1). Major factors affecting children’s entry into  foster care included African American families’ higher rates of poverty,  difficulties in accessing support services, and racial bias or cultural  misunderstanding among child welfare decision makers, as well as  families’ distrust of the child welfare system. Factors often cited as  affecting African American children’s length of stay in foster care included  the lack of appropriate adoptive homes for children, parents’ lack of  access to support services needed for reunification with their children,  and a greater use of kinship care among African American families. 2.) In our survey, 33 of the 48 states from which we received responses  reported that high rates of poverty in African American communities and  issues related to living in poverty may increase the proportion of African  American children entering foster care compared to that of children of  other races and ethnicities. 3.) The  lack of such supports and other services in many poor African American  neighborhoods contributes to children’s longer stays in foster care  because services can influence a parent’s ability to reunify with their child  in a timely manner, according to our survey, interviews, and research. They may be unwilling to adopt because they may find it difficult  financially to forego foster care payments or because adoption entails  terminating the parental rights of their kin. In Illinois,  this decrease also coincided with a reduction in disproportionate numbers  of African American children in foster care. Such data analyses help states and localities  devise strategies to address the issue and can also be useful for building  consensus among community leaders and policymakers for action. However, some state and local agencies have limited capacity to do this. Despite these efforts, states report that  they need further information and technical assistance to strengthen their  current efforts in addressing disproportionality. States Reported That More Flexibility to Use Federal Funds for Prevention Services and Subsidized Guardianship Could Help Reduce Disproportionality

While states viewed some federal policies as helpful for reducing the  proportion of African American children in foster care, they also  expressed concerns regarding policies that limit the use of federal funds to  provide preventive services and support legal guardianship arrangements. Policies that promote adoption of African American  children were generally viewed as helpful, such as allowing states to  classify African American children as having “special needs,” which allows  them to provide subsidies to adoptive parents, according to our survey  results. As an alternative to adoption, many child welfare officials and researchers  we interviewed considered subsidizing legal guardianship a particularly  important way to help African American children exit foster care. African American Children in Foster Care: Additional HHS Assistance  Needed to Help States Reduce the Proportion in Care. GAO-07-816. Foster Care: Kinship Care Quality and Permanency Issues.
Why GAO Did This Study

A significantly greater proportion of African American children are in foster care than children of other races and ethnicities relative to their share of the general population. Given this situation, GAO was asked to analyze the (1) major factors influencing their proportion in foster care, (2) strategies states and localities have implemented that appear promising, and (3) ways in which federal policies may have influenced the proportion of African American children in foster care. This testimony is based on a GAO report issued in July 2007 (GAO-07-816), which included a nationwide survey; a review of research and policies; state site visits; analyses of child welfare data; and interviews with researchers, HHS officials, and other experts. It includes updates where possible.

What GAO Found

According to our survey results, key factors contributing to the proportion of African American children in foster care included a higher rate of poverty, challenges in accessing support services, racial bias and distrust, and difficulties in finding appropriate adoptive homes. Families living in poverty have greater difficulty accessing housing, mental health, and other support services needed to keep families stable and children safely at home. Bias or cultural misunderstandings and distrust between child welfare decision makers and the families they serve also contribute to children's removal from their homes into foster care. African American children also stay in foster care longer because of difficulties in recruiting adoptive parents, the lack of services for parents trying to reunify with their children, and a greater reliance on relatives to provide foster care who may be unwilling to terminate the parental rights of the child's parent--as required in adoption--or who need the financial subsidy they receive while the child is in foster care. Most states we surveyed reported using various strategies intended to address these issues, such as building community supports, providing cultural competency training for caseworkers, and broadening the search for relatives to care for children. Researchers and officials also stressed the importance of analyzing data to address the proportion of African American children in care in order to better understand the issue and devise strategies to address it. HHS provides information and technical assistance, but states reported that they had limited capacity to analyze their own data and formulate strategies to address disproportionality. According to our survey, states viewed some federal policies, such as those that promote adoption, as helpful for reducing the proportion of African American children in foster care. However, they also expressed concerns regarding policies that limit the use of federal funds to provide preventive services and support legal guardianship arrangements. As an alternative to adoption, subsidized guardianship is considered particularly promising for helping African American children exit from foster care.