falls office March 23.

Becoming a foster parent could take could take four to six months, including 27 hours of training in three-hour sessions — either in three weekends or two days a week for five weeks. An additional three-hour session for kinship

PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS

Anne Sharp of Jerome, a peer mentor to other foster parents, counts to three before giving one of her foster children a time-out April 7. training explores the unique dynamics of fostering a grandchild or other family member.

“When it’s your own daughter,” Baca said, “that’s hard.”

The February training originally had 29 signed up, a typical class size; 26 attended classes, and 23 graduated.

Baca recruits foster parents by attending home and garden shows or parades, sending notes home with schoolchildren and assigning resource peer mentors to talk with people interested in fostering. Baca holds six or seven informational meetings a year where people meet a foster parent, a foster teen and a social worker.

Recruiters have news to share: the coming hike in financial reimbursement for foster parents. Foster parents currently receive $329 per month to care for a child ages 0-5; $366 for ages 6-12; and $487 for 13 and older. The 20 percent increase approved by the Legislature is effective July 1.

Sometimes, Leavitt said, Health and Welfare employees are so desperate to place a child that they go into a training session looking for volunteers to expedite the licensing process. And typically, as soon as a foster parent is licensed, a child is placed in the home. A good practice would be having three or four families to choose from, she said, to make the best decision about a good match.

“That doesn’t always happen,” Leavitt said. It’s often just who has an empty bed.

When Leavitt started at the department about 20 years ago, there was a core group of foster parents — mostly older couples.

“They were just a fixture there,” Leavitt said. Some have died or stopped fostering. “They have so much experience. We just haven’t replaced them.”

Baca’s strategies for retaining foster parents include support groups, peer mentors and a yearly foster parent conference at the College of Southern Idaho.

“I think the key is the peer mentors,” Baca said. “They talk with other foster parents who know what you’re going through.

It requires someone who understands.”

The next foster parent trainings start June 22 in Jerome. Baca — who recruits from Blaine County to the Nevada border and from Bliss to Mini-Cassia — tried to start PRIDE training classes in Blaine, but there weren’t enough attendees. People drive from Blaine County to attend in Jerome.

“The foster parents that are successful are the ones who don’t take situations personally and are able to recognize the difference they can make for a foster child in a short amount of time. Sometimes that’s a hang-up,” Baca said.

“You can change a child’s life. You can change a family’s life.”

‘Recognize there are other needs’ As the Idaho liaison for One Church One Child, Kimberly resident Angela Pentecost sets up appointments to speak to south-central Idaho church congregations about the need for foster parents.

The national group, which has partnered with the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare since 2012, was founded by Father George Clements in 1996 in Chicago. It seeks to establish long-term relationships with faith-based communities.

In Pentecost’s first five months with One Church One Child, she was invited to only two churches: Filer First Baptist Church and Crossroads United Methodist Church in Kimberly.

“It’s difficult for churches to allow me to speak,” she said. When phone calls weren’t yielding re-

Foster parent training Of the south-central Idaho households that started the PRIDE foster parent training from July 1, 2012, through March 31, 2017, relatives and “fictive kin” — people who feel family-like bonds with particular children — were more likely to complete the training than households preparing to become general foster parents.

Households started

Households graduated

Total households graduated: 202 of 244 (July 1, 2012 - March 31, 2017)

% of graduates from each category

Relative/fictive kin households

96 10 96

52

45

36

July 2012 June 2013

91% 79%

General foster parents

Total households graduating PRIDE by year 41

86%

Other (group homes, residential facilities, hospitals, etc)

July 2013 June 2014

47 39

sults, Pentecost started driving to churches, showing up and hoping someone was in the office.

At the Filer and Kimberly churches, she and Health and Welfare’s Jaime Nava talked for about 15 minutes about what it’s like to be a foster parent.

Church families may have stability to offer for children who’ve come from rough backgrounds, said Andy Paz, pastor at Filer First Baptist.

“There’s a very, very small number of homes available in our area,” Paz said after the March 19 presentation to his congregation.

“There’s a wide disparity of need versus what’s available for help out there.”

One reason it may be a challenge for One Church One Child to get into churches, Paz said, could be “an underlying fear of getting involved with a state-run program.”

Another is not wanting to give up time during a Sunday-morning church service. Also, churches often have their officially sanctioned programs that complement the objective of communicating the gospel.

“Oftentimes, you fail to recognize there are other needs in their community,” Paz said. Foster children are often an unseen group at risk, and “should be one of the targets that the church community takes up and tries to help.”

Presenters gave his congregation some simple steps to take, such as donating diapers, clothing and blankets to foster families.

Those who take the plunge and sign up find that foster parenting has rigorous requirements but also a lot of support.

After Jon and Tina Baker of Twin Falls finished training, Jon said he couldn’t go through with it, Tina recalled. “We were prepared not to even do it.”

The couple went to Health and Welfare’s office thinking they would back out but instead got a license that day. Since then, they’ve been required to complete 10 hours of training per year — choosing book reading and online training over in-person sessions.

Dayne and Terri Mortensen, now of Jerome, first became foster parents during the 1988-89 school year when their daughter was a kindergartner in Rexburg.

The school sent home a form to sign up as foster parents.

“Back then, it was ‘here’s a kid’ and then they take them,” Terri said.

The Mortensens, who have 10 biological children and 13 grandchildren, gave up their fostering license when they had their sixth child. But six years ago, after moving to the Magic Valley, they decided to return to foster parenting.

This time, Dayne said, there were

49

42

32

July 2014 June 2015

Source: Idaho Department of Health and Welfare

‘In it by yourself?’

