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The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center), in partnership with the National Conference of State Legislatures and Casey Family Programs, today selected 12 states – Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin – to participate in a policy institute, Changing the Outcome: Achieving and Sustaining a Safe Reduction in Foster Care, that will help states improve outcomes for vulnerable children and move toward safely reducing the number of children in foster care.

Safely reducing the number of children in foster care is a comprehensive strategy that improves outcomes for children through prevention and community services provided to families so that fewer children enter care; shortening the timing children spend in foster care and increasing the number of children who reach permanency through reunification, subsidized guardianship and adoption. Participants will learn about strategies to move towards safe reduction that are efficient and cost effective.

The institute will provide states the opportunity to:

    * Learn about evidence that supports the idea that safely reducing the number of children in foster care improves outcomes for children and families;
    * Consider how to engage state leadership, policymakers, judiciary allied agencies, constituents of the child welfare system and the community in these efforts;
    * Explore state- and county-level programs and strategies that have proven effective in safely reducing the number of children in foster care while improving child outcomes;
    * Learn how to use data to design and drive a reduction agenda by identifying problems, setting goals and measuring progress;
    * Explore cost effective ways to provide preventive services for children and families in today’s tight fiscal climate;
    * Learn from Arkansas, Florida, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and South Carolina – the six states participating in the NGA Center Policy Academy to Safely Reduce the Number of Children in Foster Care that have been engaged with the NGA Center working towards safe reduction since April 2008; and
    * Begin to develop a state plan of action for creating and implementing initiatives and strategies to safely reduce the number of children in foster care while improving outcomes and reinvesting savings.

On average, the 496,000 children in the custody of state child welfare systems will remain in foster care for two and a half years and have a 40 percent chance of experiencing three or more placements.

“While foster care is an essential protection for some children, we know that removing a child from his or her family can have traumatic effects and that outcomes worsen the longer a child remains in foster care and the more placements a child experiences,” said John Thomasian, director of the NGA Center for Best Practices. “The states selected to participate in this institute will examine ways in which they can increase efforts to address and prevent the problems families and foster children face.”