Fewer Children Removed from Home

In all but the most egregious of circumstances, the best place for a child is at home, close to family, close to school – close to everything and everyone the child knows.

Even when services are required, most child-welfare professionals prefer to work with a family while their children remain at home rather than move the children into licensed care.

Did you know? Licensed care is what we call group homes and homes licensed to provide foster care.)

And that brings me to today’s very good news: Removals are down considerably in the southeast region of Florida.

Child-welfare professionals in the area, which includes Communities Connected for Kids, removed 205 FEWER children from July through January than the same period the year before. Even better, CCKids’ cumulative removals during the same time was 92 children fewer. That means that CCKids – the smallest section of the region – was responsible for 45 percent of the area’s total reduction in removals!

While last spring’s school closures and resultant decrease in calls to the abuse hotline may have had something to do with that reduction, it’s not the whole story.

Other regions throughout Florida are experiencing MORE removals. And compared to our behemoth neighbors to the south – Palm Beach and Broward counties – our numbers should be less than a third of the total removals – not nearly half.

Most telling of all is the low rate of removals per victim. In other words, there may be fewer children coming into care because of last year’s shutdown, but the rate by which those same children are removed from home is also down.

This says a great deal about our local system of care and the providers whose programs are keeping children safe at home while their families receive services.

Well done everybody!