63

July 2015 June 2016

July 2016 March 2017 Lee Enterprises graphic

Allred, 30, said they were told at the first training that foster care is not adoption, though it does happen. They went ahead anyway. Two sisters and a baby boy were placed with the couple — the girls for three months and the boy for a month — and giving the children back to their parents was more difficult than Allred expected.

“Idaho is a right-for-parent state, and I definitely don’t agree with that,” she said. “It should be a right-for-child state.”

Allred feared the baby was returning to a potentially abusive situation.

“They can go back to the parents for minimal standards of care,” she said. “To be a licensed foster parent you have to jump through so many hoops. You have to have so many doors in your home and certain kind of heating.

They wanted us to get a fenced yard. It’s not like you’re going to spend $1,000 to get a fenced yard.

I totally understand they need to go back to their parents, but the ideal situation isn’t always good.”

Allred and her husband voiced their concerns to their social worker.

“The baby boy we had,” she said, “I don’t think it was handled properly. We tried to raise hell, but as foster parents you don’t have any rights. They tell you to jump, and you say how high and when. It’s a very controlling situation for a foster parent.”

The couple also found it difficult dealing with birth parents.

The Allreds provided their numbers and address to the parents, even showing them the rooms their children stayed in.

But once, the girls’ father showed up at Allred’s house unannounced, when her husband wasn’t there. Another time, a mother didn’t like the Allreds bringing a Santa Claus actor into the home at Christmas and accused them of forcing their religious beliefs on the child.

“If we did it again we’d be guarded,” Allred said.

Social workers were a mixed bag, she said, blaming that on an overworked system.

For Allred, “good” social workers were honest and upfront to both foster parents and biological parents. They also listened to complaints without dismissing or ignoring them. She recalled several unanswered text messages and phone calls made to “bad” social workers.

“We had two I would consider not great social workers,” Allred said. “They turned us off from fostering. One social worker can break your decision to foster again.”

Their peer mentor was sometimes part of the problem.

“She would hear you out and was honest, (but) she worked for the department. I felt she was a little biased,” Allred said. “I don’t think your support person should work for the department.

Sometimes I felt like we literally needed a complaint session. It’s hard when your support person is always sticking up for them.”

Now Allred has a 6-monthold baby of her own. She’d liked to give foster parenting another try but wants to wait a couple of years. And maybe she’ll take in only teens.

significantly more requirements and much more comprehensive training.

On their first day with the new license, the couple received a call asking if they’d take in three children, ages 5, 9 and 11.

Now the Mortensens have another role, too: peer mentors for other foster parents.

They were trainers at Health and Welfare’s Feb. 24 foster parent conference at the College of Southern Idaho, identified by their bright orange vests. So were Sam and Anne Sharp of Jerome, who have been foster parents for about 10 years and fostered 16 children.

New foster parents get a lot of support, Anne said, such as training every two or three months.

Plus, support groups meet monthly.

A common concern among new foster parents is thinking they’re asking too many questions, Anne said. They don’t want to contact Health and Welfare with every little question. That’s where peer mentors such as the Sharps step in.

The Mortensens do even more for foster parents: If they’re majorly stressed, the Mortensens ‘The grandparent phase’ will take care of their children for Even a foster family who a weekend. thrives will move to the negative “If you think you’re in it by side of Idaho’s retention equation yourself,” Terri said, “you’re not.” eventually.

Hoping to adopt, Kurt and Ja‘You don’t have mie McLaws of Twin Falls were foster parents for more than a deany rights’ cade and saw about 60 children Even a supportive system can’t come through their home. Their eliminate the factors that drive four biological children — 11 to 17 years old when the McLaws away some foster parents.

Kate Allred and her husband, started fostering — were willing Chris, were foster parents for six to help. months before calling it quits.

But the couple decided to stop Before they fostering regularly to give them stopped taking flexibility to travel and haven’t foster children had a foster child for nearly two into their Jerome years. They agreed to provide home in July, they emergency care for children in had three place- need, but Health and Welfare ments and pro- hasn’t called.

“We’ve moved into the grandvided respite care for 10 children. parent phase,” Kurt said.

Many of the reThe couple’s biological chilAllred spite calls were in dren are now in their 20s and the middle of the night for chil- have moved out. So have two of dren who didn’t have a place to the three previous foster children go. They usually stayed with the whom the McLaws adopted. Now Allreds for one to three days be- 15-year-old adopted daughter fore being placed with a foster Melia, their first foster child, is family. the only child under their roof.

But the Allreds didn’t leave fosDuring their years as foster tering because of the rapid arrival parents, the McLaws at times of children. Rather, their reasons felt overwhelmed and said “no” were negative interactions with to taking in more. birth parents and social workers “Health and Welfare has an aband the worry that accompanied solutely difficult job,” Kurt said. a child’s reunification with birth But the couple never felt presparents. sured — beyond a “gentle prod” The Allreds had been married — to take in more children. a year when they started talking Recalling their time as foster about fostering and possibly parents, Jamie got teary-eyed. adopting. They came across a “If you’re going to do foster foster recruitment booth at the care,” she said, “you have to treat county fair and signed up. them like your own kid.”

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THE BIG STORY SUNDAY, MAY 14, 2017

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magicvalley.com |

SECTION E

PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS

Foster mother Kelsey Peterson plays with children at her day care, Kelsey’s Kids Childcare and Preschool in Wendell, on April 11. The poor experience Peterson and her husband have had with Idaho’s foster care system has pushed them to the brink of quitting. ‘My husband is definitely at that point,’ Peterson says. ‘He’s pretty much fed up.’

