The meeting will come to order. Robert frost once wrote home is the place when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Unquote. Unfortunately for far too many children in the foster care system that type of home is not available. Today, the Senate Finance committee will hear testimony annal alternatives that can reduce the reliance ons Foster Care Group homes. I have been pleased to work on this with Ranking Member wyden. I enjoy working with him on everything we work on. Keep it up. This is a bipartisan hearing and i appreciate senator wydens efforts and those of had staff to make it so. The basic premise of this hearing is simple. Whenever possible children should grow up in a home with their family. When problems arise, attempts should be made to keep the child safely at home. If they cannot be safely at home efforts should be placed to put them with relatives. Children and youth should only be in group homes for short periods of time and only when efforts to place them in a safe family place has been isolated. Too many youths spend years confined in foster care homes. The Committee Held a hearing in may to reduce the reliance of Foster Care Group homes. We heard powerful testimony from the former foster youth about her negative experiences in a Foster Care Group home. The Committee Also heard testimony about how expensive, inappropriate, and untimely it is to be in the homes for many children and youth. I believe we should do whatever we can to reduce reliance on Foster Care Group homes. There is a quote when we refuse to spend subdidized dollars for placement that we know result in negative outcomes for the children but the youth as well. No one would support allowing states to use federal taxpayer dollars for cigarettes for foster youth. Continue to use taxpayer dollars to fund group homes is ultimately just as destructive. It is not sound Public Policy to work to reduce the group homes without addressing the need to work for support of family and youth at risk of entering a facility. The purpose for this hearing is to examine alternatives to group homes such as allowing states to use federal foster care founds for the purpose of providing services and interventions that can allow children to stay safely at home. Currently the federal governments demotes the highest portion of the funding to the least desirable outcome for v vulnerable outcome. Removing them from home and placing them in a strangers care or a group home. Certain funds are kept from providing services that can help with harmful conditions in the family home. Some states like utah, for example, believe they can reduce the need and if they use funds to provide front and back services for families. I drafted legislation that allowed 30 states to provide the upfront services. Today we will hear from an official from my home state of utah and how this flexibility has improved outcomes for children and families, reducing the reliance on foster care. I believe we should take from utahs Homework Initiative as a model for all states. When you ask a child who has been in foster care how we can best improve the system the answer is often you could have helped my mom so i didnt have to go into foster care in the first place. When a child cant remain at home, assisting the parents to maintain parental ship is until another alternative is a fit relative for a child. In the landmark legislation of fostering for success and increasing adoption act of 2008 Congress Allowed states to get reimbursement for kinship placements. And states are now u lowed to get federal incentives for kinship placements. Kinship placements should be a priority but challenges remain. We will hear about the barriers to kinship adjustment and make this more prevalent. There is going to be federal funds to be used for services to help families live together. I look forward to working with them and members of the community on legislation that would reduce the reliance ons Foster Care Group homes and allow states to use federal foster care dollars for these prevention services. I hope to have a Committee Mark up of this legislation in the fall. This is part of the bipartisan process to improve outcomes for Vulnerable Children and families and i hope the members will listen carefully to it testimony and policy regulations presented here today. Let me turn to senator wyden for his opening remarks thank you very much, mr. Chairman. In the beginning i want to take note of the fact you, mr. Chairman, have spent decades keeping Child Welfare issues bipartisan here in the United States senate and i commend you for that, look forward to building on that partnership. I know the ship he or she carried the torch for many years. And i think once again the finance committee can work in the bipartisan area on the issue. This morning in america there is likely to be a single mom with two kids, multiple parttime jobs, and one really big worry. She works long hours to provide for her family but even then it is a struggle to pay the bills and keep food on the table. And because her work schedule changes weektoweek she is forced to leave her children unattended at times. A neighbor might place a concern call to child protective services. Once that happens, social workers have to chose between two not very good options. Breaking up the family or doing nothing at all to help. And that has to change. Whenever you ask anyone who has been through the Child Welfare system about what could help them the most the answer is often and i quote here helping my mom. Helping my dad. Helping my family. But that is just not in the cards when social workers have nothing to offer but foster care. Today kids prendominantly wind p in foster care because those people like the single mom