It was done by Fasheland Shinn. This study demonstrated that in New York City at least, and the same has since been found to be true elsewhere, it costs five times as much to keep a child up to 18 in foster care than it would to keep that child at home with supportive services.

This was so persuasive to the Senate Finance Committee that they decided, and they wrote in the committee report, that the $200 million should not be spent for foster care, but rather for a range of child welfare services that would make foster care less necessary, or at least not so long lasting.

That happened. The bill was passed and that is how we happened to have this big disparity between what is appropriated that is $56 million, and the $266 million of the authorization.

Somehow, and perhaps we are all to blame, the message on that never reached the Appropriations Committee.

That is why we are so very much committed at this time to the idea of not only entitlement types of authorizations, so delighted with the action of this committee on the budget, but also that there be safeguarding protections within the bill that would have it serve the purposes which Congress has always intended.

Mr. BRODHEAD. Thank you very much, Miss Wickenden, for a very eloquent and useful statement.

Miss Cole, do you have any statements?

STATEMENT OF ELIZABETH COLE

Miss COLE. This morning, you asked Jane Knitzer for information on subsidized adoption. I would like to add figures for the record on the cost aspect of this adoption.

I think adoption services as compared to any other substitute child welfare service has always been shown to be cost effective, aside from the benefits of placing a youngster in a permanent home, where they have security.

But even with subsidy, there are convincing figures.

In California, Mr. Corman's State, which has been advanced for many years in the practice of adoption, last year they placed 873 children for adoption from Los Angeles County alone.

Those youngsters, 262 of them, were placed with adoption subsidies. The County of Los Angeles computes that placing those youngsters for adoption has saved the county $1,300,000 in the first year.

Now, if you determine the fact that these youngsters would have spent the rest of their lives in foster care institutions, and they would have, because they were under the guardianship of the State of California, the savings then become multiplied to the extent of $16,777,000 for those youngsters.

Now, Los Angeles is a very large county, but it is only one county out of the many across the United States, and that same kind of cost-effective data can be shown in every State that operates a subsidized adoption program.

In Illinois, they can show that placing a youngster in adoption with subsidy saves $11 for every one spent. This is the major way minority youngsters may be placed for adoption, it has been shown. It seems to me difficult to have to argue before State legislatures.

and now the Federal Congress that what we would like to do is have permission to spend less money to get better things for youngsters. We would like to keep them in their own home where it is better for them and less costly, or find a permanent family for almost all the rest of them through adoption.

Mr. BRODHEAD. Thank you very much.

Mr. Corman?

Mr. CORMAN. Thank you.

I don't know if you touched on this or not, but we are always concerned about the day care staffing requirement. Do any of you have a view as to what we ought to do in that respect?

Miss COLE. No.

Mr. CORMAN. I realize it is not precisely your field.

Mr. BOND. I think we should submit the standards on that here. [The following was subsequently submitted:]

CHILD WELFARE LEAGUE RESPONSE

At the request of Chairman Corman, made during the hearings, for our position on standards we are pleased to submit the attachment for the record. The Chairman is quite perceptive in focusing on staffing and the controversy staffing causes in discussing any of the human services. As the Chairman knows, the Child Welfare League of America has been a vigorous advocate for staffing requirements which are higher than that required at present in some Federal regulations and in some States.

Our position on staffing of programs serving children is firm because we have extensive evidence from generations of practical experience in offering these programs through our agencies that a basic level of staffing is required to make the programs effective. There have been a number of research studies which also confirm the need for adequate numbers of trained, experienced staff to make these services effective.