FUTURE OF FOSTERING Idaho must act fast to fix broken foster-care system

“

ALEX RIGGINS AND TETONA DUNLAP

ariggins@magicvalley.com tdunlap@magicvalley.com

G PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS

We had the option to say yes or no, but it was kind of a desperate plea. Like, ‘We’ve called everywhere else, no one has room, can you guys take her?’ ” Kelsey Peterson

Jordyn Sharp, 11, helps her mom, Anne Sharp, take care of the youngest foster child in their home, a 12-day-old baby, April 7. The baby and two other children in the Jerome house are siblings. ‘I just couldn’t split them up,’ Anne Sharp says.

About this project Idaho’s child welfare system is overwhelmed, with a shortage of foster parents, heavy caseloads for social workers and other widespread problems, state auditors concluded in February. And south-central Idaho has fewer foster family placement options than anywhere else in the state.

Today’s coverage is the last of the Times-News’ three-part series illuminating the needs and the system’s flaws and pointing to potential solutions. Reporters Alex Riggins, Tetona Dunlap and Julie Wootton are collaborating to tell the story in a deeply personal way, through the eyes of the people with the Riggins most at stake.

Dunlap

Wootton

Find the past coverage at Magicvalley.com/bigstory.

April 2: When children are neglected, abused or abandoned — why Idaho needs foster care.

April 23: Recruiting, training and retaining foster families — why there’s a shortage.

Today: How Idaho can improve its overloaded system, and what happens when children exit foster care.

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OODING — Kelsey Peterson and her husband talked about fostering children even before they married in 2011. The young couple was finally licensed to foster in May 2015, allowed to take in two children between newborn and 3 years old.

But the first call was a social worker begging them to take a 15-year-old.

“We had the option to say yes or no, but it was kind of a desperate plea,” Peterson remembered. “Like, ‘We’ve called everywhere else, no one has room, can you guys take her?’”

The couple relented — but soon regretted it.

“It ended up being a lot more than we ever thought,” Peterson said.

The 15-year-old girl had obvious and understandable emotional trauma despite the social worker’s assurances to the contrary. But there were bigger issues, too.

“I was 22 at the time and never had kids of my own before,” Peterson said. “And here I am parenting a 15-year-old? It was definitely an eye-opener.”

It was just the beginning of the Petersons’ fraught relationship with Idaho’s foster care system: In just two years, they’ve been asked to take in seven children at once, have had thriving children taken away for what they consider bureaucratic reasons and have had a social worker give their personal contact information to a foster child’s parents without their permission.

The Petersons’ experience isn’t an exception to the foster-parenting rule.

Rather, it’s a fairly typical example of issues that plague the system and its foster children, foster families and social Please see FOSTERING, Page E2

 More online: Times-News

photographers documented the lives of many south-central Idaho foster families for this three-part project. See all of the photos in a Magicvalley.com gallery today.

MORE INSIDE: Former foster child recalls ‘very emotional’ time, E2 | What happens after foster care ends? E3

BIG STORY

Times-News

Sunday, May 14, 2017 | E2

Former foster child recalls ‘very emotional’ time JULIE WOOTTON

‌T

jwootton@magicvalley.com ‌

WIN FALLS — Isaiah Palomo, 20, remembers it was scary and “very emotional” to enter the foster care system.

He and his siblings were removed from their home when he was 13 due to “an unhealthy spouse my mom was with at the time,” he said. “During that time, my mom had to fight for us back.

It wasn’t due to anything with her.

It was due to her spouse.”

Palomo, the oldest of five children, remembers being in a van with his siblings and watching them be dropped off at different foster homes. He didn’t have any information about where they were taken.

Over the next few years, he’d live in five places.

For the first two weeks, Palomo

and a brother stayed at The Safe House, a Twin Falls group home primarily for youth in crisis.

“For two weeks, we had no idea what was happening,” Palomo said. They finally met with a caseworker, who told them legal proceedings would begin.

Palomo spent one month with his biological father in Heyburn — he advocated leaving there because he didn’t feel safe — then was in three foster homes before being reunited with his mother at 16.

Palomo shared his first foster home with two of his brothers.

The foster parents, he said, had a lot of miscommunication and arguments.

Palomo said the couple talked down to him and his siblings but not to their biological children.

And once, he said, the parents threw one of his brothers into a refrigerator.

DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS‌

Former foster child Isaiah Palomo, 20, takes a student’s order during the Feb. 24 lunch rush at College of Southern Idaho.

Palomo said he had his own beLooking back on that foster home, he said: “I realize that it haviors and trauma he was working through, but the foster family wasn’t all just them being bad.”

Fostering From E1

workers. And the Petersons’ story highlights the four problem areas identified in a February report by the Idaho Legislature’s Office of Performance Evaluations: Idaho doesn’t have enough foster placements. Social workers and safety assessors work more cases than they can handle. A culture of compromise within Child and Family Services excuses poor performance. And the foster care system has no consistent oversight for all stakeholders.

These problems aren’t unique to Idaho, the OPE report pointed out, and as a result 35 states have had class-action lawsuits filed against child welfare agencies.

“I think every state struggles with the same issues,” said Miren Unsworth, Idaho’s deputy administrator over child welfare. “There is nobody who has the magic bullet.”

But while there are no easy answers to the foster system’s problems, ideas are Unsworth beginning to take shape in Idaho that can help the system improve.

Now, it’s up to Child and Family Services to identify specific ways to fix the system, and the Legislature to approve bigger budgets and more staff.

And quickly.

It’s as urgent as an abused child’s need for a safe place to sleep tonight.

Overworked foster parents‌

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While fostering the 15-year-old girl in their tiny two-bedroom house, Nick and Kelsey Peterson also took in three sisters ages 12, 4 and 2.

The Petersons are still licensed for just two children — even after moving into a larger home, and after their daughter’s birth occupied one of those slots — but are almost always on waivers to take in more.

