OPEA

HB 3258 (Blackwell and Newberry) requires the Department of Human Services to privatize child welfare services. The most recent form that has been circulated in meetings requires OKDHS to privatize "foster care, therapeutic foster care, residential treatment centers, group homes, independent living adoptions, case management and related services statewide" in the next three years. The legislation is being promoted by lobbyists who represent for-profit out-of-state corporations.

While the bill has passed both chambers, the title was stricken to allow authors to continue discussion of the issue. HB 3258 is currently in conference committee and must pass both the House and Senate in its final form.

Contact legislators and tell them to vote no on this bill. This radical change to the system that protects and provides services to Oklahoma’s most vulnerable children should not be turned into a for-profit venture.

OPEA opposes the privatization of child welfare in any form. Proponents have discussed possible pilot projects or a phased-in approach. Requiring OKDHS to prepare a privatization plan or implement a pilot project would only take resources away from critical services during challenging economic times.

Listed below are talking points OPEA has prepared and has been using to lobby at the Capitol against the bill.

Accountability: Currently, DHS maintains accountability for the safety and placement of the children in state custody for abuse and neglect. HB 3258 would divide that accountability among DHS and private organizations, which could cause children to fall through the cracks. A public agency should remain accountable for children in state custody. Contracting out all foster care services would remove this public accountability.

Start-up Costs: The state and the Department of Human Services are under serious budget constraints and struggling to maintain critical services. The additional costs of developing, implementing and monitoring private contractors could take resources away the protection of children and providing prevention and treatment services. In addition, state-operated services would need to continue during the implementation stage to ensure the delivery of critical services.

Study: At great cost to the state, the House of Representatives contracted with child welfare specialists Hornby Zeller Associates, Inc. to conduct an extensive study of Oklahoma’s child welfare system and make recommendations. DHS is currently, in the process of implementing the reforms recommended by the HZA study. The provisions of HB 3258 are not included in the study recommendations, nor is any increased privatization of child welfare services.

OKDHS Progress: When it comes to the state’s most vulnerable children, moving forward and improving services is always an important goal. Over the past few years, OKDHS, working with legislators, has reorganized the Children and Family Services Division and improved outcomes for children in state supervision.

Listed below are a few of the recent reforms and outcomes.

Progress in safety, permanency and well-being of children

Reduction of over 3,700 children in out-of-home care since July 2007

• Over 1,000 fewer children in out-of-home care since July 2009

• Lowest number of children per responsible worker in years

• Third in the nation in moving children eligible for adoption to permanency

• Worker retention continues to increase

• The daily shelter population has decreased from 98 in June 2009 to 40 in February 2010

• Round-the-clock centralized hotline had been established

• Oklahoma outpaces the nation in kinship foster care

Safety Net with Contracted Services: In Oklahoma, DHS has contracted with non-profit organizations to provide a wide array of services on a fee-for-service basis. The agency maintains accountability for Oklahoma’s custody children and the safety net of core services, while contracting with non-profit organizations to provide preventative services, home studies and special foster homes. In this model, which is prevalent across the nation, the ultimate responsibility stays with the DHS county office that coordinates services and monitors safety.

Rural Infrastructure: Since its inception, the Department of Human Services has been responsible for child welfare and the protection of children in state custody. Over several decades, the agency has established an infrastructure of human resources and technology that the private agency would have to reconstruct. DHS workers develop expertise in the judicial and criminal justice system, child psychology and family dynamics. Establishing a private system of social services with specialization needed for child welfare has proven difficult, time consuming and expensive with mixed results in rural areas of other states that have attempted similar projects.

Contractor Consistency: If state leaders adopt the “lead agency” model in HB 3258 for child welfare and privatizes the full continuum of foster care services, the state will lose expertise in this function. DHS will have no control over whether vendors decide to continue contracting with the state for this service, because the contractor is free to walk away at any time with limited notice. A provider for mental health services in the Tulsa area suddenly decided to no longer contract with the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services forcing the state to pick up the pieces and provide inpatient services in one month. In addition, constant change in contractors and service providers could be devastating to children and families in the child welfare system. The county DHS office, while sometimes having high employee turnover, has consistent standards and supervisory staff to pick up the slack if a child welfare worker leaves.

Florida Experience: In 1996, Florida mandated privatization of child welfare with a lead agency design. The Florida system gained nation wide media attention when hundreds of children fell through the cracks and could not be located. An emergency statewide sweep was conducted by Florida’s social service agency and law enforcement to find the lost children. Florida contractors have been cited for abuse and neglect of foster children and fraud in reporting services.

In 2004, eight years after passage of the initial legislation to privatize foster care, the University of South Florida conducted a study of the implementation of community-based care (CBC) or the lead agency system of child welfare. In almost all of the measures, the state was average or exceeded the performance measures of the outsourced services. However, the state served over half of the children in the Florida with the total number of cases, at 93,725. Twelve private providers had 36,187 cases among them with a range of 334 to 9,382. The measures indicate the state is the “lead agency” coordinating services and maintaining case management for most of Florida’s foster care services years after the mandate to privatize was passed, due to implementation problems.