Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003 - Conference Report

KEEPING CHILDREN AND FAMILIES SAFE ACT OF 2003—CONFERENCE REPORT

    Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I am pleased to join with my colleagues in supporting the conference report on legislation to reauthorize CAPTA, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act. This measure is very aptly called the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003.

    The conference report we are approving today would strengthen efforts to prevent child abuse and neglect. It would promote increased sharing of information and partnerships between child protective services and education, health, and juvenile justice systems. It would encourage a variety of new training programs to improve child protection, particularly cross-training in recognizing domestic violence and substance abuse in addition to child abuse detection and protection training.

    The Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003 renews grants to States to improve child protection systems and increases to $200 million the authorization for child abuse investigations, training of child protection service, CPS, workers, and community child abuse prevention programs.

    For States to receive funding, they must meet several new requirements: have triage procedures to provide appropriate referrals of a child "not at risk of imminent harm" to a community organization or for voluntary preventive services; have policies and procedures for the referral of abused children under the age of three to early intervention services funded under Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act; have policies in place to address the needs of infants who are born and identified as having been physically affected by prenatal exposure to illegal drugs, which must include a safe plan of care for the child; have policies of improved training, retention, and supervision of caseworkers; and require criminal background record checks for prospective foster and adoptive parents and all other adults living in the household, not later than 2 years after the law's enactment.

    Child abuse and neglect continue to be significant problems in the United States.

    Nearly 3 million referrals concerning the welfare of about 5 million children were made to Child Protection Services, CPS, agencies throughout the Nation in 2001. Of these referrals, about two-thirds, 67.3 percent, were "screened-in" for further assessment and investigation. Professionals, including teachers, law enforcement officers, social service workers, and physicians made more than half, 56.5 percent, of the screened-in reports. About 903,000 children were found to be victims of child maltreatment. Over half, 59 percent, suffered neglect, including medical neglect; 19 percent were physically abused; 10 percent were sexually abused; 6.8 percent were emotionally maltreated; and 19.5 percent were associated with "other" forms of maltreatment such as abandonment, threats of harm to the child, and drug addiction. About 275,000, or 20 percent, of abused children were placed in foster care as a result of CPS investigation or assessment.

    Many of these children fail to receive adequate protection and services.

    The most tragic consequence of child maltreatment is death. In 2001, about 1,300 children died of abuse and/or neglect. Children younger than six years of age accounted for 85 percent of child fatalities and children younger than one year of age accounted for 41 percent of child fatalities.

    Child abuse is not a new phenomenon. For more than a decade, numerous reports have called attention to the tragic abuse and neglect of children and the inadequacy of our Child Protection Service systems to protect our children.

    In 1990, the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect concluded that "child abuse and neglect is a national emergency." In 1995, the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect reported that "State and local CPS caseworkers are often overextended and cannot adequately function under their current caseloads." The report also stated that, "in many jurisdictions, caseloads are so high that CPS response is limited to taking the complaint call, making a single visit to the home, and deciding whether or not the complaint is valid, often without any subsequent monitoring of the family."

    A 1997 General Accounting Office, GAO, report found that, "the CPS system is in crisis, plagued by difficult problems, such as growing caseloads, increasingly complex social problems and underlying child maltreatment, and ongoing systemic weakness in day-to-day operations." According to GAO, CPS weaknesses include "difficulty in maintaining a skilled workforce; the inability to consistently follow key policies and procedures designed to protect children; developing useful case data and record-keeping systems, such as automated case management; and establishing good working relationships with the courts."

    According to a May 2001 report conducted by the American Public Human Services Association, APHSA, the Child Welfare League of America, CWLA, and the Alliance for Children and Families, annual staff turnover is high and morale is low among CPS workers. The report found that CPS workers had an annual turnover rate of 22 percent, 76 percent higher than the turnover rate for total agency staff. The "preventable" turnover rate was 67 percent, or two-thirds higher than the rate for all other direct service workers and total agency staff. In some States, 75 percent or more of staff turnovers were preventable.

    States rated a number of retention issues as highly problematic. In descending order they are: workloads that are too high and/or demanding; caseloads that are too high; too much worker time spent on travel, paperwork, courts, and meetings; workers not feeling valued by the agency; low salaries; supervision problems; and insufficient resources for families and children.

    To prevent turnover and retain quality CPS staff, some States have begun to increase in-service training, increase education opportunities, increase supervisory training, increase or improve orientation, increase worker safety, and offer flex-time or changes in office hours. Most States, however, continue to grapple with staff turnover and training issues.

    Continued public criticism of CPS efforts, continued frustration by CPS staff and child welfare workers, and continued abuse and neglect, and death, of our Nation's children, served as the backdrop as we composed the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act CAPTA, reauthorization bill this year.

    The Child Protection System mission must focus on the safety of children. To ensure that the system works as intended, CPS needs to be appropriately staffed. The staff need to receive appropriate training and cross-training to better recognize substance abuse and domestic violence problems.

    The conference agreement we are passing today encourages triage approaches and differential response systems so that those reports where children are most at risk of imminent harm can be prioritized.

    The bill specifically emphasizes collaborations in communities between CPS, health agencies, including mental health agencies, schools, and community-based groups to help strengthen families and provide better protection for children.

    The bill provides grants for prevention programs and activities to prevent child abuse and neglect. By focusing this assistance on at-risk families, we can help improve the likelihood that a child will grow up on a home without violence, abuse, or neglect.

    Beyond the CAPTA title of this legislation, the bill reauthorize the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act, including new efforts to address the needs of children who witness domestic violence, and a new highly secure web site to increase the likelihood that when an abused spouse calls for help, such calls will be handled as efficiently as possible with on-line links to shelters immediately letting the caller know of open shelters and the services these shelters offer. The measure also reauthorizes the Adoption Opportunities Act, and the Abandoned Infants Assistance Act.

    Child protection ought not be a partisan issue. This bill will help ensure that it is not. I want to commend and thanks my colleagues on the conference committee—Chairman GREGG, Senator KENNEDY, Senator ALEXANDER, and Senator DEWINE as well as my colleagues in the House for their efforts to craft a bipartisan initiative that can help to prevent and alleviate suffering among our Nation's children.