are cut in circumstances that lead to neglect. Most are not there because of physical or sexual abuse. Maybe mom or dad needs help covering the bills for a month. Substance abuse treatment. Connections to child care. Often times a youngsters aunt, uncle or grandparents could step up especially if they had a little bit of assistance. In my judgment, every single one of those avenues ought to be explored before breaking the family apart. It might save resources in the long run without compromising unsafety. Back in the mid1990s there was a big debate about what we are going to talk about this morning. A gentlemen by the name of Newt Gingrich said the answer here was to put the kids in orphanages and i remember hearing that and remembered from great panthers day a lot of the seniors and the churches they went to had been talking about how a grandparent might be able to step in for a short period of time when their child, the parent, the Second Generation in affect, was having a little problem and they were out of work for a while and had a Substance Abuse problem. I learned then that older people, grandparents, aunts, uncles, were an enormous uncapped potential of kin that could make a big difference in terms of how we assisted the troubled youngster. I offered the kinship care act that said immediate relatives; aunts, uncles, grandparents who met the necessary standards for caring for the child would have the first preference when it comes to caring a niece, nephew or grandchild. And it was the First Federal law that had been enacted to promote kinship care. Here we are in 2015, and i think we have an opportunity as chairman hatch suggested in going either further to help these youngsters thrive with kin. It begins with supporting families when they fall on hard times. There is proof waving states out of the old fashion federal system can produce results. My home state of oregon has a program called differential response and it is about signaling that every child and every family may require a different type of support. The old two option system, basically saying it is either foster care or nothing, doesnt cut it. And what we are going to talk about is how oregon has taken a more taylilored approach. Tomorrow im going to introduce legislation that builds on that first bill of the 1990 kinship care. It would be family stability and the kinship care act and the bill will make sure more states can adopt a australian adopt a strategy like oregons and aunts and uncles can step in easier other than the child having just two options. I will close by saying i want to make it clear that this is in no way a condemnation of foster care. The fact is we know kids for which foster care has been a lifesaver. Kids are whom foster care was a safe place where they can grow up and thrive. What this is all about is creating as many good choices as we possibly can for youngsters to grow up in a safe, healthy environment and that means keeping the familys together. I will close by way of saying that i said at the outset to chairman hatch has put in decades trying to steer this Child Welfare debate in a bipartisan way. I commend him for it and i want the chairman and our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to know i think we have an opportunity to rise to the occasion again and i look forward to working with the chairman and all of you on it. Thank you, senator wyden. Let me introduce the panel, Sandra Killett a patient advocate in new york city. She is a single mother who raised two sons who are 20 and 18 years of age. As we will hear, she experienced firsthand problems in our foster care system with her eldest son being removed from the son for one and a half years due to behavioral issues. She was able to be reunited with her son who is new pursuing a degree in architecture at the new York City College of technology. She is currently the direct of the Child Welfare project. Next we will hear from rosaline burton who is a former foster youth from california. She went through 23 different placements and numerous School Changes during her 12 years in foster care. Now at just 23 years old, ms. Burton enjoys working as a Mental Health working at a residential facility for foster youth in san dieogo. She is attending Community College where she will get her bachelor degree and work toward her masters. And donna butts who served as the execute director and now runs the program. She received her undergraduate from mary hurst and later graduated from stanford university. She is a recipient of the jack and sea berry awards and has been recognized twice as one of the top 50 and most influential nonprofit leader in the United States. And i will let senator wyden introduce the last guest. Mr. Nyby, i touched on your work in the response making sure there is not a onesizefitsall approach for helping the youngsters and has been doing it for the past 13 years going from case working to supervisor and now chuck nyby is introducing these programs. He is a graduate of Eastern Oregon university. Mr. Chairman, i will not filibuster here but we have three oregon connections on the panel. Not only chuck, but ms. Donna butts we just mentioned and i guess i am showing my age i remember jack and his good work and butts as roots in oregon and ms. Rosaline burton is a tra transplant to oregon for the summer. So we run the table. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Last but certainly not least we will hear from ann williamson. Ms. Williamson completed a masters in social work from Louisiana State university and has gone on to receive distingiushed awards from both schools. She served as president and ceo of the nonprofit for louisiana and cabinet director for louisianas social services. Ms. Williamson has helped the state of utah obtain a federal title 4e waiver and the launching of a Child Welfare demonstration project that aims to reduce the use of foster care, child abuse and neglect, and the need for services and intervention. I welcome each member to the committee. I urge you to keep your remarks to the allotted five minutes if we can. We will start with you ms. Killett. Thank you, chairman hatch, Ranking Member wyden, and members of the committee for the invitation to be here today. My name is Sandra Killett and i am a divorced single mother who raised two sons who are now 22 and 20 years of age. I reside in new york city and i am currently employed as the executive director of the Child Welfare organizing project. This is a selfhelp advocating organization of parents who have been affected by new york citys children services. Today i am hear to share insights, gain from my own experience as a parent impacted by the child protective system, as well as the perspective from hundreds of parents whom i have worked with and other organizations including the new York City Coalition for Child Welfare finance reform, first parent National Network and other parent organizations. Some of these parents are here with me this morning. I will tell you that they did not have the luxury i had and that was to come here last night. But they got on a bus at 3 45 a. M. To be here at the time for this hearing. So i would like to say thank you to all of those parents who have taken the journey with me. I would like to say i am here on behalf of hundreds of parents across the jurisdiction pertaining to Child Protection and as we would like to see it be a Child Welfare system in true reality. I am a parent who has been affected by the child protective system again i say. It has forever changed my life as well as my sons lives. This is a system that you already heard in the opening that has really, for me, destroyed a stable family, forever left our family traumatized from this experience. As a single mother, i relocated to new york city from atlanta, georgia with my two boys. They were young and we relocated to new york due to financial hardship. All of my Family Supports were in new york city. It was difficult for my two boys. They left their dad but their dad travelled back and forth to new york city from atlanta to be there them. My older son, which is the one whom generated the contact with new york citys Childrens Service name is trey he and found it the most difficult. It was a disruption in the family. I sought help and support for my family challenges. My son was attending family counseling, and we were getting some supports that we needed. But i can tell you that the move to new york city and the separation from his father was difficult and it was challenging thereby generating some aggressive behaviors from my son in which i continuously sought help with. I began to ask every week about individual services for my son. I was told that those services were not available immediately and we were on a wait list. We stayed on the wait list and before we could get off the waitlist there was an outbust that occurred with my son. I will tell you the outburst had had me retreating to the bedroom with my younger son in fear of what might happen. But it pursued and an alterication did occur. I did reach out to new york city Childrens Services for assistance. I did not receive the assistance. Instead i received an investigation into my household and that was very intrusive and i absolutely say an investigation because that is what it was. My family was asked questions i thought were not necessary. My sons were asked questions that were about how i parented th them, whether or not i disciplined them and how i disciplined them. I found this out later from my sons who they told me this. I was surprised they were not interested in what occurred or what i came into their office for. I know that time is moving forward for me. What i would like to do is highlight for you three recommendations on how to improve services for families atrisk or already involved with the Child Welfare system. Funding needs to be aligned to support prevention and Early Intervention services to strengthen families and keep them together. Promoting a support of nonpunitive approach with help families atrisk keep their children at home. Partnering with parents to work and support other families before and during any involvement with the child protective system and courts can help families stay strong. Most parents want to be good parents but may need help squ assistance along the way. I ask you help all children atrisk and build factors to insure their children grow up in a healthy, safe and nurturing home. Thank you for allowing me to share my experience and the voice of many parents whom have come in contact with the system and for whom i bring into this space with me on this very historic time. I think that unless you really know what it is like to be separated from your family, your children, and that bond forever broken between not only mother and child but between sibling, between extended family, having a grandparent not be able to see their grand child because they have not been cleared by a system. Having an aunt not being able to stay overnight with a nephew. Not having input in the growth of your son or child is an enormous, traumatic experience for every family that has went through it. I will tell you although we have come through it and i believe that we are coming through it, there are good days, there are bad days, but i will tell you i still hear families today, every day based on the work i do in the organization that talk about the experience and the horrendous experience they have with a foster care system that doesnt understa