Minnesota Adds More Requirements for Foster Care

Minnesota recently passed legislation designed to keep more children out of foster care.  Rather than the prior “reasonable efforts” to prevent family separation, the new law requires case workers to take “active efforts” to keep families together, including prioritizing extended family for placement.  Another provision requires caseworkers to provide parents “stepped up” services to address the problems that led to the abuse or neglect.  The legislation originally addressed only African-American children in the system, but amendments broadened the definition to include the vast majority of children in foster care.  

The legislation undoubtedly has good motives, but it remains to be seen how it works out in practice.  The law only applies to the state’s most populous counties currently, and expands to the rest of the state in two years.  The legislature allocated $5 million to those two counties.  I suspect that they will find that $5 million is not nearly enough to provide expanded services, especially for cases of abuse or neglect related to substance abuse.  Stepped-up services to address those issues historically take far more money than anyone anticipates.  It also will be important to see in two years what metrics the state uses to assess whether the law actually benefits children or leaves more of them in danger.