"The expense reimbursements, day care support and a $200-per-year stipend for each child had been a big help, but the imposing child welfare requirements — including monthly visits from social workers — made Ms. Thomas want to live with her grandsons like a normal family. In April she and her husband took guardianship of the boys, which relieved them of the foster care requirements, but the decision came at a cost: They lost the expense reimbursements and the day care support.... $2,700 per month in day care costs [is] more than her $2,300 monthly income...."
From the end of the NYT article "Can ‘Kinship Care’ Help the Child Welfare System? The White House Wants to Try/The Biden administration proposes spending $20 billion over a decade to help some of the most vulnerable families in the country, including relatives suddenly thrust into child rearing."
So the "child welfare requirements — including monthly visits from social worker" are so onerous, that the grandparents preferred to pay the expenses themselves and have the freedom and privacy given to guardians. How is the Biden administration going to help people in their position? I would think retired grandparents like the Thomases are less in need of reimbursement of day care costs than many parents who are taking care of their own children.
And, yes, they were retired, though, we're told, Ms. Thomas "returned to work... to supplement the costs of caring for the children, who will need several types of therapies indefinitely." Why would you return to work to make less than the cost of day care? If you stay home, you don't need day care. Or do you? Is that the belief now, that children ought to be in day care to get a better start at education and socialization?
How would the administration’s proposals could help the Thomases?
[T]he administration wants to increase the number of foster children who live with relatives, known as “kinship care,” by reimbursing states at a higher rate if they place children with family members instead of in group homes or institutions.
The Thomases already had status as foster parents, and they didn't like it and moved on to guardianship.
The administration also proposes more money for programs that help such families, and to expand a tax credit to include people who take legal guardianship of young family members.....
So, they would get included in a tax credit hasn't covered people like them but does cover something that isn't stated in the article. Details about the proposal are skimpy in this article that is heavily laden with information about the Thomases and another grandparent.
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35 comments:
The best way to help families would be a return to the Trump economy.
Economic freedom benefits the masses.
The people who are really pulling the strings of the Biden regime are purposely destroying the working/middle class and crushing these families.
Their goal is to enrich entrenched powers who benefit from government cronyism.
Offering foster care benefits to people raising the children of close family members, if that's what they are proposing, sounds like an invitation to fraud.
There are merits to this approach, but its main purpose is to apply another layer of wallpaper over a problem that everyone seems united in not addressing: the failed experiment of a single-parent culture.
A government child care system reserved for true victims of circumstance -- rather than horrible decisions -- would work, and cost a fraction of these endless expansions of the social safety net.
But it doesn't serve politicians, activists or the media to let the people know that they have the power to turn the tide. Salvation must come through these folks.
Roosevelt roads was a fairly large naval station with about 1,000 families living in on base navy housing.
The navy ran a day care center but it was very limited. 50 children is what I remember.
So women who did not work would take care of 1-3 kids for women who did. Also for women who needed babysitting for a few hours.
Teenagers were also available if you wanted a night out.
Some of it was cumshaw but most was paid. Not a lot but some.
In the 90s the navy, or perhaps dod, decided this was no good. You couldn't have untrained people caring for kids.
So they put in a mountain of hoops to jump through. Training and certification, home requirements and inspections and the like. Probably made sure taxes and ss were reported too.
Guess what happened to daycare and babysitting? It became expensive and hard to find.
When govt meddles with childcare it is often very ugly for all concerned.
(can we talk about the case last week where child services were sicced on a mother for teaching her kids about Christopher Columbus?)
John stop fascism vote republican Henry
A $200/year stipend isn't quite enough IMO.
We’re not to decide whether the remedy is appropriate.
We’re only to add to a collective outrage that government must do something.
Part of the reason the Blogger spouse and I adopted internationally was the oppressive state intrusion that comes with domestic programs. To adopt internationally, we still had to submit to very extensive checks and follow-up, but those were less often and less intrusive than foster care programs. With US adoptions and foster care, there are financial assistance throughout the process, including post adoption. With international adoption you pay the entire cost of adoption and care with little more than tax credits, which came and went over the years. We have recently considered foster care because we can no longer fund the foreign adoptions, but we know a number foster care families, and are not quite sure we want to submit ourselves to the level of intrusion that would entail, and our current kids would not thank us for doing so. I understand the need. I volunteer with foster kids programs and I learn that there are a lot of people who foster FOR the money, and are not the best caregivers and so must be watched closely for the sake of the children. Not certain there is a better solution.
