Audit: DCS doesn’t give foster parents information needed to keep kids safe

Medical conditions were among issues not shared

The Arizona Department of Child Safety isn’t giving foster parents the information they are legally entitled to, so they can properly care for children the state places in their homes, according to a state auditor general report.

Because DCS did not inform a foster parent of a child’s medical conditions, one child went into anaphylactic shock “due to an allergen exposure.”

Another child had a contagious health condition that a foster parent felt “could have jeopardized the health of her entire family.”

A third child went without prescribed medicine because the packet of information that’s given to each foster parent upon placement indicated the child wasn’t taking any medication.

“Most foster parents described receiving little to no information about the child(ren) they cared for at the time of placement, such as information about a child’s medications, the circumstances that led to the child’s removal from the home, and the exis

tence of medical and/or behavioral issues,” said the report, released earlier this month.

The audit also found that DCS has paid nearly $73 million to contractors to recruit and support foster and adoptive homes, but didn’t ensure they had provided all those services, according to the report.

The issues put children’s lives at risk and contribute to the state’s longstanding shortage of foster homes for the thousands of children in state custody.

Foster parents say DCS has allowed the problems to linger for years. Some say it’s time for Gov. Doug Ducey to push for sanctions against DCS caseworkers and other state workers who don’t follow laws to protect children in state custody.

About 41% of children, ages newborn to 17, or an estimated 5,500, in state custody were in family foster homes as of June 30, according to a DCS report cited in the audit. There are an estimated 14,000 children and young adults in Arizona’s child-welfare system.

DCS is following national standards for foster-home recruitment and acknowledges it needs more homes for older children, sibling groups and Native American and Latino children, according to the audit. But inadequate intake practices and failure to monitor contractors’ services for foster parents may contribute to an enduring shortage of foster homes. That trend worries lawmakers and child-welfare advocates given the decrease in children in foster care.

The audit was mandated by a 2017 budget reconciliation bill signed by Ducey. It came amid concerns from foster parents that the then-newly created state agency for child welfare was still failing its most vulnerable.

The audit, which arrived weeks after the Sept. 1 departure of former DCS Director Greg McKay, cites several laws that have been disregarded, including an Arizona statute known as Jacob’s Law, which requires DCS to “immediately provide the caregiver with an updated and complete placement packet” when the state places a child in a foster or group home. The packet includes health information and resources that the state must provide for foster parents and children.

Jacob’s Law includes provisions that speed up state-paid behavioral-health screenings for foster children and puts deadlines on therapy and medical appointments and services.

“It’s not just about knowing your rights, it’s truly life altering,” said Anika Robinson, who helped press for passage of the law. “A child can end up in a coma or dead if they don’t have the right information. Or it could harm your family.”

Robinson is one of the foster parents calling for swift sanctions for failure to provide such services and questioning why state leaders allowed McKay, in one of his first acts as the head of DCS, to dismantle a unit that investigated DCS internal affairs.

“The governor knows this is the law. If it’s the law, then why are kids getting dropped off without these crucial packets, why isn’t the governor, the AG, or somebody not holding them accountable for breaking the law?” she asked. “When parents are being negligent caretakers, we take their kids and make the state the legal guardian. If DCS is being negligent why are there no consequences?”

Rep. Nancy Barto, R-Phoenix, a longtime child-welfare advocate who cochairs the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on the Department of Child Safety, said lawmakers share foster parents’ concerns.

“We’ve pretty much run out of time in terms of how much more leash we can give them without seeing some real changes,” she said of DCS and its leadership.

Ducey appointed Mike Faust, who was serving as DCS’ deputy director of support services, to replace McKay as DCS director.

Problems at every stage

The audit’s findings revealed widespread violations of laws meant to keep children in state custody safe.

The issues generally fall into three categories:

❚ barriers to becoming a foster parent,

❚ problems during placementof a child in a foster home,

❚ and woes throughout parenting a foster child.

It can start with the first call someone makes to DCS or a foster-care agency. Problems with the intake process — an important first step in the recruiting and development of a prospective foster parent — can deter people interested in learning more about opening their home to a foster child.

Too often, foster parents who make it past the barriers are let down by DCS caseworkers who give them a child but tell them little to nothing about the boy or girl in their care. Their struggles continue as they seek legally mandated services for their children.

The cycle can end with a foster parent giving up, closing their license and their home to children. Or worse, with preventable risks that endanger children and their foster families.

