August 14, 2019

Port St. Lucie - 

The number of Treasure Coast and Okeechobee children in foster care fell in 2019, from a high in 2018.

That information is part of an end-of-fiscal year report released this month by Communities Connected for Kids, the non-profit organization that oversees the foster-care system in Indian River, Martin, Okeechobee and St. Lucie counties.

The number of children removed from their homes declined by 22 percent from July 2018 to June of this year - a decrease of 103 children that CCKids officials caution may be misleading.

“We are actually seeing more children come into care because of the opioid epidemic,” CCKids Community Relations Director Christina Kaiser said. “But we had a particularly bad year in 2018, so by comparison, we look a lot better – but the problem hasn’t gone away.”

Statewide, there has been a consistent upward trend of children going into out-of-home care since mid-2013. And more children in care means heavier caseloads.

“We strive to be at 13 children for each case manager,” Kaiser said. “We’re at 15.”

But there is still cause to celebrate.

Safety Support Teams, designed to reduce the number of children removed from home, kept more than half the children it reviewed safely out of foster care this year.

Other good news locally includes slight increases in the number of children living with relatives rather than in group homes, and 167 children found forever homes this year.

That's a 30 percent increase over CCKids’ adoption goal for 2019, Kaiser said.