The major problem has not been with the "effectiveness" half of the "costeffectiveness" formula. It has been with "cost." We know and our evaluations prove that for the various child welfare services to be effective, that is, for them to reach their goals, staffing must be such that the caseworkers or day care workers or foster care workers or homemakers are able to do their jobs properly. We have data, submitted to the Committee staff, which shows that cost-effective preventive and intensive foster care services to children requires a caseload per worker of 10-12 families (A SECOND CHANCE FOR FAMILIES: Evaluation of a Program to Reduce Foster Care. 1976, p. 126). Testimony before the Committee supported the need for sufficient staffing to be able to follow up children, to return them when appropriate to their homes, to work vigorously for permanence when it was clear that restoration to the biological family is not possible. Costs of effective foster care, however will be substantially higher for staffing if a 10-12 caseload rather than the 60-80 caseload which is common becomes a reality. Effectiveness in the case of foster care requires many more caseworkers for a brief period of time rather than a few caseworkers permanently unable to manage the cases. We can well imagine the controversy over "foster care staffing" if those who do not understand the service and who have not read the evaluations of successful preventive services merely focus on the fact that we are suggesting five times as many caseworkers for the same number of cases.

Caseloads, as our practice and evaluations show. are probably the most critical factor for success, assuming the workers are trained or otherwise comnetent practitioners. Day care with inadequate staffing-in our view, anything less than the 1968 Federal Requirements-harms children, it doesn't work and is a total waste of taxpayers' money. Similarly, as has been shown in substantial detail in the present Hearings. foster care with inadequate staffing fails to be effective. Such foster care is in reality foster "neglect” and a tragic waste of children's lives and taxovers' money. In regard to caseloads for foster care caseworkers, consider the problem nosed by the roseload recom. mendations which are in existence. On the one hand, the evaluation cited above

suggests that optimal results for children in foster care and substantial longterm financial savings result from casework which features staffing of 10-12 families per worker. This "staffing standard"-it clearly suggests at least the basis for a standard for intensive preventive foster care-is substantially higher than the caseloads published in 1975 by the two major child welfare organizations in the United States. In 1975, the American Public Welfare Assn. published Standards developed with funds from the Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare. Those Standards (p. 36) state: "2. Direct Service Social Workers Workloads shall not exceed the relationships and tasks represented by a maximum average of 35 foster children and their families."

In 1975, the Child Welfare League published a new edition of its Standards for foster care. The section on work loads, developed by the CWLA Research Center, is very detailed and recognizes the fact that caseloads must be reduced below a range of 20-30 when any of eleven different factors are present. A careful reading of the material, pp. 90-92, would lead one to conclude that in the majority of foster care cases the staffing would have to be reduced below the starting point for the range, 20 cases.

We are thus faced with a substantial problem. Practice and research demonstrate that foster care which is effective requires staffing of a very different sort than is currently being provided in the States. The situation is analogous to the day care staffing issue. Probably twice as many staff are required, at a minimum, to make foster care work properly. The Congress, clearly, heard in the testimony given during the week of May 1, 1977, that substantial progress for children could be achieved by changing the way foster care workers. Testimony centered on the fact that caseloads were such that the children, the biological parents and the foster parents were not adequately served.

Congress will need to reconcile the staffing issue, perhaps for each human service. If the usual caseload today is 4 or 5 times as high as it should be to make foster care work, someone will need to direct that caseloads be reduced to effectiev levels as a condition of receiving federal funding. The very real disparity between common caseloads of 60-80, APWA's recommendation of a caseload no larger than 35. the League's 20-30 range (with guidelines for reduced caseloads in most instances), and evaluation findings pointing to a 10-12 caseload for preventive foster care need to be reconciled by the decisionmakers with power to change the system. Those decisionmakers are the Subcommittee members and Congress.

Miss WICKENDEN. The Child Welfare League is supportive of the 1968 interagency day care requirements.

Of course, one reason that you got the $200 million included in title XX authorization last year was to make it possible for the States to move toward compliance with those standards.

You postponed them until October, but there is still an effort to raise the standard through the use of earmarked money.

Mr. CORMAN. Do you think the interagency standard which we set some time ago is a reasonable objective to move toward? We have always discussed it, and keep postponing it.

Miss WICKENDEN. Well, the Child Welfare League is committed to those standards as being in line with its own standard.

I think one thing that troubles me personally is that whenever people talk about this-we recently had the extraordinary action of the Labor Department in just rejecting these standards for CETA projects.

In this study that is going on in HEW now if there are any questions of change, it should not be to abandon the standard altogether.

Too much of the talk that has gone on, not in this circle, but elsewhere, has been "Let's not have any Federal standard" and that would certainly be a gross dereliction of the use of the Federal dollar.