The audit included a review of foster parent surveys dating back to 2014, as well as 2019 focus groups with current and former foster parents, foster home recruitment contractors and interviews with staff from the Arizona Ombudsman-Citizens’ Aide, an agency of the Arizona Legislature established to make government more responsive.

DCS agrees to all audit findings

In 2014, lawmakers and then-Gov. Jan Brewer dismantled the state’s Child Protective Services, a division within the Department of Economic Security, and created the stand-alone Department of Child Safety.

Ducey appointed McKay just months after the agency’s restructuring.

In 2016, McKay shocked lawmakers and child-welfare stakeholders when he rejected 11 of 15 recommendations in an auditor general’s report. The audit followed a 2015 law that sought a review of the agency’s practices for getting children into permanent homes who have been removed from their original homes due to allegations of abuse or neglect.

McKay said the changes were unnecessary or were already being implemented.

Now, less than a month after McKay’s departure, Faust, the newly appointed DCS director, responded to the current audit. He accepted all of its findings. Like McKay, Faust, the only candidate Ducey interviewed for the leadership position, also lacks human- or socialservices expertise, joining DCS four years ago to aid with the restructuring after a career in the aerospace manufacturing industry.

“The Department will continue to demonstrate its commitment to the experiences of foster families and the children of Arizona,” Faust said in a letter to Arizona Auditor General Lindsey Perry. “The Department agrees with the findings and will implement the recommendations as indicated in the enclosed response.”

DCS will improve staff interactions with foster parents and licensing agencies and is restructuring its customerservice models to better support foster parents, according to the response.

The department agreed it should, as required by statute, provide foster parents with complete, updated packets upon placement of children with foster parents and also monitor whether caseworkers are providing sufficient packets.

A new foster care portal will help provide foster parents access to pertinent information about the child in their care, the response stated.

DCS is in the process of implementing an improved data-collection methodology to more accurately assess why foster families close their licenses. And the new Foster and Adoption Support contract requires contractors to administer a survey to understand “broader reasons for closure.”

To address the agency’s and contractors’ inadequate intake processes, including providing services in Spanish and English, the agency is reducing response and follow-up times for foster parents and establishing additional “oversight of the contractors’ intake processes to ensure they meet call quality expectations.”

DCS is implementing a contract management system to ensure that contractors maintain their websites with information in English and Spanish on how to become a foster and/or adoptive parent. That same system will help “provide oversight and ensure contract requirements are met.”

Lawmaker: Progress expected

Barto told The Arizona Republic that she’s pleased Faust sees the current audits as a mandate for critical changes.

The audit, she said, gives the Legislature the “black-and-white” proof needed to demand greater “oversight, transparency and accountability” from DCS.

“McKay ... was in there at probably one of the most difficult times that the agency had, but having said that, I do see new leadership as a good thing,” she said.

Barto said she supports Faust but that he takes the reins under a microscope of bipartisan concern for children in state custody. Following the alarming audit, she said, any new director would be on a short deadline to show they will act when the Legislature says they must.

Barto wants to fast-track a languishing independent DCS oversight committee

and see the results of a new system — long called for by lawmakers — called Guardian that will track vital data, such as how long kids are in care, which type of care, and how they are doing.

“I don’t think anything should be off the table,” she said of sanctions against DCS for breaking or ignoring laws. “I don’t think anybody expects perfection, but we do expect and the public should expect progress.”

Sen. Victoria Steele, D-Tucson, also a longtime child-welfare advocate serving on the Legislature’s DCS oversight committee, said the audit is bleak. Steele found the lack of legally mandated placement packets the most disturbing finding.

“There is no excuse,” she said. “That does not take legislative action, that was something that was already mandated to happen. It puts children and foster families in danger.”

She said she values uncharacteristic bipartisan support for action and that it’s time for Ducey to demand accountability and transparency.

Steele did, however, find hope in the number of children moving away from foster care and into kinship care. But, she noted, some relatives can’t take in children because of the cost.

“I’ve talked with families who have said, ‘I could not afford to take care of grandchildren, and they had to go into the foster care system, and it broke my family apart and it broke my heart,’ ” she said. “We should get rid of any barriers that stand in the way of kinship families stepping up.”

Steele is advocating for increasing the average monthly support from $43 to $250, considering that foster families receive an average of $641.

“A child can end up in a coma or dead if they don’t have the right information.”

Anika Robinson

Foster mother