Office of the Child Advocate 
3312 Northside Drive, Suite D-250 Macon, Georgia 31210 
478-757-2661 or 1-800-254-2064 www.gachildadvocate.org 
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Reducing the Foster Care Rolls 
By: Tom C. Rawlings, Director 
What sort of progress are we making in fighting child abuse and neglect in Georgia and helping its victims recover? That's the sort of question The Office of Child Advocate is charged with asking, and we attempt to address part of that question in a recent report entitled "Reducing the Foster Care Rolls: Are We Using the Right Tools?" 
In this report, OCA examined how DFCS is using both "safety resource" placements and temporary probate court guardianships in response to families that are experiencing abuse and neglect issues. When the agency is investigating an allegation of abuse or finds abuse has occurred, it may ask the parent voluntarily to place the child in a "safety resource" with a friend or relative until the parent has addressed the issues at hand. Sometimes, if the problems go on too long without resolution, the agency will suggest the family go to probate court and place temporary guardianship with that friend or relative. Often these practices are used in lieu of taking the family's case to juvenile court. 
The Office of the Child Advocate performed a statewide examination of these practices and concluded that, while these tools can serve a good purpose, they are loosely regulated and are sometimes used improperly. Sometimes parents don't understand that these placements are "voluntary," and sometimes children remain out of their homes  even in a different school in a different city -- for over a year while the parent works a case plan designed to reunite the family. Sometimes, we found, the agency should have taken the matter to juvenile court rather than trying to address the family's needs without that court's oversight. Were these matters taken to juvenile court instead, the parents would have the right to legal assistance; the court could provide supervision of the case; and the child would have an attorney, guardian-ad-litem, or CASA to speak for him or her. 
OCA's recommendations include tightening up policy and practice to ensure that the rights of these parents and children are observed and to limit the use of these practices to short-term solutions. The report also recommends the agency provide better guidance on when social workers should ask the juvenile court for assistance. 
As with many of the issues OCA addresses, this report had its genesis in calls we receive from around the state and from the agency statistics we review and analyze regularly. Some of those calls questioned why the agency seems focused on addressing abuse and neglect outside the traditional juvenile court process. Here are some of those recent statistics: 
 In the past two years, the number of child protective services cases open at any given time has been cut in half.  During that same time, the number of children in foster care declined by 40%.  The number of cases of substantiated child abuse or neglect that are "closed" without further involvement by DFCS 
increased by 22%. 
 Over half of all reports of child abuse and neglect are now met with a "diversion" response, meaning that the 
incidents  which may or may not have involved child maltreatment  are handled by referring the family to another agency's services. It's a fair conclusion from those statistics that DFCS is doing its best to limit intrusive government intervention in families where it's not needed. And we at OCA agree with such a goal, so long as we assist adequately those families and children that do need help and respect the legal rights of both parent and child. Our recent report will, we hope, assist the state in forging a child welfare system that is appropriately geared toward protecting and serving troubled children and families. We invite you to review the report for yourself. It's posted on our website at www.gachildadvocate.org under the "Studies and Surveys" tab. 
Tom Rawlings, Georgia's Child Advocate for the Protection of Children, was appointed by Governor Sonny Perdue to assure quality and efficiency in Georgia's child protective systems. The Office of the Child Advocate is a resource for those interested in the welfare of our state's neglected and abused children. Tom can be reached through the OCA website at www.gachildadvocate.org .