Once they had seven children in the home.

“We’ve had 19 placements in the two years that we’ve had our house open,” Kelsey Peterson said in the office of the Wendell day care she runs. Outside the office, an employee held Peterson’s infant daughter while two of her foster children played with the other kids cooking fake meals in a plastic oven and rolling cars around a toy track.

“Some of them were just one night,” Peterson said. “Some of them were two weeks.”

In April, she had five children at home: Her own infant, three siblings ages 1 to 5 and another young boy. All four of the foster children are long-term placements.

“They called us to just take two of (the siblings),” Peterson said.

“They were going to place us with the two boys and put the little girl in a different home because there wasn’t a home that could take them all. You can’t separate three little kids at that age, so we took them all.”

The Petersons’ situation highlights one of the biggest issues with Idaho’s foster care system: There simply aren’t enough foster families to take in all the children without overburdening certain families. This is especially true in the Magic Valley, where available foster beds are in the shortest supply.

Without beds readily available, children are placed farther from their biological parents, making visitation and an eventual reunification more difficult — like the

PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS‌

Kelsey Peterson plays with children at her Wendell day care April 11. twin baby girls being fostered by Terri Mortensen of Jerome and her husband.

The girls have been with the Mortensens since they were 6 weeks old and will soon celebrate their first birthday, and their mother typically visits twice a week despite living in a different town.

“We want her to see them,” Mortensen said. “Most of the time she can. It’s harder in the winter because she lives 45 minutes to an hour away.”

Part of the solution is straightforward: recruiting new foster families.

The authors of the OPE report recommended that Child and Family services strengthen its recruitment plan by determining how many foster parents are needed in each region and what additional resources will be needed to recruit them.

But just as important, if not more, is retaining foster parents who are already licensed. When the stress gets too great, many foster families quit.

“At its core, this is about relationships and communication,” Unsworth said.

Strengthening bonds between foster families and social workers would ensure more families stay in the program. This will require the department to give them better support and resources, Unsworth said, particularly for children with special needs.

The OPE report recommended Child and Family Services develop a robust retention plan that includes improving communication and relationships between foster families and social workers, and identifying ways to provide improved, consistent support for foster parents.

One factor that will help is giving families more money; when the OPE study was conducted, maintenance payments to families covered just 50 to 60 percent of room and board expenses per child.

The 2017 Idaho Legislature approved a 20 percent payment increase for each child in a family’s care. But Sen. Abby Lee, R-Fruitland, who co-chairs the interim legislative committee on foster care, said that will mean little to prospective foster families.

“Not one foster parent has ever said it’s about the Lee money,” said Lee, who became a foster parent herself when her niece from another state needed care.

DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS‌

Fiona Matala, 7, takes measurements while father Andrew Matala finishes installing new shelving as they prepare a room for incoming foster children April 20. The Jerome family was preparing to foster two nephews, ages 9 and 11, who currently live in Oregon.

Other ideas are in the works that could improve the fostering experience. One is a pilot program set to begin this summer in the Treasure Valley that will make a liaison available to foster families by phone.

Child and Family Services hired two new employees the first week of May who will act in a customer-service role “to triage for foster families to get immediate needs met,” Unsworth said.

Social workers there can now focus on bigger tasks without worrying about basic chores.

“So when a parent calls and says, ‘I need a voucher for diapers,’ that doesn’t need to go to a social worker,” Unsworth said.

“Or if they say, ‘I need Johnny’s immunization records,’ that liaison can chase that down instead of a social worker.”

Tasks like those — simple but time-consuming, and often requiring immediate attention — can free up social workers, Unsworth said, to better communicate with foster families on the important things like “a child, his needs and working a case plan.”

The newly hired liaisons will be asked to track data — such as what types of calls they receive — and Child and Family Services plans to assess the program for about six months before deciding if it’s helpful and can be expanded

statewide.

Overworked case managers‌ Safety assessors and social workers are handling more cases than they can manage, the authors of the OPE report found after interviewing about a third of Child and Family Services employees and surveying all of them.

Safety assessors, the survey found, estimated they could handle 11 cases but instead are handling about 15 each. Social workers also estimated they could handle 11 but are tasked with about 14 each. The report called these unmanageable workloads.

This doesn’t go unnoticed by foster parents.

“Turnover is huge,” said Kate Allred of Jerome, who quit fostering in July. “When we were there, there were social workers going through revolving doors. Their workload is too heavy. They are stretched too thin, and it makes them cranky and fuzzy thinkers.

It’s not the social workers’ fault.

They are overworked.”

An unnamed chief of social work told an OPE interviewer that social workers must “settle for C-grade work … because of resource constraints.”

“The problem,” the chief said, “is that there is an expectation for

didn’t make it easy. Palomo talked with his caseworker and asked to be placed in a different home.

Meanwhile, he knew a girl at school whose parents took in foster children. He wrote them a handwritten note explaining his story.

After getting approval, Palomo and his brothers moved in. He said it was his “good home” and he still communicates with the family. “They showed me what good, healthy values are.”

His third foster home was in Twin Falls with a person he’s related to through a family member’s marriage. He lived there with two brothers and his sister.

“We were closer to being all together,” he said.

But the woman was stressed out after taking on four children at once, Palomo said. “She felt bombarded toward the end.”

A-grade results.”

A judge interviewed for the OPE report also said Idaho foster-care social workers would get a C grade.

“I believe that most health and welfare workers want to do a good job and are good people,” the judge said. “I also believe that their caseloads are too big and their resources are too small. Because they are overwhelmed, they are only capable of doing an average job.”

