"Don't Worry About the Size of the Government"

[applegrove]

Don't Worry About the Size of the Government

by Eric Schnurer at the Atlantic

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/09/dont-worry-about-the-size-of-government/380077/

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No one’s looking at holistic needs of the family any longer,” Sonnier told me. “The issues are systemic in the family—but you cannot get a systemic response.” Her real goal was to focus on the front end of the system—to prevent kids and their families from needing further services. Sonnier’s predecessor, Ruth Johnson, who now oversees a wider range of state government operations in Louisiana, called it “No Wrong Door on steroids.”

For instance, roughly a quarter of Louisiana’s foster-care placements are for fewer than 30 days. Why are these children being placed in foster care at all? If something could be done beforehand to avoid removing them from their homes, it would save a decent amount of foster-care expense. The issues are starker, and the costs higher, with instances of systemic failure like school dropouts, child abuse, and delinquency.

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The problem is how to identify those who haven’t fallen into trouble yet and keep them from doing so. Sonnier believes that a coherent early-warning system needs to be local, rather than state-level. This requires better integrating child-welfare services with schools and the public-health system, as well as nonprofit social-service agencies and local churches. These are the organizations and individuals most likely to come into regular contact with kids, notice a problem such as family break-up, parental neglect, substance abuse, trouble with schoolwork—and to be in a position to evaluate whether additional assistance could prevent larger social consequences.

Louisiana has some limited examples of comprehensive services provided through schools—most notably, the Mahalia Jackson Early Learning Center in New Orleans. The state has also established an effort called Families In Needs of Services, in which some delinquency or abuse proceedings are diverted to an administrative process for determining needed services. But because it’s run by the court system, it mostly involves kids and families who are already in trouble, and it’s far from comprehensive. As Sonnier sees it, the challenge is how to formalize this system and work proactively in the executive branch rather than just when a kid winds up in the courts.




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