(The Center Square) — Georgia infrequently properties foster children in lodge rooms, a reversal of a arguable apply that stuck the consideration of federal government.
The news that the state not makes use of lodge rooms follows experiences of fashionable, systemic breakdowns inside of Georgia’s foster care machine. Last yr, the state spent $28 million to accommodate children in hotels, occasionally for months.
Earlier this yr, U.S. Sens. Jon Ossoff, D-Georgia, and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, despatched a letter to the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services wondering the company’s skill to offer protection to children of their care. During a Tuesday Senate Study Committee on Foster Care and Adoption listening to, Candice Broce, commissioner of the Department of Human Services and director of the DFCS, stated that on Sept. 8, the state had no foster children in hotels.
“We didn’t do a lot of celebration because we know, again, that it’s a moving target,” Broce stated. “On any given day, we have kids that enter custody or may disrupt their current placement in a foster home or a congregate care setting, and we have to consider a hotel.
“We had been completely overjoyed to in spite of everything achieve that, and because that point, now we have been staying at 0 or actually maintaining the use of hotels or place of business remains at [a] minimal — for true emergency scenarios,” Broce added.
The Senate committee is exploring possible solutions to improve the state’s maligned foster care system and plans to make recommendations for lawmakers to consider. The state has roughly 11,000 children in its foster care on any given day.
“I imagine if you’re pro-life, then it’s important to be pro-life at each and every step of the approach,” Lt. Governor Burt Jones said during Americans for Prosperity-GA’s inaugural Pathway to Prosperity Summit. “We’re hugely making improvements to our foster care machine, our DFCS program, and we’re going to make it more straightforward and extra available to undertake children right here on this state.
“We had over 100 children in our foster care system that were staying in hotel rooms,” Jones, a Republican, stated. “That’s totally unacceptable, and I was proud to say that in just a few short months, we’ve totally reversed that.”
Officials say Senate Bill 133, a concern of Jones and which Gov. Brian Kemp signed into regulation in May, has helped get rid of the want for hotels. The measure establishes a uniform procedure for DFCS to handle custody of children.
Despite the growth, on Monday, the state used a lodge for 3 foster children statewide.
“All of those were emergencies — true emergencies,” Broce stated. “None of them were in Fulton or DeKalb County, which is remarkable. In fact, in those two counties, we have … stayed at zero. We’ve got a streak running, which is really fantastic when you consider the population of children in custody in those two counties.”
Spokespeople for Ossoff didn’t reply to a request for remark.
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