Lawmakers urged to reform state's foster care system

CARSON CITY -- Nevada foster parents asked lawmakers to end "all the nightmares" caused by an overburdened state system that bounces children from home to home until they're too old or emotionally damaged for adoption.

The parents urged the Assembly Ways and Means Committee on Monday to approve AB158, designed to help fix Nevada's much criticized foster care and adoption services.

"My experience has been seeing a system that is meant to protect children in many cases add to the trauma and abuse it is supposed to protect them from," said Peggy Pauly, a Yerington area foster parent.

Ms. Pauly and her husband, John, have taken in several children ranging in ages from one week to 1 1/2 years old.

The Paulys told legislators that social workers' heavy case loads, the court system's crowded dockets and the difficulty of terminating parental rights all contribute to children languishing in the system.

"I have not had a case in my home where a child has been in the system less than 33 months. This is too long for a child to be without a true family to call their own," Ms. Pauly said.

Currently, the state must wait 18 months after a child is taken into custody before looking for a permanent foster home - a search that could take another year, according to Child and Family Services chief Steve Shaw.

The proposed legislation would allow state officials to look for foster homes as soon as a child enters the system. At the same time, case workers could investigate whether or not a family is fit to care for the child.

"This radically modifies the way we do adoptions and foster care in this state," Shaw told the committee.

The bill would also force the state to make more vigorous efforts to place siblings together.

"I have been threatened, harassed and slandered because I've persisted in trying to get these siblings together and under one roof," said Susan Porter of Yerington, referring to her attempt to care for the younger sister of two boys she already has in her house.

Shaw's agency "has done nothing to encourage any contact. I was told that if I kept insisting that the boys needed to be with their sister that they would make sure that I would never see the boys again," Porter said.

The bill also limits a search for relatives for placement of children to one year, requires judges to allow advocates and foster parents to testify on a child's behalf in family court and mandates that parental rights will be terminated six months after a judge orders it.

It also creates a board to oversee rural foster care and adoptions and allows the state to automatically move for termination of parental rights in cases where a parent has murdered another child or other cases of severe abuse.

The bill's supporters say these changes will prevent children from moving from one foster family to another while waiting for a family to adopt them.

"By the time many are freed for adoption they are labeled unadoptable due to behavioral problems or age or both of these," Pauly said, adding that sometimes the "limbo of the system" traumatizes children almost as much their abusive parents.

The bill is partially designed to meet benchmarks set by federal legislation passed in 1997 to shorten the time children spend in foster care.

AB158 could bring the state more money, Shaw said. By meeting the national guidelines, Nevada will be eligible for $17.5 million a year in federal foster care support funds.

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