Michigan Praised For Covering Up Its Child Welfare Horrors

It is a very sad day when there is praise and that praise is accepted on the state of affairs in Michigan's foster care system.

Youth are still facing the reality that there is a lack of mental health services in placement leaving them without educational services or records.

No one is speaking about the rapes or suicides in child welfare.

No one is speaking upon the youth getting pregnant in foster care.

No one is even mentioning the questionable billing, the overmedication or the lack of due process in the courts.

What about the lack of oversight for contractual debarment, license revocation, or recovery of false claims.

But these items were never part of the Children's Rights action.  The case was about children in the foster care system.  No one mention was made of the Michigan Children's Institute in the legal proceedings.

So, let's stand up and give Madame Maura Corrigan her due credit for painting another pretty masterpiece to distract the world of the fact that very little has really changed.

If these changes are to be praised, let's see if there someone is going to do a longitudinal study to measure these improvements. Ask yourself this question: Would you trust your child in Michigan's foster care?

Much more needs to be done and we need to begin by letting the truth out for all to see.

State wins praise for improvements to child welfare efforts

Michigan continues to move forward with a top-to-bottom overhaul of its child welfare system four years after it settled a lawsuit that accused the state of running a "depleted and overburdened" system that threatened children's lives.

In a federal courtroom Monday afternoon, both a court-appointed monitor and the group that brought the lawsuit, New York-Children's Rights, lauded several recent measures by the Michigan Department of Human Services.

Among them:

• Extending foster care until youths are 21

• Establishing a centralized hotline for abuse and neglect reports

• Ensuring that youths transitioning out of the system have health insurance

• Hiring more than 700 child welfare workers

Just 18 months ago, the state repeatedly had failed to meet benchmarks set out in a settlement agreement signed in 2008 by DHS officials. The agreement, which dictated sweeping reforms in the system, settled the suit by Children's Rights. U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Edmunds said she wanted to give the state's new administration a chance to address the chronic problems. By July last year, Edmunds said changes were back on track.

DHS Director Maura Corrigan told the judge Monday that she hoped Edmunds would dismiss the agreement by the end of 2014.

Edmunds noted what she called "a different day, a different mindset, and a different atmosphere" in the courtroom compared to the struggles at the beginning of the reform efforts.

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