Why We Need You

Out-of-County Placements Increasing

As our local foster home capacity has decreased over the last year, more children have had to be placed in homes outside of Hamilton County.  Currently, over 30% of our foster children are placed in these out-of-county homes.

An Unacceptable Trend

Placing foster children further away from their home communities leads to less desirable outcomes for the County’s most vulnerable kids.  Many problems are created, including:

·        Uprooting children from familiar surrounding makes the transition into foster care even more traumatic, magnifying behavior issues.

·        Removing a child from their school eliminates an important source of stability and makes any academic success even more unlikely.

·        Keeping sibling sets together becomes harder, increasing the chance of siblings losing contact.

·        Visitations with biological parents are more complicated and less common, making our ultimate goal of reuniting the child with their family more difficult.

·        Because reunification is less likely, children placed out-of-county tend to stay in foster care for longer periods of time than similar children placed locally.

Darlene’s Story

Darlene, a nine year old in County custody, has been placed in a residential treatment facility since March.  Starting in May, caseworkers have tried to locate a foster home for her to be “stepped down” to as her needs do not require her to be in residential care.  Unable to find a home, she remains in RT in Cleveland, placed with older, more troubled children.  This placement will only increase her behavior issues.

Affecting Children of All Ages

Typically, younger children are easier to place in foster homes because they tend to have milder behavior problems.  This is increasingly not the case as even the youngest children are being placed in out-of-county homes.  Just recently, a seven month old infant waited in the office for seven hours only to be placed in a home in Columbus. 

Rising Costs Strain Agency Budget

Placing children in homes outside of Hamilton County also has financial implications for JFS operations as costs associated with transportation and caseworker travel overtime continue to rise.

Additionally, as seen in Darlene’s case, the lack of available local foster homes has created a barrier to stepping youth down from more restrictive settings, thus extending lengths of stay in more restrictive,

more expensive placements. 

In just Darlene’s case, her stay in residential treatment cost the county $17,280 compared to the $11,120 it would have cost to place her in a foster home.  This is an unnecessary 35% increase in expenses.