This final day of the 2014 legislative session could launch a new era in Georgia for protecting children — from the adults who harm them and a system that too often shows up too late.
The so-called foster care privatization bill has lumbered toward passage with no small amount of threats, cajoling, optimism, gloom and parliamentary maneuvering. But here we are on Day 40, and it appears — as of this writing, anyway — we have a deal.
Gone is the plan to turn over, in short order, a range of child welfare services statewide to private, non-profit contractors. Instead, the House and Senate seem to have settled on a more limited program to privatize the functions in as few as three counties for a three-year pilot program. Only then would a broader roll-out take place.
“Fifty percent of foster care is already privatized,” says Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford, who has been pushing the issue hardest. “So what we’re doing is a limited amount.”
And then, getting to the heart of what is an extremely emotional issue: “If you want to keep opening up the paper every day and see kids getting tossed around, keep the status quo.”
The plight of children in Georgia’s protective services is well-documented. More contested — and hotly so — is whether the children would be better served if the state contracts with private entities, many of them faith-based, to carry out a number of functions.
A non-exhaustive list in a proposed revision of Unterman’s SB 350 includes “adoption services, family preservation, independent living, emergency shelter, residential group care, foster care, therapeutic foster care, intensive residential treatment, foster care supervision, case management services, post-placement supervision and family reunification.” Specifically excluded are child protective investigations, which the state would still conduct.
Unterman acknowledges the state’s case workers are overworked. But then, that’s part of why she’s acting: “Let’s take a burden off of them and privatize it, and maybe they can focus on child protective services.”
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, who has also strongly promoted the privatization measure, puts it bluntly:
“This is not about saving huge amounts of money, OK? What this is about is making sure that we solve a problem that we have in our state. And the problem is that we’re not doing as good a job as we need to with kids in foster care.
“The statistics bear it out. You … simply can’t hide from the glaring reality. And I can’t … sit here in this position and not do something to help these kids. I’m not here to protect a bureaucracy. I’m here to find meaningful solutions that give these kids the best opportunity.”
Unterman argues faith-based organizations must be part of those meaningful solutions.
“I don’t care if they’re Christian, Jewish, Muslim — they teach how to have character,” she says. “They have a better chance of success versus [the current approach for] a kid that’s been in 20 different homes and runs around the state of Georgia with a toothbrush in a plastic bag.”
The pilot program would run for three years but wouldn’t start until July 2015, after a year of planning. Unterman says the need for in-depth planning is the main lesson she has learned from other states such as Florida that have already privatized child welfare services, with mixed results.
And with what amounts to a four-year pilot program, serving perhaps 1 in 13 Georgians in foster care at first, legislators will have time to make any necessary corrections in the program before taking it statewide.
“If we see inconsistencies or problems, do you not think I as a legislator who cares about children would be here in [the next session] to fix them?” says Unterman, citing her years of work on youth issues, from welfare services to sex trafficking.
“If I thought for one minute that I was doing something to harm foster care children, I wouldn’t be in favor of it.”
This is an example of Georgia’s Republicans not just talking about privatization, but having the courage of their convictions — and the prudence to move deliberately and get it right from the start.
