Financial Incentives
Family advocates say money is also a major factor in the number of children entering the system.
Although the system was established as a safety net for the child, some groups and individuals have found it easy to manipulate for their own ends. Possessing powers not granted to any other government agency, and able to operate in secrecy — provisions intended to be for the best interest of the child — CPS agencies have become a tool of revenge for some: the psychiatrist who wishes to overcome parents who object to proposed treatment; the mental health center that has discovered it can obtain a higher rate of reimbursement if the child is made a ward of the state; the ex-spouse seeking revenge or custody of the children. Family advocates say money is also a major factor in the number of children entering the system. Across the country, federal and state funds combined for foster care can range from $400 to as much as $2,000 per month per child, depending on his or her deemed therapeutic or “emotional” needs. The monies go to state-run foster services and state-contracted private foster care agencies, both of which in turn pay for their own support and foster families under their charge. Foster parents of children deemed to have emotional needs can end up with as much as $1,000 per month per child and take as many as four children. Further, the national Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 provides for bonuses to states of as much as $4,000 per child above the number of children adopted the previous year. Another bonus of up to $2,000 can be added for each child who is designated as having special needs. While the law is intended to increase the number of foster children placed in permanent homes, it also provides powerful incentives to boost the number of children needlessly removed from their homes.
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