Word: fostering
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Until then, Alabama had been in the forefront of foster-care reform. It had been set on that path after an incident in which local social workers used an unpaid utility bill to prove a man was unfit to raise his eight-year-old son, removed the child and placed him not in a foster home but in a psychiatric hospital, where the boy was isolated and heavily dosed with psychoactive drugs. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit on the father's behalf. As a result, the federal court not only remanded the boy to his father...
...that point, caseworkers did not even know which services might be available for children. They had no way of comparing notes or logging resources. They had no flexibility in meeting individual needs. They had no guidelines for contact between children in foster care and their birth parents. In most cases, the rules simply forbade...
...county, inspiring a hands-on, more heartfelt attitude among hardened social workers and abuse investigators. Greater emphasis was placed on restrengthening and rebuilding families by setting up programs in their own neighborhoods and communities in order to lessen the disruption of children's lives. The average stay in foster care dropped from 14 months to three. Alabama, though a rural state in the American South, won early praise for its progressive ideas and was considered a potential model for national reform...
...allowed counties to spend at their discretion, and social workers had to open charge accounts at Wal-Mart to buy diapers and clothes for children. Nachman later resigned amid controversy over allegations she had lied on her resume and had withheld information from a grand jury investigating whether the foster-care problems in Mobile were the result of criminal negligence...
...been sucked into the system. An incorrigible kid, David had rebelled against his working-class parents in Magnolia Springs, Ala., near Mobile, in a yet unreformed county. Under state law, parents could turn over custody of defiant children to the department of human resources, but the agency lacked "therapeutic foster homes" for kids more troubled than abused. If kids threatened suicide or suffered the slightest mental disorder, they would be bounced to the Department of Mental Health. If they had broken the law, they would go to the agency that handles juvenile delinquents. The screening process involved a brief interview...