From National Model to Crisis In 4 Short Years: Maine's Child Welfare System Want's You!!!

From National Model to Crisis In 4 Short Years: Maine's Child Welfare System Want's You!!!

In just a couple days, we begin what is known as National Child Abuse Prevention Month, and Maine should be celebrating their successes at keeping kids safe and preserving families like they were back in January of 2011...

Logan died Jan. 31, 2001 — 10 years ago Monday — after her foster mother, Sally Schofield, confined her to a highchair in the basement of her Chelsea home and wrapped layers of duct tape around her head, mouth and chest. Logan suffocated, and Schofield is serving a 17-year sentence after her conviction for manslaughter. 

In the years since, the number of children in foster care in Maine has been cut in half. Those who are in the foster care system are three times more likely to be placed with family members than with strangers. Caseworkers now visit foster children at least once a month, rather than the three-month standard back then. 

10 years after Logan’s death, Maine foster care is US model

But instead, Maine will be celebrating by pushing a foster parent recruitment campaign...

The number of foster children in Maine has outgrown the number of available foster homes, and the state needs 100 families to sign up to care for older children, the commissioner of Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services said Monday. 

Facing shortage, Maine DHHS calls on families to take in foster kids

As well as looking for more homes for the "Parent-less" children of Maine.

 Here are the sobering statistics: There are 1,990 children in foster care. Of those, 502 are seeking adoption. If you think about it, 500 kids out there wondering if they’ll ever have a family of their own is about as sad as it gets. 

DHHS: More than 500 parent-less Maine kids looking for ‘forever homes’

Now how do we go from a National Model Child Welfare system to a Crisis Level Shortage?  It's simple.  You get a governor who claims to hate child abuse so much that he thinks...

The department has been criticized in the past for being too quick to remove a child, LePage said, but now, “sometimes we’re putting them back too quickly and sometimes we’re not taking them out fast enough.”  

DHHS won’t release information on dead baby

And then you take more kids, blame it all on drug abuse, and ask the legislature for an additional $4.2 million dollars to cover the cost.

Legislators and others say factors such as poor planning and cuts in other social services likely contributed to the crisis, adding as many as 500 unanticipated children to the foster care system and leaving child welfare officials $4.2 million short in the fiscal year ending June 30. A supplemental budget put a Band-Aid on the problem in February.

Poor planning adds to Maine’s foster care crisis

And there you have it.  How Maine went from a National Model child welfare system to having a crisis level and desperate need for more foster and adoptive homes in just four short years and they need you to bail them out.

DHHS in need of families to take in foster kids - And Foster Parents Warn Against It!

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