“… Details about the proposal are skimpy in this article that is heavily laden with information about the Thomases and another grandparent.”
In other words, another day at the office for the New Journalists.
It’s very simple: open with a personalized you-are-there moment with a “representative” person or small group. Move to a general claim about The Nature Of The Problem. Sprinkle with alarming pseudo-statistics. Declare What Is To Be Done. And then close with a vignette and crunchy sound-bite from the people with whom you opened the piece.
A kind of sandwich, with the bread and spread hiding the unspeakable contents.
Rinse, repeat. It’s great fodder for political campaigns. But if you are looking for coherent, fact-based, balanced, responsible policy making? Look elsewhere.
From the post:
"So the "child welfare requirements — including monthly visits from social worker" are so onerous, that the grandparents preferred to pay the expenses themselves and have the freedom and privacy given to guardians. How is the Biden administration going to help people in their position? I would think retired grandparents like the Thomases are less in need of reimbursement of day care costs than many parents who are taking care of their own children."
Getting more reimbursement doesn't release them from the onerous requirements, does it? Sounds more like a ploy to call them back to the fostering fold. Government money always comes with strings.
So I'm supposed to believe that adding new and enhanced federal programs to the mix will reduce the guardians' compliance burdens?
Sure. Pull the other one.I
The main beneficiaries of this idea would be the denizens of Loudon county who administer it.
"A $200/year stipend isn't quite enough IMO."
Maybe it's characterized as paying for school supplies.
Government social services have become like one of those Rube Goldberg machines where interconnections cause a rolling series of consequences - only Rube Goldberg builders plan for all the consequences including the final one whereas the government simply becomes entangled with itself after three or four moves. The California bullet train is the most public example but rules on child care are similarly entangled though more hidden. T
Details about the proposal are skimpy in this article that is heavily laden with information about the Thomases and another grandparent.
This has been the typical news story for the past, I dunno, 50 years. Journalist wants to support some cause. They start the article by focusing on a highly sympathetic example that would benefit from their preferred course of action. This goes on for some time. Then and only then does the actual plan get discussed. This will typically be superficial, only pointing out the positives of this course of action. Drawbacks will be ignored or glossed over. Unsympathetic beneficiaries will either be ignored or briefly mentioned and waved away, even if the large majority of the beneficiaries are unsympathetic. Sprinkle in statements from friendly experts and politicians. If there are any antagonistic experts or politicians mentioned, they will be buried far down in the article; a different page than the headline is ideal. Conclude by basically encouraging the reader to support this course of action without actually saying it outright.
Considering the overt activism of most journalists these days, this sort of coyness is quaint.
She could have had a kickback with the daycare center and then used the kickback money to pay for therapy, at least that's the only way to make their situation seem more difficult right now. Otherwise, the kids were in daycare and she wasn't working, but now she's working and they're in daycare and paying for it. She had to pay for therapy either way.
What Achilles said at 8:25.
This sounds more like a jobs program for Social Workers and an additional pump for more Government employees (and their corresponding unions). We will all work for the Government at some point, or you won't work.
The money these people throw around is nauseating. There are no limits to how it's spent, no oversight, no repercussions- ever- when a light is shone on them and we find many hands in the till. Nothing ever happens to those in leadership positions who's job is to manage it. Nothing is managed and this will be a giant boondoggle.
Also- "...we're told, Ms. Thomas "returned to work... to supplement the costs of caring for the children, who will need several types of therapies indefinitely." They're not saying it's for Day Care. They're saying there are many other expenses and she needs to get back to work to supplement it. Also, it's possible that some people have a limit to taking government hand-outs. I know, I know...crazy thought. But there are some of those (us) out there who hate it.
Btw, daycare is bad for most kids. This was going around Twitter a couple of days ago.
The things not said in news reporting are usually important.
For instance, there was a long npr report yesterday on the murdered reporter, Jeff German, probably killed by the Las Vegas official Robert Telles.
The ONLY mention verging on party politics in the entire report was a brief passage about recent "attacks" against journalism in general for biased reporting. I thought the clear intention of that passage was to leave the impression that German had been killed by a right-wing extremist.
There was zero mention of Telles' actual party affiliation.
