Officials from public and private child and family service agencies gathered at Capitol Plaza Hotel Monday evening to celebrate the anniversary of legislation that established a partnership between the two.
Ten years ago, the legislature established the Office of Child Advocates for Children's Protection and Services under the Office of Administration. This office oversees and helps support a partnership between the Department of Mental Health, the Department of Social Services, the juvenile court system, and private foster care and family services. It provides a path for people to voice concerns with the foster care services, and an independent agency to investigate those concerns as well, said Marilyn Nolan, CEO of Alternative Opportunities.
Alternative Options is a private nonprofit organization that provides foster care case management services for families and mental health services such as management for substance abuse.
"This event is (in celebration of) 10 years of public agencies, private agencies, nonprofits, the Legislature and other elected officials really looking at this issue of what we do to better child welfare," Nolan said. "I think it is the collaboration that is the big take away. We are all here together saying how do we keep doing this better."
The event was hosted by the Missouri Coalition of Children's Agencies. Two officials who had a lot to do with passing the law also attended, former Missouri House Speaker Catherine Hanaway and former Gov. Bob Holden.
"Ten years ago we faced a situation where kids at both ends of the spectrum were really suffering," Hanaway said. "Either kids who were in the homes of parents who were abusing them, or neglecting them, weren't being attended to, or kids were being pulled out of homes when they shouldn't be. So what we worked for was a system that got to all kids as quickly as possible and triaged complaints as well as possible."
She said the part of the legislation with the greatest impact was getting children in front of a judge within 72 hours of being taken from their home. Before the legislation, one child had to wait 14 years before a judge heard her case, Hanaway said. Another successful part of the legislation was placing children with family members such as aunts, uncles or grandparents, when possible, to keep some resemblance of a family structure.
"There continues to be a tremendous need for resources and case workers, and case workers' work loads are far to heavy," Hanaway said.
She added that the legislation was not only passed with bipartisan efforts, but combined efforts of the judicial, executive and legislative branches.
"We have made a lot of strides - but the job is not finished," Holden said. "We are still failing our children. We still don't put enough money in those areas where it is needed. We don't provide enough training. We have to continue to upgrade that training in this process, and we got to make sure that we have the oversight to make sure that money is being spent wisely, effectively, and above all on behalf of our children."
Holden said he wasn't undermining the accomplishments of the agencies, but issuing a reminder the job is never done.
He added some of the state's younger residents are dealt a poor hand and the government can save itself a lot of money by keeping those individuals from being incarcerated or institutionalized.
"It scares me and saddens me that people in the correctional field can tell me that by third grade they know who is going to end up in prison and who may have a chance of graduating high school," Holden said. "We are not doing enough in those early years. We are not doing enough to help our children. We are not doing enough to help those families stay together."