An obvious solution is adding more staff. A workload analysis conducted by Child and Family Services in 2007 found a need for 36 percent more staff, but it has been able to add just 10 percent more caseworkers since then. The 2017 Legislature added six support staff and two social worker positions, but the state knows it needs more.

Hiring more caseworkers, though, is just one element of addressing the workload problem, Unsworth said. “We have to figure out: What other efficiencies can we create to help support workload management?”

The liaison program could help shift menial responsibilities away from caseworkers. Another solution in the works is overhauling the cumbersome data management system.

“Our staff is working for the system rather than the system working for them,” Unsworth said.

Child and Family Services requested money from the Legislature this winter to help fix the system, and the Legislature came through, allocating just over a million dollars for the project.

“Things like this on the technology and business side can help improve efficiency,” Unsworth said. “We need to improve and ensure folks are only doing necessary tasks.”

Another contribution to streamlining efficiency among caseworkers is a pilot program that began last fall in Ada County; it allows social workers to attend certain court hearings via video.

This cuts down on travel time and precious work time that’s wasted outside courtroom doors while waiting for oft-delayed hearings to start.

“It’s still in an assessment period,” Unsworth said. “There have been conversations among some of the judges who have piloted it that there might be potential to implement it in other parts of the state.”

The program would be especially beneficial in rural areas, Unsworth said. The next step, though, is figuring out the technology — likely to be the most difficult in rural areas where it’s needed the most.

Organizational culture‌

Addressing the issues of overworked foster families and case managers is relatively simple compared with the issue of organizational culture. More families willing to foster, more money and more staff can alleviate placement shortages and workload problems — but how do you change the mindset and work culture of overworked and often criticized case managers and safety assessors?

The OPE report authors found that on one hand, Child and Family Services employees are committed to improving the lives of the children and families they work with; on the other hand, difficult demands, limited resources and strained relationships with foster families and other stakeholders has created “a culture of compromise with a conflicted sense of efficacy.”

Please see FOSTERING, Page E4

BIG STORY

TIMES-NEWS

SUNDAY, MAY 14, 2017 |

E3

What happens after foster care ends?

JULIE WOOTTON AND TETONA DUNLAP

jwootton@magicvalley.com tdunlap@magicvalley.com

T

WIN FALLS — A social worker pushed Baylee Brown to seek reconciliation with her biological mother.

The teenager thought it was too soon. She wasn’t ready.

When Baylee had been hospitalized as a high school freshman, child protection workers didn’t allow her to return home. Her mother and stepfather did drugs, she said, and her stepfather was abusive toward her younger sister.

But when the social worker insisted, Baylee poured her energy into writing a five-page letter to her mother, explaining how she was impacted by the events that sent her to the hospital.

She wanted an apology. The response she received instead: All the family can do is move on.

Baylee, a 17-year-old Buhl High School senior, doesn’t have contact with her mother now. “I don’t want anything to do with her.”

Reunification with biological parents is the ultimate goal in Idaho’s foster care system. But when parents can’t pull their lives together enough to meet the state’s requirements, their children might be adopted or age out of the foster system. Even a child reunited with a biological parent faces special challenges, such as repairing broken relationships.

And without extra guidance, any foster child might enter adulthood without the needed skills.

Whatever the outcome of parents’ neglect, abuse or drug habits, their children experience lasting consequences.

‘Tired of going to different homes’ Biological parents’ rights can be terminated quickly if there is an aggravating factor like physical or sexual abuse. Parental rights can also be terminated if parents fail to successfully complete Idaho Department of Health and Welfare case plans within about two years.

In those cases, kids need something more than temporary care.

Brenda Hoover, a family friend who fostered Baylee for three years, became her permanent guardian in October. It’s a relationship that developed for years.

Though they aren’t biological relatives, Baylee called Hoover her “aunt” even before being her foster child. “My whole life, she’s known me,” Baylee said.

“I promised Baylee in the very beginning,” Hoover said, “that I’d be on her side and fight for her 110 percent.”

As Baylee’s letter to her mother brought a disappointing response, Baylee was considering whether to stay in the Magic Valley or move to Washington to live with relatives.

“I just chose to stay because I was tired of going to different homes,” she said.

David and Amanda Coach of Twin Falls became foster parents in 2002 after struggling to have children. Their first foster children were two brothers, a 5-yearold and an infant.

“We just loved everything about it,” David said. “It was awesome.”

Over the years, they adopted 10 children, nine of whom they fostered first. The children now range in age from 12 to 28, and the Coaches’ experiences as foster parents inspired them to become social workers for Health and Welfare.

Some people have told the couple they’re crazy for adopting 10 children.

“It was meant to be,” David said.

The Coaches have five children under their roof now: two 12-year-old boys, two 13-yearold boys and a 24-year-old. Their 15-year-old daughter is living at Hope House in Marsing, which helps with behavior that wasn’t manageable at home, David said.

Even adoption can’t guarantee a smooth future.

‘I didn’t blame her’

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Of the 176 south-central Idaho children exiting foster care in 2016, 123 were reunited with parents. But even for those children the challenges continue: forgiving a parent, adjusting to new household rules.

By law, children must be returned home when their biological parents reach a minimum safety threshold, said Ellen Leavitt, a Health and Welfare employee who handles foster parent licensing.

“Usually, that’s not to the standard that foster parents can do it,” she said. “It’s hard to let kids go back, and they feel like they could have done a better job.”