The bulk of the report was about police access to the dead reporter's laptop / notes. The stated reasons why the court may not allow that, or require it be passed through a neutral reviewer, were to protect anonymous sources who might be named in the notes.
My thinking was more along the line, "Here's a pile of investigation notes into municipal corruption in Las Vegas.
Who might not want those to be published?"
This proposal will be gamed for massive fraud- all you need is the cooperation of your parents and siblings. We aren't a country any longer where the social mores would prevent this, if we ever were.
If you don't have certification and checks and standards for child care, how will you pay for the social workers who'll carry out the certification and checks? in the Uk, the last Labour Government, to the approval of the commentariat, made it harder to be a child minder, imposed upper limits on the numbers of children per adult (max 8) and hey, ho, child care costs rocketed. Who benefitted - social/child protection specialists, certainly not the working mothers or child minders.
Always, in these cases, ask 'who benefits' cui bono as Lenin reportedly wrote, or who, whom.
What an absolute mess of a newspaper article.
Mrs.
Two comments.
One items is the assumption that grandparents are necessarily better off than working youngsters. Sure they may have saved for a retirement, but SS isn't going to get it done. If you spend some time in less privileged neighborhoods ( not the ghetto, just people without the college degrees or government pensions funding their retirement ) you will find they struggle quite a bit to pay the bills. McDonalds pays 15/hour, triple that and you have 45/hour which is 1,800 per week and that is a very good job. Probably 1200 after taxes. Look at your own retired budget and see if ~60,000 a year is easy to live on. You can do it, but there is not a lot of extra. Now throw on 3 kiddos, medical, etc.
The second IS the onerous government oversight, probably mostly state. I have a friends whose granddaughter had 5 children all out of wedlock in 7 years. Three of them were found one night at 2:00 in the morning ( in diapers ) while she partied with some( or all ) of the childrens fathers. The friend got in a car, traveled 300 miles to be there morning. Took all of the kids home and the jumping of hoops began. To actually foster ( and get stipends ) there are pretty invasive training programs you have to jump through. Not to mention we got constantly dropped in on AND had to provide visitation to the mother ( in jail at the time ) and the deadbeat father.
It's horrible.
Child Welfare is still going to be involved whether or not Foster care ends. Social Workers still visit, even with Guardians. Once you are in the system, you never leave.
"How is the Biden administration going to help people in their position?"
But the Biden Admin isn't trying to answer that question or really any question. Instead, their starting point is the universal answer to all questions posed to the federal gov't -- spend money, preferably lots of it -- and never bother with tiresome details about anything else.
This is a Trojan horse for sure. Just another way for government to insert themselves into family affairs.
"Ms. Thomas is now managing $2,700 per month in day care costs — more than her $2,300 monthly income — through a grant she secured on her own."
Managing? What does that mean? What kind of "grant?" Does Grandpa have no income? SS? Pension? Were the editors all busy getting their Monkeypox vaccines?
"Sure they may have saved for a retirement, but SS isn't going to get it done."
Ms Thomas was a school principal in Colorado who retired at age 55 and moved to Spain. The income they cite is likely 25 year pension money. Husband looks old enough for SS.
Bless them for living a good life but my sympathy is limited.
This sounds more like a jobs program for Social Workers and an additional pump for more Government employees (and their corresponding unions). We will all work for the Government at some point, or you won't work.
All welfare is about jobs for the government workers. That has been the case at least since LBJ.
Social workers always look for a family member to care for abused/neglected kids, rather than putting them in foster care. The problem is that the relatives of people who lose custody of their children often have similar problems.
My daughter did pro bono family law in San Francisco, trying to sort out whether the great-aunt who was a recovered alcoholic had a better case for custody than other relatives with issues of their own. Who was in it for the foster-care money and who really wanted to help the child?
Of course, foster parents range from saintly to horrible. There are lots of onerous regulations to try to spot the horribles, which make it very hard on the good foster parents.
Okay. I think I understand that the stipends are for strangers to take care of children not related to them. And you get visits from state social workers. If you are related you do not get a stipend. And you do not get visited by state social workers.
Because of course! If you look after children at the behest of the state, you get support from the state and visits from agents of the state. If you look after children because they are yours or related to you, you do not get a stipend from the state or visits from agents of the state.
I do not know how to explain this other than one is a contractual obligation and the other is the obligation of blood kindred and the two are absolutely not the same and can never be made the same no matter how many earnest articles are printed in the east coast media.
