The city’s embattled baby-welfare organization automatically arms over disregarded and abused children to foster dad and mom without proof that historical past exams or on-web page visits have been ever finished first, a probe has observed. A town comptroller report released to The Post revealed that the documents for 89 of 110 foster houses licensed for placement via the Administration for Children’s Services didn’t comprise “essential records” showing they met such kingdom guidelines.
The foster homes have been allowed to keep functioning for up to 484 days before ultimately being flagged via ACS itself for having incomplete records, investigators stated.
Seven houses even acquired annual recertifications before ACS exposed the problems, the Comptroller’s Office observed.
“ACS’ lack of oversight permits a deficient foster-care machine, where youngsters can be located in homes that don’t measure up or meet their wishes,” Comptroller Scott Stinger told The Post. Taxpayers spend almost $1.1 billion in 12 months to hold approximately eight a hundred kids in about five hundred fifty foster houses, keeping records from Stringer and ACS.
All citizens of capacity foster homes are purported to undergo historical past exams and scientific tests earlier than placement. State regulation also mandates that prior on-site visits take location and prospective foster parents obtain at least 30 hours of education except they’re associated with the children, wherein case the wide variety drops to 15 hours.
Social workers are also purported to inspect foster houses ahead of time to check whether they’ve window guards if required and the proper range of beds, in addition to “basic cleanliness.”Stringer’s probe doesn’t say whether or not any kids had been harmed due to the bureaucratic bungling.
The record comes simply months after the metropolis Department of Investigation issued blistering findings that confirmed ACS had left kids within the care of poorly acting foster-care contractors.
For Stringer’s report, his office investigated a pattern of documents from July 2016 to June 2017 for three of the 23 nonprofits that ACS can pay to run foster homes.
The probe observed that 91 percent of Jewish Child Care Association files had been lacking through The Children’s Village at 88 percent and Catholic Guardian Services at fifty-four percent.
ACS spokeswoman Marisa Kaufman said Stringer’s file contained “huge inaccuracies,” including that her corporation “goes past the felony necessities in its oversight of foster homes.”She additionally said the audit wrongly claims ACS is “responsible for certifying foster dad and mom and verifying that homes have met all necessities” when it’s “the nation’s responsibility.”Stringer’s office but stands through its findings.
Catholic Guardian stated it “takes the safety and well-being of all youngsters in our care very critically” and blasted Stringer’s audit as “wrong.” Jewish Child Care and Children’s Village did not return requests for remarks. I started thinking about this from the kids’ point of view. That made me remember the children’s literature I grew up on. Many of my favorite books were about young people taking charge independently–often away from their parents. Let’s start with Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five series. Five on a Treasure Island, five cousins spend the summer having one adventure after the next. There is a home base where meals are offered, and the children check in, but the adults’ assumption seems that as long as they are out in the fresh air together, they are generally fine no matter what they are getting up to.
In the Swallows and Amazon books by Arthur Ransome, six children are permitted to camp on an island in the middle of a lake. They cook over open fires and deal with the local “natives” (as the children refer to the adults) to procure supplies. Another popular example of kids on a mission is From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg. It is about two children who run away from the suburbs to New York City and handle themselves very well. In all these books, the children are supported by friends, cousins, or siblings and range in age between 9 and 13. For me, the common themes are that a) children are generally seen as very capable, and b) they relish the opportunity to show how able they are to care for themselves.