Mr. CORMAN. The circles that are elsewhere worry me, but it is conferees that worry me most on that one.

I appreciate very much your statement and what you have done in this field over the years. I would not want to imply that you were a charter member, but I do know from my years in Congress that you are without a doubt the most respected of those who come to us with this concern.

Mr. GRADISON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am perplexed by your thoughts on the State government and the Federal Government, their sharing. I can understand that the major efforts were with the States.

As I understand it, it means the same dollar amount without any escalation based on the cost of living. With regard to the Federal contribution, are you suggesting that that not only escalate with the cost of living, but at a rate of one and one-half times the cost of living?

The implication of this projected over a period of years is that the States can just hold their own on some historic costs which will be relatively insignificant if inflation grows.

That is, they do not have to increase their effort with the cost of living, but the Federal Government is going to increase its share at a rate of one and one-half times.

We have had a lot of witnesses talking about advances at the rate of inflation, but I believe this is the first testimony that says we should do that one better.

I wonder if you could explain the rationale. It seems to me to be a system that would lead over time, if it were followed, to a dominant Federal position in the financing of these programs. Mr. BOND. I will try, Mr. Gradison.

At one time, I believe, we shared a common community, and I think as we did, we both remember that the well-being of children, particularly those that had to be separated from their families, was entirely the responsibility of the county government.

I recall in some sections of the State, midway through the fiscal year, the fund would run out, and the attitude toward children was, "Well, you can either keep them if you can dig up the money to take care of them, or you can send them to a home if they have a home, and that was the end of it."

In short, sir, the local tax base was insufficient to provide adequate services for the children. I think we are suggesting further, that although the concept of parents patriae is all right with respect to the State, it would appear that the State tax base in itself is inadequate to provide comprehensive services for children.

When we say services, what we are saying is giving kids an opportunity to grow up, and thus the significant input of the Federal Government with its broad tax base would seem to be the only way in which we will provide these interventions that will permit children to grow into useful, healthy adult citizens.

That would be my immediate response.

Miss WICKENDEN. Could I supplement on the maintenance of effort?

In the first place, under title XX, there is, of course, a requirement for State sharing, so as the authorization would rise and the Federal funds would rise, so, too, would the State's share, usually at 25 percent. Now, the reason that the maintenance of effort suggestion with respect to IV-B, in the case of IV-B, the States are now spending a great deal more than would be required. Therefore, if you put more money in, you don't simply want to have that additional money used to displace existing State expenditures. Similarly, in day care, there has been the situation that money earmarked for day care to make it possible to improve these standards of day care has simply resulted in displacing money that was formerly spent for day care, and that would defeat the intention of the committee.

Mr. GRADISON. I understand the purpose of making the effort. It just seemed to me that we were setting a dual standard, that the Federal effort was meant to be a more aggressive effort in terms of commitment of the fund than the effort you suggested would be required of the States.

It is difficult for me to look at the budgets of the States and the Federal Government and share your conclusion that the Federal Government is somehow financially better able to shoulder this burden than the State governments.

The States have to balance their budget. They are in much better shape than we are. You may say they are not making the effort they should. I agree with that but I think if we are going to devise a formula in which the States are in the act, we should use it in a way to encourage them to participate, not freeze their participation and then redouble our own efforts.

Miss WICKENDEN. There is nothing in title XX that says a State has to participate, but if they want to get the Federal money, they must put up 25 percent of their own, so that naturally goes up. Mr. GRADISON. I understand.

Mr. BRODHEAD. We are about out of time. I want to ask one short question, and then we will have to recess and have our final witness. If we are going to make some money available for adoption services, would you recommend that we make it available out of IV-B money, or IV-A?

Miss COLE. I am not sure which would be the best mechanism. I think, in line with previous testimony, that IV-A might be a better source than IV-B, in terms of its being extended over time. I would like to have the opportunity with my colleagues to give thought to that and submit written recommendations.

Mr. BRODHEAD. I would suggest that you submit them before next Wednesday, or it may be too late.

Thank you very much.

We will recess for a few minutes and come back with our final witness today.

Thank you.

[A brief recess was held.]