Here’s how Jerome foster

Annual funding

Decline in foster homes Idaho’s number of licensed foster homes, on June 30:

1,500 1,400 1,300 1,200 1,359 1,100 1,114 1,000 900 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 Source: Idaho Department of Health and Welfare

Lee Enterprises graphic

Idaho has a combination of state, federal and other funding for child welfare and foster care. The annual totals: $40M

$36,672,300

$35M $30M $29,052,500

$25M $20M $15M $10M $5M $0

All other child welfare funding Payments to foster families

FY 2011 FY 2012 FY 2013 FY 2014 FY 2015 FY 2016 FY 2017

Source: Idaho Department of Health and Welfare

mother Anne Sharp put it: “I would be lying if I always felt comfortable when they go home, but I get to see that they love their kids, and they mean the best. It’s not because they don’t love their kids; they have other things in the way.”

Dayne and Terri Mortensen of Jerome keep in touch with many of the 60 to 75 foster children who’ve come through their home.

They even go to birthday parties and sports games.

“It’s really, really nice,” Terri said.

The Mortensens get attached.

When it’s time for their foster children to be reunited with biological parents, Dayne said, “it’s like tearing a piece of your heart out.”

Occasionally, they take a month or two off from fostering to decompress after saying goodbye to a child.

It’s going to hurt and you’re going to experience loss, Terri said, but “you’re building a lifetime relationship with them.”

Twin Falls foster parent Tina Baker stays in touch with two children she and her husband fostered for five months. Now the children live with their biological family in Burley.

With a few children she has fostered, Baker didn’t agree with a judge’s decision to send them home. But even the other departures were difficult.

“It should break your heart when they leave,” she said.

Devon Larison, 18, entered foster care when he was 13; his father used drugs and was sent to prison.

Five years later, Larison is back living with his father.

Larison was placed in two homes while in foster care — the first in Boise.

“I didn’t like Boise,” he said. “I was hanging out with the wrong people.”

Larison said he got into trouble and was sent to a group home.

Then he transferred to live in Twin Falls with Susan Baca, a foster parent recruiter for Health and Welfare, for seven months. He liked that because it brought him back home and he got to see his father more.

“Just having someone you knew,” he said. “Having family there made it easy.”

Being reunited with his father is awkward sometimes, Larison said, because he’s not a child anymore but his father tries to set rules and curfews. But Larison said his childhood helped him become more compassionate and caring.

“We are more emotionally connected,” he said, despite his father’s absence from his teen years.

“It was a difficult time. I feel more mature and knowledgeable about things like that.”

Amber Philippi went into foster care at 14. Now 16, Philippi was reunited with her mother in September.

Philippi said her mother was divorced, unemployed and depressed before she started using drugs.

“That’s when things started going downhill,” Philippi said.

“I don’t want pity. I’m trying to show people even if you go down the wrong road they don’t always have to be down in the dumps.”

Philippi dropped out of high school as a sophomore but plans to attend Job Corps training.

She lived in a foster home in Hagerman with four other foster children for six months. She remembers getting into trouble a lot.

“As a kid, I was an only child,” she said. “I didn’t have rules.”

Philippi said she never hated her mom when she was in foster care — but told her mom it would take a long time to forgive her.

“I didn’t blame her,” she said.

“Sometimes life is not all that great.”

Lee Enterprises graphic

PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS

Former foster child Baylee Brown, 17, divides players into teams during a dodgeball tournament she organized for her senior project March 4 at the 7th Street Gym in Buhl. Tournament admission was a new hygiene product to be donated to a foster child.

PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS

Jordyn Sharp, 11, helps her foster siblings set the table for dinner April 7 in Jerome. Besides fostering, Sam and Anne Sharp have two biological children and one adopted child. ‘We have such a need,’ Anne said. ‘There is a reason that we have six kids right now. It’s not what we usually take.’

DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS

Amber Philippi, 16, talks about her community service project March 22 at a Twin Falls demonstration of skills that current and former foster youth learned in an Independent Living Program.

system when they turn 18. That brings big challenges: supporting themselves financially, paying for college, finding jobs, taking care of themselves.

If 18-year-olds are on track to finish high school, they can voluntarily sign themselves back into the foster system until they graduate. But many won’t.

And learning life skills is on hold when a family is in crisis.

“If we know the parents are not involved — let’s say dad is in prison, mom in the drug culture — the case plan is a lot different,” Twin Falls County Deputy Prosecutor Rose Emory said. “It focuses on longer-term placement, ‘Give these independent living skills, things like how to balance a checkbook. kids a little hope’ The worst thing is to age out of Foster children age out of the foster care and not know how to

do anything.”

Youth who leave foster care are more likely than those in the general population to not finish high school, be unemployed and depend on public assistance, says Foster Club, a website dedicated to connecting former foster children with information and networking.

The site says many youth who age out of foster care find themselves in prison, homeless or parents at an early age.

Teenagers in the Independent Living Program of Magic Valley Youth and Adult Services are working to rewrite those statistics.

“They want to change the image of fostering teens,” Baca said.

“The stereotypes are that they are troublemakers and you’ll be introducing that into your home. The

reality is that they’ve had some trauma and they just need someone to help them work through that process. They are just like any other teen.”

The Independent Living Program’s motto: “Being an adult with some skills is scary but being an adult with no skills is scarier.

It’s like riding a bike without a helmet.”

Enrolled youth need to be at least 15 and in foster care for a total of at least 90 days. The program can help until they are 21 — or 23 if they’re enrolled in school.

They learn about maintaining employment, college preparation and scholarships, how to use community resources, how to obtain housing after turning 18, healthy relationships, and emergency and safety skills. During a recent visit to Boise State University, teens in the Magic Valley program met former foster children who are now students at the college.

Since joining the program, Larison has learned to write a cover letter and fill out a resume. He is taking GED classes and applying for jobs.

The sweet smell of syrup filled a Health and Welfare room March 22 in Twin Falls as two girls in the program made chocolate chip pancakes and blueberry pancakes on a griddle. A woman in a burgundy sweater poured syrup over a plate of pancakes.

