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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Casey Foundation: Too Many VA Foster Kids Don’t Live with Families

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Wednesday, May 20, 2015   

RICHMOND, Va. - In the past few years, Virginia has worked hard to find adoptive and foster families for children in foster care. But according to a new report, one in six in the child-welfare system still lives in an institution or group home.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation report, "Every Kid Needs a Family," stressed that foster kids of all ages do much better when placed with families. Amy Woolard, senior policy attorney with Voices for Virginia's Children, said the majority of these children in Virginia have experienced abuse or neglect and need to have as much of a normal family life as possible.

"These are kids who have experienced things that some of us can only imagine," she said. "So, when we think about where they're living, where they're going home every day, they need families. They need stable people in their lives to be able to recover from some of the things that the young people we're talking about have gone through."

According to the Casey report, about one in seven minors in foster care nationwide doesn't live with relatives or a foster family - and that of those placed in institutions, 40 percent don't have a behavioral or clinical reason for the more restrictive setting.

The report said the state could do more to remove barriers for relatives who want to take in a young person, and noted that institutional or group-home care can cost seven to 10 times as much as supporting a family that takes the child in.

Woolard said the real costs are long-term, and the benefits of living with a family don't just show up on the bottom line.

"I think we see it pay off in other ways, too," she said. "When kids are living with families, they actually spend less time in the foster-care system. They're more likely to go home to mom and dad once that situation has been resolved, and to do it more quickly."

About 4,300 minors are in the Virginia child-welfare system. About 16 percent live in an institution or group home, even though the state has focused on finding them homes starting under the administration of former Gov. Tim Kaine.

More information is online at vakids.org. The report is online at aecf.org.


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