There are identical stipends for foster children placed with relatives who take the foster parent training. Most states require "family reunification" of this type to be prioritized, in fact, and there are pros and cons (and Cons). Between EITC, the kids' Medicaid, and a very large range of other services, the grandparents would still be receiving more than working families if they changed statuses. Unless, that is, they have other assets the reporter does not reveal that they would then have to disclose.
All such articles fail to report such benefits accurately. Nor do they acknowledge rules that prevent social workers from keeping the abandoning parent from living under the same roof with no consequences. Social workers are not allowed to reinforce keeping parents away without onerous, drawn-out legal actions. And they all have unbearable caseloads already. Usually mom and whatever she is currently sleeping with are getting some of the resources for the children and caretakers in one way or another.
I have seen so few people not gaming these programs that I remember them individually. If you are retired, become a CASA. The kids and decent adults in the system need all the help they can get, and the others deserve guidance -- and censure if the adults are endangering their charges.
Wow, this article is riddled with lies and omissions.
Why isn't the son paying child support? And is he living in the house? That would be fraud. These people are just maxing out benefits they don't need. If the kids need psychological or medical care, they get Medicaid, and the adults have to suck it up and accept some home visits (like other folks with disabilities).
Why aren't they suing the mother for child support? Because they can get more easy money from the state. From us.
Who has ever heard of a school principal who doesn't have a pension?
Family reunification is already by law the first priority in Colorado and California. Family can be siblings, even cousins. They are treated like any other certified foster parent except they are given first dibs on taking the children.
This family seems competent, but they are gaming the system. The bigger problem with family reunification is that screwed up adults produce screwed up children and whole families rightfully don't qualify as foster parents. The other family's claims that they were trying to get that 16 year old back but didn't qualify is bunk. I bet we have spent 500k on that family already, bare minimum, trying to stabilize, support, and "reunify" them. If they couldn't become foster parents it is because they didn't show up for drug tests and/or classes or court or blew their welfare on drugs, etc. And they get free door to door transportation and lawyers and caseworkers for all these things.
The rules to qualify or to keep your own kids are hardly onerous. For example, we cannot remove a child just because the parents are hooked on crack, so long as the children are not in the same room witnessing the adults using crack. Ask any social worker, and they will tell you children, primarily in the underclass (because they're by far the most cases) are overall at more risk when their foster parent is related to them, unless, rarely, there's a relative who has their act together -- like Ted Cruz, who at an early age and without adequate support from his parents, selflessly maxed out credit cards to rescue his sister's son when she was a crack addict -- the sister died of an overdose and Cruz continued to support the youth.
The rest is deceptive anecdote.
Dude 1394: The qualifying is not onerous. You want my family's money and don't want to go after your deadbeat son or daughter and their partners for it? The home visits are because you get other people's money, and the system is legally responsible for the children WITH you. It's your choice to get the government involved and legally responsible.
Will Cate: you know nothing. Ever seen a dad leave bite marks all over his five-year old daughter's body while molesting her? It took that child's whole life to be legally separated from dad, even though a stable family that had raised her nearly from birth (some assaults were during visits demanded legislatively in part by father's rights groups) were dying to adopt her and her sibling. Her new parents are saints. Her crackhead biological parents abandoned 10 children, at last count. My neighbor abandoned 14 but got them back regularly. I heard one of the kid's arm bone break as a boyfriend was beating him outside my house. You think I shouldn't have called the police and got between him and the boyfriend, Will? What would you do, ignore the screams and back to reading your Reason Magazine?
Dude 1394: The qualifying is not onerous. You want my family's money and don't want to go after your deadbeat son or daughter and their partners for it? The home visits are because you get other people's money, and the system is legally responsible for the children WITH you. It's your choice to get the government involved and legally responsible.
Will Cate: you know nothing. Ever seen a dad leave bite marks all over his five-year old daughter's body while molesting her? It took that child's whole life to be legally separated from dad, even though a stable family that had raised her nearly from birth (some assaults were during visits demanded legislatively in part by father's rights groups) were dying to adopt her and her sibling. Her new parents are saints. Her crackhead biological parents abandoned 10 children, at last count. My neighbor abandoned 14 but got them back regularly. I heard one of the kid's arm bone break as a boyfriend was beating him outside my house. You think I shouldn't have called the police and got between him and the boyfriend, Will? What would you do, ignore the screams and back to reading your Reason Magazine?
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