MIAMI — The goal for the thousands of children in Florida's foster care program is to find forever homes. But a new tracking system developed at the University of Miami shows the dream for many children is short-lived.

Many kids don't even unpack because of the uncertainty over how long they will stay in a foster home - which sometimes can be as little as a few hours. After combing through thousands of youth records at the Florida Department of Children and Families, Robert Latham, associate director of the university’s Youth Law Clinic, mapped the placement path of every child in foster care since 2002.

He found 80 percent of kids met national placement standards for being moved around. But he noticed troubling outcomes for the remaining 20 percent.

"That captured the kind of absurdity of a kid having 35 houses over the course of two years,” Latham said. “Right? I mean, who lives in 35 houses in two years? That's just not OK. "

State officials point out the the tremendous trauma experienced by some children that makes it difficult for them to trust an adult. According to state data, Florida's rate of 4.8 placements per thousand days in foster care comes in just over the national standard of 4.2.

Chris Card is chief of community-based care at Eckerd Connects, which manages child-welfare cases for Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties. He said thanks to federal funding, the state developed a data-tracking system to track touchpoints such as a child's performance in school, problems with parents and other factors to identify red flags.

He said that system has been in place for about twenty years, and Latham's program is just another step forward.

"Kids with some problems are starting to pop up a little bit earlier than the older systems that we’ve had developed, but it's been an ongoing process,” Card said. “I think we've just gotten more sophisticated, a little bit better. And this last rendition is something even better. "

Both Latham and Card agree Florida's foster-care system is overwhelmed and operating on very few resources. Latham said he'd like to see the state dig deeper to track the number of times a child is arrested, involuntarily committed or returns to foster care after adoption.

He said he'd like to see a review panel formed to examine why a child is left bouncing around from home-to-home similar to those formed when a child dies in the system.

"I think if we put that kind of focus and intent on this problem, I think it could really be reduced,” he said. “Again, it's certainly not OK that 19,000 kids have had 10 or more placements. That's not OK. "

Card said the state needs to provide foster families and nonprofits with greater resources and support. And Latham added it also comes down to having more foster families in the system, which he said gives a child better options for making their first placement the last.


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Colorado and other states are hoarding more than $6 billion intended for struggling families, according to new analysis.

In 2020, Colorado denied more applications for cash assistance through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program than it accepted. Ali Safawi, a research associate at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, said many Colorado families with children are not getting the help they need, even though the state has some $87 million in unspent TANF funds.

"So in Colorado, we see that for every 100 families with kids living in poverty, just 20 receive TANF," he said. "That means that 80 families out of that 100 are not, even though they are experiencing poverty and could really use that assistance."

Welfare reforms passed under the Clinton administration, aimed to help families transition to jobs that would end what critics called a cycle of dependency, gave broad leeway to states for how to use TANF funds. In Colorado, TANF distributions vary greatly depending on which county you live in.

Safawi noted that most Colorado families living in poverty already are working, but at jobs that do not pay a living wage. He added that investing in children's well-being pays off down the road. When families have cash resources to meet their basic needs, their kids do better in school, earn better wages as adults and are more financially self-sufficient.

"We know from a lot of research that giving cash to families who are struggling with very low incomes has a significant difference for children," he said, "and these impacts are not just immediate; we see improvements in their health and their economic outcomes well into adulthood."

He pointed to Columbia University research showing that raising a low-income family's income by just $1,000 a year, about $83 a month, creates more than $10,000 in societal benefits. Safawi said one way to get assistance to more Colorado families is to increase qualifying income limits, which are exceptionally low.

"It's $421 a month for a family of three," he said. "That means if they make over that, they don't qualify. We don't really see income eligibility that low anywhere else outside of the Deep South, which has a long history of limiting assistance primarily to Black families."

Washington state lawmakers are considering a policy which could help close the wealth gap for future generations.

The Washington Future Fund is a policy typically known as "baby bonds" and would allocate $3,200 to children born under the state's Medicaid program Apple Health. They would have access to it between the ages of 18 and 30.

Jennifer Tran, research and policy director for the Washington State Budget and Policy Center, said the policy would help address the racial wealth gap in particular.

"We know that children of color disproportionately represent households that have fewer wealth and assets," Tran observed. "It's really building at the state level a program that would encourage wealth building for kids in Washington state."

Recipients of the one-time benefit would be able to spend it in-state to help pay for a home, post-secondary education or to start a small business. The legislation was requested by the State Treasurer's office and modeled after legislation enacted in Connecticut last year. The House version of the bill, is scheduled for a public hearing today.

In the legislation's current version, the first distributions would go out 18 years from now for children born this year. Tran argued lawmakers should consider more flexibility with how the fund can be used.

"While buying a home and pursuing higher education and starting businesses might be the right mix of opportunities right now, there could be new, emerging ones to consider in the future," Tran pointed out.

The Washington Future Fund would be pooled in an investment fund. According to the State Treasurer's office, there are about 40,000 Apple Health births each year, or about half of the births in the state. A baby bond policy has been proposed at the federal level by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.

Finding and affording child care is no cakewalk for Oregon families right now. A new report details the pressures and some potential policy fixes.

The average Oregon family spends 30% of its monthly income on child care. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, families should spend no more than 7%.

Jyoni Tetsurō Shuler, research analyst for Our Children Oregon, which is taking a closer look at the issues.

"We're seeing that this lack of providers, the burnout there, as well as the lack of slots and availability to access, is impacting every single socioeconomic group," Shuler observed. "And then certainly, disparities exist among racial and ethnic lines as well. We're seeing Black and Latinx families, in particular, really struggling to afford and access care."

Shuler pointed out wages for child-care workers are among the lowest of any profession, affecting a workforce largely made up of women and people of color. Nearly one in seven child-care centers in Oregon faces staffing shortages.

Shuler added the pandemic has created additional hurdles, both for families and providers.

Shuler argued Oregon should reduce barriers for establishing child-care homes and centers, to improve access in those areas considered to be "child-care deserts" in the state, and added the federal government can do more to improve wages for providers and bolster subsidy programs for parents, such as the Child Tax Credit.

"Expanding the availability and the accessibility of care, and then, really investing in our workforce and ensuring that they're getting their needs met and really invested, at that governmental level," Shuler urged.

Our Children Oregon also suggested investments to ensure the availability of care and education services that are developmentally and culturally responsive, and in multiple languages.

Shuler remarked ultimately, this is about children, saying kids need trained providers to support proper child development in their first five years.

"We're really seeing a lot impacts on the children," Shuler stated. "Long-term, too. We're not just talking short-term, but on the long-term trajectories of their development."