About 77% of children in Tennessee’s foster-care system live with relatives or in a foster family, rather than in group homes or institutional settings. (@casaterron/Twenty2)
More than 8,000 Tennessee children are in foster care, and about 77% live with relatives or in a family setting, compared with an 86% family placement rate nationally. Over the past decade, the report said, child-welfare systems across the country have worked to place more children with relatives and foster families, so they’re less likely to end up in group homes or institutions.
Rob Geen, director of policy and advocacy reform for the Casey Foundation, said placing children with families is critical to success later in life.
“When children are placed with relatives, they’re more likely to finish school, they’re more likely to be employed or find employment later; they’re less likely to become early parents. They’re more likely to succeed in families when they have families of their own,” he said. “That is one trend which is really important; we’re using relatives more.”
The Family First Prevention Services Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump last year, aims to help states prioritize family placement.
Rose Naccarato, director of data and communication for the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth, said the state now is focused on diverting children from entering foster care in the first place.
“We have Title IV-E waiver,” she said, “which is the money that comes from the federal government for foster care, that we use to do a program that specifically targets children who are at risk of coming into foster care, to try to prevent that from happening.”
The Tennessee Department of Children’s Services also runs In-Home Family Support Services, a program that offers resources to parents to reduce the likelihood of abuse and neglect, and lower the risk of having children removed from the home. However, federal funding for the program is scheduled to end this fall.
Naccarato said the state’s opioid crisis is impeding efforts to reduce the number of children in foster care. Agencies are working to help boost support for kinship families, as more grandparents and other relatives are taking care of children because of parents’ opioid addiction, overdose or incarceration.
“There has, in fact, been a move to try to get some supportive funds to kinship families that are not foster-care families,” she said, “because sometimes they really need that additional financial support, and you hate to make them become a foster family in order to get it.”
However, Naccarato said the idea of offering financial assistance to kinship families has been difficult to push through the state Legislature.
The report is online at aecf.org.
