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6. SUMMARY
Children in foster care need permanent families. If they cannot return to their birth families, they may find permanency with other relatives or previously unknown families who adopt them. Many of these families may live in States and counties other than the ones in which the children live. However the process of securing permanent families in other jurisdictions takes longer and requires more work than securing permanent families within children's home jurisdictions. As a result, these children often remain in foster care longer than their counterparts. In FY 2004, children adopted from foster care across State lines had spent more than half their lives in foster care; they had been in care 12 months longer than children adopted in-state. These lengthy stays, coupled with the impact of the abuse and neglect they may have experienced in their birth parents' homes, place them at increased risk for many emotional, behavioral, and academic problems. Federal, State, and local child welfare staff are committed to improving outcomes for these children.
Many of the obstacles to achieving timely permanency for children involved in interjurisdictional placements are the same as those affecting the child welfare system as a whole. These include high caseloads among staff, limited access to support services for children and families, delays in the permanency planning process, a lack of waiting and approved adoptive families for children, and difficulties coordinating the work between child welfare agencies and courts. In addition to these challenges, interjurisdictional placements must contend with differing State laws, policies, and procedures and communication difficulties among staff in multiple agencies in two jurisdictions. Barriers related to interjurisdictional placements can be grouped into the following eight categories: staffing and resources, knowledge and training, staff attitudes and beliefs, education and medical expenses, criminal background checks, communication, permanency planning, and tracking and reporting.
Federal and State support to enhance outcomes for children in foster care placed across jurisdictional boundaries is strong. Evidence of this is apparent in the recently completed interjurisdictional survey commissioned by the Children's Bureau. The Children's Bureau designed and led this survey effort to learn about and share knowledge of effective strategies that States are implementing and to urge other States to replicate the strategies. Notably, States reported implementing dozens of diverse strategies to accomplish interjurisdictional placements more effectively, indicating their diligence and commitment to achieving positive outcomes for children.
Data collection for the survey was completed in April 2005, and the findings are being used to promote improvements in practice. For example, in the summer of 2005, the Collaboration to AdoptUsKids (a Children's Bureau T&TA provider) hosted 10 regional roundtable meetings in which State child welfare leaders used the survey results to develop action plans for improving outcomes for children involved in interjurisdictional placements in their States. Staff from the ACF Regional Offices and the Children's Bureau's T&TA Network participated in these meetings and began to strategize delivery of support services to States to strengthen their efforts. Plans are underway for the T&TA Network to facilitate peer-to-peer TA, enabling States that have had success with selected strategies to teach other States how to implement them.
Even prior to reporting results from the interjurisdictional survey, the process of designing and implementing the survey spurred action. Members of the national advisory group for the survey raised awareness among professionals about the possibilities for improving the interjurisdictional placement process, and promoted State-to-State knowledge sharing. To respond to the survey, State child welfare directors convened workgroups within their States, promoting networking and communication among various child welfare and court staff and other stakeholders. Overall, this survey promises to lay a strong foundation for practice improvements that will enhance outcomes for children in foster care who are placed across jurisdictional lines.
Hand in hand with efforts to expand the implementation of effective strategies identified in the interjurisdictional survey, the Children's Bureau is funding discretionary grant projects to test promising practices and conduct new research related to this issue. The results of these will be shared as they are available. Priorities for future discretionary grants will build upon lessons learned and continue the improvement process.
Supporting all these efforts are the CFSRs, the comprehensive Federal monitoring and accountability system for achieving established outcomes for children and families served by State child welfare agencies. States already are implementing Program Improvement Plans to make progress toward achieving these outcomes, and the second round of reviews, beginning in 2006, will include methodological improvements that ultimately will strengthen State services and support achievement of the outcomes.
In addition to the Federal efforts, States are collaborating, under leadership of the American Public Human Services Association, to revise the ICPC. It is hoped this revision will assist in strengthening ICPC and removing some of the procedural challenges that have faced staff who implement interjurisdictional placements of children in foster care.
Federal, State, and local government staff, along with private agency stakeholders, are working in concert to find solutions to the problems. While much work remains, there also is evidence of commitment and promising strategies that will enhance safety, permanency, and well-being for children in foster care whose futures lie across State lines.
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