“This is really, really nice,” she said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” the girls said in unison.

Please see ENDS, Page E4

BIG STORY

TIMES-NEWS

Fostering From E2

“There is a permeating belief among staff that more is demanded of them than they can do,” the evaluators found. “Because of this belief, each aspect of the organizational culture is undercut by a need to address the constant feeling of crisis.”

The OPE report also exposed a growing rift between social workers and the foster families they work with.

Fifty-five percent of foster parents surveyed said they disagreed that Child and Family Services “deeply understands” their wants and needs. Only 17 percent said they agreed, while 28 percent were neutral.

“There is no set standard for cases,” an unnamed parent told the OPE report authors. “The biggest thing said to foster parents, when we ask about how things go, is ‘It’s a case-by-case basis.’ This removes all liability and accountability of the department.”

Social workers, on the other hand, feel like they face constant criticism from foster parents, judges and Court Appointed Special Advocates volunteers.

“It is hard to feel like you are always being scrutinized or criticized from every angle,” a chief of social work told the OPE. “The workers here feel like they are constantly having to defend themselves to everyone.”

This belief among Child and Family Services workers — that they can’t meet requirements and expectations of quality — has led to a “culture of compromise.” Poor performance is “explainable, excusable and expected,” the OPE report found, resulting in a severe lack of accountability.

This type of culture is unacceptable, Unsworth said, and “folks need to be held accountable.” Addressing workload will help, she said, though the problem runs deeper than just overworked case managers.

“This is tough, it’s not easy,” Unsworth said. “I think we acknowledge it and see it as an ongoing process.”

Any issues with organizational

Referrals and safety assessments Not every referral of potential child endangerment merits an Idaho Department of Health and Welfare safety assessment, the department says. Still, statewide it’s performing more than 2,000 more safety assessments in a year than it did half a decade ago.

25,000

Referrals

Safety assessments

20,000 15,000 10,000

40%

33%

37%

38%

39%

FY 2012

FY 2013

FY 2014

FY 2015

5,000 0

Source: Idaho Legislature’s Office of Performance Evaluations

cultural must be addressed at the leadership level, Unsworth said.

To begin fixing this problem, Child and Family Services will hold a conference this summer for managers and supervisors. Its aim: help the department figure out how to address its poor organizational culture.

Lee, the state senator from Fruitland who fostered her niece, said she doesn’t believe any Child and Family Services employees approach their jobs “with anything but the best intentions.” But the system has become bogged down in part by poor policies that are not controlled by state statutes.

“I think we’re looking through the lens of what’s in the best interest for (biological) parents,” Lee said. “We have to consider family first, which is our policy in Idaho.”

But this sometimes stands in the way of making decisions that are in the best interest of children, she said — such as when a child who is with a foster family since birth is taken away and placed with a family member of her biological parents.

“What does that do to a child?”

Lee asked. “We’re hearing from a lot of foster parents that this is traumatic for children.”

But this policy of always favoring a placement with biological family or fictive kin is just that — a policy created by Child and Family Services, not by state statute, and a policy that’s adhered to even when it goes against the best in-

FY 2016

Lee Enterprises graphic

terests of a child.

“That’s why we need the interim committee,” Lee said of the legislative committee she cochairs.

In June, that committee will meet with representatives from Child and Family Services to determine how they’re addressing certain policies. The biggest questions will be: How can the department start acting in the best interest of the children, what does that mean, and how does Idaho compare with other states?

But looking past this summer, the committee could have an even bigger role in helping to fix Idaho’s broken foster system.

Systemwide oversight

Child and Family Services plays the biggest role in the state’s broken foster care system, but many stakeholders play critical roles: other agencies, community partners, lawmakers, law enforcement and the court system.

Each entity has built-in mechanisms of oversight, but who polices and holds the entire system accountable?

Right now, the answer is nobody. There is no formal oversight body, and the OPE report made it clear this is one of the biggest problems with the system.

“We recommend the formation of a formal, system-wide oversight entity with authority to ensure ongoing accountability, visibility, and accessibility for all

SUNDAY, MAY 14, 2017 |

E4

Child and Family Services staffing Idaho’s Child and Family Services statewide staffing has risen but was outpaced by growth in case numbers. Case managers and safety assessors say 11 is a manageable per-person caseload; however, case managers have an estimated 14 on average, and the safety assessors — who evaluate reports of potential child endangerment — have 15. Statewide staffing: 225 200 175 150 125 100 75 50 25 0

202 183.6

FY ’08 FY ’09 FY ’10 FY ’11 FY ’12 FY ’13 FY ’14 FY ’15 FY ’16

Source: Idaho Legislature’s Office of Performance Evaluations

child welfare partners and stakeholders,” the OPE authors wrote.

Lee said it’s unheard of for the state’s performance evaluators to make such a recommendation.

“That’s the strongest language ever,” the state senator said.

“They have never made a recommendation to create a completely new oversight committee.”

The recommendation speaks to the foster care system’s dire situation.

The report suggested creating a permanent legislative committee dedicated to overseeing the foster care system, though already there are skeptics of that solution. Lee said the Legislature might balk at adding another standing committee, while the administrative director from the Idaho Supreme Court questioned whether the Legislature could oversee the judiciary without violating the state Constitution.

“There is always that tension — the separation of government,” Lee said. “But other states have done this. We need to figure out if we need a top-down oversight or a more collaborative approach.”

For now, the interim legislative committee created last year and approved to continue this year will provide the oversight. Beyond that, there is only uncertainty.

Failure to address oversight could render all other changes moot.

