Marcella Middleton was in and out of foster care from ages 2 to 21, with more than 16 placements in North Carolina alone.
She was at the Legislative Building on Wednesday speaking in support of a bill she thinks would have helped shorten her stay in the foster care system.
A social worker “took adoption off the table” for her, Middleton said. “I had no avenue to advocate for myself.”
A bipartisan bill seeks to shore up some of the weaknesses in the state’s child welfare system through a multi-pronged effort focused on more efficiently moving children out of foster care and into permanent homes and helping prevent them from remaining in unsafe homes.
“What we are focused on in this bill are the life outcomes for children, so we are focused on an environment that is conducive to permanency and reunification, when possible,” said Rep. Allen Chesser (R-Nash), the bill’s lead sponsor.
The state Department of Health and Human Services sets child welfare policies, but it’s the responsibility of counties to administer them. The decentralized system leads to variations in county operations and decisions.
“With 100 counties doing it 100 different ways, it makes it very difficult to have standardization of service, standardization of care, standardization of mental health across North Carolina,” said Rep. Donnie Loftis (R-Gaston). “Hopefully, this bill starts the process of getting us all on the same page.”
Under the bill:
County social services directors would have to tell people who report child abuse or neglect within five days whether the office of child protective services is checking into the allegations and reasons for the decisions. People who report child abuse would be able to ask the state to review county decisions when directors decide not to follow up. Parents would no longer have their parental rights terminated for failure to pay for the care of their children while the children are in county custody. Before representing county social services agencies, lawyers would have to take six hours of mandatory specialized training. The training would be required each year. Open adoptions would be allowed, if both the adoptive parents and birth parents agree. Courts would be able to modify or terminate the agreements. The agreements would end when children turn 18 or are otherwise emancipated. Foster parents or relatives who have cared for children for at least a year and want to adopt them would have the chance to talk to judges before child care workers remove the children for a new placement. The state Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) would be able to review open and closed cases in counties as part of regular monitoring or in response to complaints. County Department of Social Services directors would be notified of violations of rules and laws. If the problems aren’t remedied, the state would ask the county boards of commissioners, county managers, and other county officials to fix the problems.Foster agency operators, advocates for foster children, foster parents, and representatives from Disability Rights NC and DHHS attended the presentation of the bill.
Lisa Cauley, director of the DHHS Division of Human Services gave a rundown of recent and soon-to-be operational advances in child welfare.
“To truly protect children and strengthen families, we have more work to do,” she said. “This bill is a big step in moving us forward. First and foremost, it creates a new level of accountability in the child welfare system.”
It would also help smooth the path toward permanent, stable homes for children, she said.
Marcella Middleton (File photo)Multiple parties must work together to ensure permanency for children, Cauley said. “This bill brings these systems together around the shared goal of reducing delays and securing permanency to move children out of DSS custody as safely and quickly as possible.”
Absent an immediate crisis, sweeping changes to the state’s child care system have been difficult and slow.
Chesser said the bill took about 16 months to develop.
“It is something that a lot of blood, sweat and tears, and I would say love has been poured into,” he said. “Our goal here is to overcome some of the political obstacles we have faced in the past and actually move the needle for the children who need it the most, and that is the children who are in foster care.”
Middleton is now CEO of the nonprofit A Way Home America, which advocates for federal policies to reduce youth homelessness.
The bill’s provisions would have helped her, she said, and would help the young people she works with today.
“The system needs to work for you so you can transition out of that system and actually have a full life so that you’re not sitting there, a victim of a circumstance that you didn’t even put yourself in.”
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