Problems With Today’s Foster Care Residential Facilities & Group Homes
Over 40,000, or 10 percent of the children in foster care in the U.S., are placed in congregate care facilities, including group homes, residential facilities, and psychiatric residential treatment facilities. In some states, the percentage of children in congregate care facilities exceeds 30 percent. Most of these youth are teens, between the ages of 14 and 17.
These placements are the least family-like settings available to children in foster care, and they are supposed to be reserved for children with the highest needs. In reality, however, that policy is not followed. Instead, foster care systems place children in congregate care facilities for a variety of reasons, including because they don’t have enough foster care or kinship care placement options.
Casey Family Programs has reported that congregate care placements “are costly on many levels. They generally produce poorer outcomes for youth than family-based settings, post roadblocks to the timely achievement of permanency, and cost up to 10 times more than placement with a family.” Indeed, the organization Think of Us found that youth viewed institutional placements as prison-like, youth frequently attempted to escape institutional care, institutions were overly punitive and compounded youths’ existing trauma, and youth felt unsafe at institutions, among other concerning findings.
Congregate Care Facilities are not Family-Like Environments
Congregate care facilities bear no resemblance to a family setting and do not offer children the opportunity for a normal childhood. Instead, children are assigned to rooms, which sometimes resemble jail cells (as occurs in states like Oregon and Indiana), and they are monitored by group home or institutional staff.
According to Think of Us, “[f]or many youth, entering into a group home is a significant life event that is etched into their memories and lives forever. Youth often vividly remembered and reported the exact calendar day they were first placed in a group home—even when the event occurred many years ago.” Many children were in “survival mode” throughout their time in institutional care.
Additionally, these placements are often far from children’s communities, sometimes even out of state. As a result, children lose the precious connections they have to relatives, friends, and community members. Placement in congregate care isolates many children in foster care. And this places them at an increased risk of aging out of the foster care system without any meaningful adult connections, which in turn puts them at increased risk of experiencing homelessness, incarceration, and victimization.
Children are Inappropriately Placed in Congregate Care Facilities
Foster care systems are supposed to engage in “placement matching,” which means evaluating a child’s specific needs and then finding a placement that matches those needs. Institutions are supposed to be reserved for children with the highest needs, who cannot safely be placed in the community. And those institutional placements are supposed to be for the shortest time period necessary.
But many children are placed in institutions and other congregate care facilities when they could be placed in the community. This is often related to failure of foster care agencies to provide children and families with supportive services, including mental health care. Another reason for unnecessary placement in congregate care facilities is that “caseworkers believed there were no other placement options for [children], not because institutional placements would be best for them.”
For some children, congregate care facilities are their first placements in foster care. Others reside in institutions for years.
Children in Foster Care are Harmed While in Congregate Care
Concerningly, many children experience additional trauma and abuse in congregate care facilities. This includes experiencing improper restraints; physical, sexual, and psychological abuse by staff; abuse by other residents; overmedication; an inadequate education; and discrimination. These abuses, and how it is even possible that they occur so regularly, are complicated and will be explored in more detail in later posts.
The abuses occur at non-profit, for-profit, and government-run facilities. However, for-profit facilities, such as those operated by Sequel, are oftentimes the worst. NBC News termed Sequel a “profitable death trap” and found the company’s facilities “raked in millions while accused of abusing children.”
Moreover, these abused children are, as we’ve already mentioned, isolated and therefore struggle to report instances of abuse.
We Need Better Oversight of Congregate Care Placements
Many improvements need to be made to ensure children in congregate care facilities are safe. To begin, only children who truly need to be placed in congregate care facilities should be places in those facilities and for the shortest period of time possible. Foster care systems need to closely watch these placements, including whether staffing ratios are met, whether they employ qualified staff, and whether they offer necessary services for children—to name a few. Children also cannot be left so isolated. They need to maintain ties to their communities and supports and have safe ways to report abuse and crimes. If abuse is reported, the state or county’s child welfare department must act quickly, conduct a thorough investigation, and make public data on instances of abuse within these facilities.