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National Coalition for Child Protection Reform (NCCPR)
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Horrors of NJ Foster Care Show Need for More
Efforts to Keep Families Together; 'Orphanages are Even Worse,'
Advocacy Group Says
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| ALEXANDRIA,
VA - April 15 - Revelations that some New Jersey foster homes
are houses of horror for the children forced to live in them are
still another indication that New Jersey needs to do more to keep
families together, a national child advocacy group said Tuesday.
Richard Wexler,
executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection
Reform, added that "bad as some foster homes are, the record of
orphanages -- often touted as an alternative -- is even worse."
NCCPR was responding
to records released in connection with a class-action lawsuit
brought by Children's Rights Inc. against the New Jersey Division
of Youth and Family Services (DYFS). The records concerned 17
examples of severe, sometimes fatal, abuse of New Jersey foster
children.
"On one point
DYFS is correct," Wexler said. "These cases do not represent the
majority of New Jersey foster parents, who do the best they can
for the children in their care -- like most parents, period. But
the rate of abuse in foster care nationwide is far higher than
in the general population, far higher than generally realized
-- and far higher than official statistics reveal.
"As damning
as the abuse itself is the persistent pattern of DYFS turning
its back on such abuse. Abuse was ignored in cases with more red
flags than a Soviet May Day parade." That problem is common across
the country, Wexler said. As a result, official statistics grossly
underestimate the rate of abuse in foster care.
Wexler noted
that revelations of abuse in foster care often lead to calls to
put more children in group homes and institutions, "in other words,
orphanages." But he said children are even more likely to be abused
when they are institutionalized.
"But more important,
while good foster parents can turn a child's life around, the
scholarly literature is virtually unanimous about institutions:
'Good orphanage' is an oxymoron. Institutionalizing children in
and of itself causes them harm. Indeed, the evidence is so overwhelming
that the federal government now rates child welfare systems in
part on their ability to reduce the number of children under age
12 who are institutionalized.
Wexler said
a better alternative is doing more to keep families together in
the first place. "Many children are taken from parents who are
neither brutally abusive nor hopelessly addicted. Far more often,
a parent's poverty is confused with "neglect." Other cases fall
on a broad continuum between the extremes, the parents neither
all victim nor all villain.
"Get these
families the help they need so their children can come home, and
there will be plenty of room in good foster homes for children
in real danger -- and no one will even think of bringing back
the orphanage."
###
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