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SALT LAKE CITY — As the collectively youngest state in the nation, children are often at the forefront of Utahn's minds.
That ideology has contributed to Utah ranking first in the nation for placing foster children in safe, stable homes through reunification, adoption, guardianship or living with relatives in a certain timeframe, according to Kevin Jackson, assistant director of the Utah Division of Child and Family Services.
"The way that we place such a high value on family, on children, maintaining connections ... if children are in a position where they're needing to, for safety reasons, come into foster care, we want to help try to address the issues that brought them into care," said Jackson.
"As far as a child welfare system, (we're) very heavily focused on issues related to safety, permanency and well-being and it's really, particularly, a lot of that attention to permanency, having children that linger in foster care. That helps, I think, with some of the measurements in this report," he continued.
The report was conducted by the American Enterprise Institute and is based on an analysis of more than 782,000 children entering foster care between October 2014 and March 2018. The children were tracked upon entry into the system until exit, or until three full years in continuous state custody. The most recent data used in the study was from March 2021.
States were analyzed for the speed in which children were permanently placed, following regulations and applying principles outlined in the Adoption and Safe Families Act and the number of failed reunifications.
The Adoption and Safe Families Act, enacted in 1997, was intended to speed up the legal process and shorten the time a child spends in foster care. The act moved the process away from focusing on reunification of the family, regardless of the length or probability of the process, and instead focuses on moving the child out of the system.
Utah ranked among states that prioritize timely placement consistently. While timeliness is a continued goal for the state, reunification — when safe and possible — is also prioritized.
"One places such a high value on the role of a parent, both legally and in terms of like emotional connection, and then the critical importance of that parent is to that child. In a worse situation where a family is struggling, one of the best things you can do to help that child is help their parents be in a position to safely care for them," said Jackson.
"You want every parent to have an opportunity to address the challenges, needs and issues — through support services, through our case management, or excellent work that our caseworkers do through our contractor providers, the rest of the child welfare system. We really try to work together in a way that we can effectively reunify these children if at all possible as our primary goal," he added.
Key findings of the report:
- In the top five states (Utah, Wyoming, South Carolina, Colorado and Arkansas), at least 65% of children have permanent exits within 18 months, compared with a national rate of 51%; and 87-93% have permanent exits within three years, compared with a national rate of slightly under 83%.
- In the top five states (Utah, West Virginia, Arizona, Iowa and Arkansas) for timely permanency for children who were not unified, the national rate of children who have not been reunified are adopted within 18 months of entry is 6%. Comparatively, Utah ranked first with 32%.
- Nearly 19% of U.S. reunifications involving infants take more than 18 months — ranging from under 7% in Colorado and Utah, to over 30% in Washington, and over 40% in Illinois.
- Within 18 months of entry, 61% of Utah infants who had not been reunified were adopted.
- Utah consistently ranked high across the four factors in almost every age group except for children who entered between the ages of 11 and 14. For those ages, Utah's rank fell to 20, with 55% waiting 18 months or less for a permanent family. The group also ranks 20th for waiting beyond federal guidelines for a permanent family, at nearly 17%.
"I think it's helpful to understand sometimes for some of the older youth that come into foster care, sometimes they'll come in with issues that they're been struggling with. So in providing those needed supports and services may take that beyond the traditional federal permanency time frames to get those youth the services and supports they need to be in a better position," explained Jackson.
From the foster parent's perspective
Rachel Garrett, a former high school teacher, became a registered foster parent with her husband after serving as a court-appointed special advocate. Garrett and her family have provided respite to 12 children of different ages and navigated the reunification process with their families.
"It's been all of the feelings: lots of heartbreak, lots of joy, lots of inspiration — and also just some devastations as we see more closely on the frontlines, those who are most impacted by systemic harm, and what that looks like and what that entails and how it impacts children the most," said Garrett.
During the process, Garrett and her family vocalized a special interest in working with teens.
"When approaching this conversation within the fostering world there's a lot of stigma around bringing in children that are young adults ... bringing in older kids into your home, and it has been that these kids have been the most incredible, unbelievable, amazing humans; and they have changed my life immensely," she said.
The stigmatization of those working within the system is harmful, said Garrett. The stigma can be associated with not only the children or teens within it, but the families working towards reunification.
"One thing that I've seen, just firsthand, is the level of systemic harm and generational trauma that has impacted so many different families and people. And I think people are so quick to judge and have thoughts about what occurs for a child to be taken and removed from the home," said Garrett.
"I can only imagine the fear and the uncertainty and all the emotions that one would experience when one of their children are removed from the home and placed into a system that they don't fully know, and how it orchestrates and is run. And, I mean, that's a really scary, really traumatic reality," she continued.
The report demonstrates strides in Utah's foster care system to better the welfare of its children, but the system still needs improvements. There were 9,695 confirmed victims of abuse or neglect in 2022, according to state data. Over 3,600 kids were served in some capacity of foster care — the significant number can lead to burnout among foster parents, high turnover of caseworkers, and the need for continued resources for families who encounter the system.
"The report is hopeful, and it shows that Utah is progressing and really striving to support this entire process in the system," Garrett said. "And we still have so far to go in supporting all the different individuals that are operating and trying to create some safety and support for a lot of these kids who are in environments that they can't control."