Lee Enterprises graphic

What good is recruiting more foster families if overworked social workers are unable to build relationships and retain those families? What good is hiring more social workers if they’ll be burdened with too many cases and accept their own poor performance? What good is fixing a culture of excuses and compromise among social workers if the department’s poor policies aren’t changed?

Whatever the solution — whether a permanent legislative committee or something else — the state must take action.

Without that oversight, Idaho’s broken system will continue to hemorrhage foster families — even solid ones like Nick and Kelsey Peterson, the young couple who planned to foster before their marriage and even moved to a bigger house so they could take in more children.

It’s hard to imagine a couple being more proactive about wanting to foster, about creating an environment in which they can help children and help families. Yet their poor experience with the system has pushed them to the brink of quitting.

“My husband is definitely at that point; his leading phrase anymore is, ‘We’re not taking any more kids,’” Kelsey Peterson said. “He’s pretty much fed up … and it’s not the kids at all, it’s the system. He hates the system.”

Ends From E3

March is Aging Out Month, and the two teens were holding a cooking demonstration while others manned booths to talk about aspects of the group such as volunteering or college preparation.

Amber answered questions for visitors near the community service booth. She joined the Independent Living Program to change peoples’ perspectives on foster children.

“People are so negative,” she said. “That just because we come from a bad background, they think that we’ll be just like our parents.

I think sometimes they need to have a heart.”

Amber has also had a chance to mentor younger foster children through the program. At first, they were rowdy and didn’t listen well, but after a few weeks they started opening up.

“Some of the kids are sad,” she said. “I was always sad in foster care because I felt like no one knew what I was going through.

No one would listen to me. I was sad. I was in a bad position. But once you give these kids a little hope — you tell them there is always good in the world.”

‘If I do social work’

M 1

Isaiah Palomo, 20, who entered the foster care system as a 13-year-old, started in the Independent Living Program during his junior year of high school and learned about budgeting and good nutrition.

“The independent living helped me get into my first semester of college,” he said.

Home life in Palomo’s teen years didn’t teach him budgeting and nutrition. When he was a high school sophomore, he and his siblings were reunited with their mother for six or eight months.

They were removed again — this time, he said, due to his mother’s drug abuse. Finally, the family was reunited for good when Palomo was 16.

Palomo enrolled at the College of Southern Idaho to study social work in spring 2015 but dropped out. He wasn’t ready to be a college student.

He moved into an apartment with two roommates, but they ran into trouble paying bills. He asked for help from the Independent Living Program again.

Now he has lived in his own apartment for more than a year

DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS

Former foster child Baylee Brown, 17, talks about independent living preparation March 22.

DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS

Former foster child Isaiah Palomo, 20, accommodates orders during the Feb. 24 lunch rush at College of Southern Idaho. and has worked full time as a CSI cook for two years. Palomo stays in contact with his biological family and has relatives living a few blocks away.

Starting this month, Palomo will spend four months doing a Foster Club internship in Seaside, Ore. After that, they’ll call him for up to a year to do presentations nationwide about foster care.

He previously served in that role for part of a summer and traveled to places such Washington, D.C., and New York.

Baylee, meanwhile, is getting more plugged in at school and pushing toward her high school graduation. That’s a big change from the girl who pulled inside her shell when she first became a foster child.

“I stuck myself into a bedroom and didn’t want to come out,” Baylee said.

No longer. On a late-February afternoon, she had just finished a drama rehearsal at Buhl High School and walked in the snow with a friend to Buhl Public Library.

Her goal for the school year is

DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS

Devon Larison talks about his employment project March 22 at a Twin good grades; she has mostly A’s. Falls demonstration of skills that current and former foster youth learned She’s also involved in Buhl High’s in an Independent Living Program. drama department, a bowling league and the school’s soccer “I’d be working with the foster foster parent trainings. and track teams. kids.”

“To be able to help youth have a Baylee’s senior project was a better time in care or transition is dodgeball tournament in early ‘Help youth have a better my focus,” he said.

March. Instead of charging an time in care’ Palomo would like to see tranadmission fee, she asked atsitional housing in south-central tendees to bring new hygiene After their experiences in the Idaho for foster youth who age out products and toys to donate. She foster care system, Baylee and of the system and a sibling bill of planned to give the donations to Palomo want to pay it forward by rights to ensure communication Health and Welfare to distribute advocating on behalf of current when siblings are sent to different to foster families. foster children and helping to re- foster homes.

Hoover told Baylee she can cruit foster parents.

Another goal: helping foster pick whatever college she wants “I like to inspire people to be families understand how to communicate with a child who’s lesand doesn’t have to stay in the foster parents,” Baylee said.

Magic Valley. After she graduates, Baylee, president of a local bian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

Baylee plans a California trip to chapter of the Idaho Foster Youth “That was something I dealt visit Disneyland and Universal Advisory Board, spoke at an Idaho with in (the) system, but I never Studios, then a summer in Ore- foster parent panel in late Febru- came out,” Palomo said. ary and has participated in a cougon and Washington.

And he wants to ensure there’s She turns 18 on July 22. Legally, ple of local events. good communication between soshe’ll be on her own.

“It brings tears to my eyes when cial workers and foster youth.

She plans to live either with she speaks at panels,” Hoover said.

“That was something that roommates in Twin Falls to atPalomo, co-chairman of the lacked during my time in care,” tend CSI or with her biological Idaho Foster Youth Advisory Palomo said. “It was hard to feel father to attend North Idaho Col- Board, has been on the board safe and to feel my life was a priorlege in Coeur d’Alene. She hopes for five years. He mentors foster ity. It was hard for me to advocate.” to study either social work or youth, ages 15-18, through indecriminal justice. pendent living classes and partic- Alex Riggins contributed to this “If I do social work,” she said, ipates in panel discussions during report.