Foster Care

Juvenile justice placements constitute a small proportion of all title IV-E placements. The states have occasionally claimed reimbursement for juvenile justice placements at facilities that were not eligible for such reimbursement and, in many of the title IV-E funded cases GAO reviewed, the facilities served primarily children in the juvenile justice system. According to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the states find it particularly difficult in juvenile justice cases to meet title IV-E procedural requirements intended to protect children's welfare. It is important that HHS exercise adequate oversight of title IV-E funded juvenile justice placements to determine the extent to which title IV-E funding is appropriately used and procedural requirements are met in these cases. To do this, HHS needs sufficient information about (1) facility eligibility and compliance with procedural requirements in individual title IV-E funded juvenile justice cases and (2) the state and county systems used to determine whether the facilities in title IV-E funded juvenile justice cases are eligible for title IV-E funding, as well as systems used to help ensure that procedural requirements are met in these cases. Although the states have primary responsibility for making title IV-E facility eligibility decisions and meeting procedural requirements in juvenile justice placements, HHS, as the ultimate steward of title IV-E funds, has the responsibility to exercise close oversight of the use of those funds. Collecting such information will allow HHS to identify the nature and the magnitude of any problems that may exist in these cases.

GAO noted that: (1) in FY 1998, about $300 million in title IV-E funds was used to support foster care placements of children in the juvenile justice system; (2) almost half of the states used some portion of their title IV-E funds in this way; (3) nearly 60 percent of the total amount of title IV-E funding used for juvenile justice placements was used by California; (4) the $300 million used for children in the juvenile justice system is 10 percent of all FY 1998 title IV-E expenditures; (5) to ensure that title IV-E funds are not being used for placements in detention facilities, the 10 states that used the largest amount of such funding in FY 1998 rely primarily on the requirements that a facility must meet in order to be licensed as a child care institution; (6) licensing regulations in those states establish standards designed primarily to ensure a healthy and safe physical environment for the children; (7) in some states, these regulations allow a facility to engage in some restrictive practices that have been associated with detention; (8) state licensing regulations also play a role with regard to meeting title IV-E procedural requirements intended to protect the welfare of children in foster care cases--namely, that case plans be developed, administrative case reviews be conducted, and procedural safeguards be in place; (9) states enforce their licensing regulations through periodic on-site visits and facility inspections; (10) in addition to their licensing regulations, the two states whose procedures GAO examined more closely have administrative regulations for protecting children in foster care, which address in detail the title IV-E procedural requirements; (11) HHS has acknowledged that states have sometimes encountered difficulty in determining whether the facilities in which juvenile justice system children are placed qualify to receive title IV-E funding and in meeting procedural requirements in these cases; (12) HHS conducts two broad oversight reviews in each state, a title IV-E eligibility review and a child and family services (CFS) review; (13) title IV-E eligibility reviews primarily verify children's and foster care providers' eligibility for title IV-E funding in random sample of title IV-E funded foster care placements in each state; and (14) CFS reviews assess systems states use to determine the eligibility of foster care providers for title IV-E funding and systems states use to ensure that procedural requirements are met in title IV-E funded placements.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Team: Phone: