ATLANTA — Solutions to issues plaguing Georgia’s foster care system were among the top areas of concern for lawmakers in the 2024 legislative session.

While several bipartisan reform measures were approved in the general assembly, committees are now meeting to bring forth more recommendations to enhance foster care services and prevent hoteling, a practice of housing children in DFCS custody at hotels or DFCS offices because other options for temporary care aren’t available. Those children often have mental, physical, or behavioral challenges and have cases considered “complex.”

Georgia Department of Human Services Commissioner Candice Broce delivered a positive update to the Senate Foster Care and Adoption Study Committee on Aug. 9, telling them that hoteling is at an all-time low.

Seven children were hoteled as of Aug. 8, according to Broce, who later added that upwards of 1,500 children each year in DFCS custody have spent at least one day being hoteled. More than 10,500 are in DFCS custody.

“I would speculate that perhaps half, according to our best records, came into the system to access services when there’s not the legal dependency of abuse or neglect that would actually be an appropriate basis for it,” she said.

Broce implied that much of the unnecessary entry into DFCS custody stems from a lack of knowledge of some judges and guardians of resources and assistance that could help mediate potential neglect such as SNAP, waivers, CAPS assistance, housing vouchers, etc.

During a Jan. 17 presentation at a House and Senate joint appropriations meeting, Broce said there were 63 DFCS children in hotels statewide the previous night. A pilot program for providers enhancing per diems per, which ended in June 2022, had helped reduce the number of children being housed in an office or hotel to approximately 20 per day, a record low for the agency at that time.

“If a child is suicidal, homicidal, suffering from active addiction, sexually or physically aggressive, delinquent or disabled, we may be wholly unable to find an appropriately-equipped foster family or group home placement,” Broce said. “Demand far exceeds supply for complex children.”

Committee member Randy Robertson, a Cataula Republican, agreed, stating that education and knowledge of resources could help prevent families from unnecessarily entering DFCS’s foster care system.

“It always seems like the biggest failure is we do a really, really poor job of educating our community of where they need to go and get the services, and if that’s the solution, then we can fix that,” Robertson said. “But taking 5,000 children — whether it’s a day or a month or ever how long — and putting them under the supervision of the state so they can get services that are accessible to everybody else, to me, just seems like something we should be able to correct.”

The ultimate goal of DFCS and the foster care system is reuniting children with their families, agency officials said.

Back-to-school months are often a busy time of year as the majority of its intakes come from schools as teachers and staff begin reporting suspected abuse and neglect.

Samantha Walker, reunification and interim safety services director for DFCS, works on managing and mitigating safety plans that prevent out-of-home care for abuse and neglect to prevent children from entering into DFCS custody.

This could include resourcing parents struggling with managing a child who may have received an autism diagnosis, or providing other parent aid services. The family preservation services are voluntary and also include monthly contacts.

As of June, more than 7,200 children are being served by DFCS’s family preservation services who might otherwise be in foster care.

“(With a family in preservation services) a safety concern has been identified,” Walker said. “However, we determined that we can control that safety threat — not necessarily resolve it or eliminate, it still exists — but we can control it within the home with an in-home safety plan.”

Approximately 16% of those who enter family preservation services ultimately enter DFCS custody, Walker said.

As it pertains to the foster care system, 41% of children who exited foster care in 2023 have returned to an original caregiver or noncustodial parent.

The Senate Foster Care and Adoption Study Committee heard from several officials during its approximately four-hour meeting.

Presentations included research from other states’ foster care initiatives.

Some initiatives focused on parenting and home visiting programs, mental health and substance abuse treatment for adults; some states have experimented with creating full-time foster parenting programs that pay foster parents as a salaried position.

“So that the foster parents, that’s their full-time position. They’re not focused on other jobs during the day and so, therefore, they can devote all their attention to fostering,” said Roger Moore, senior policy analyst for The Council of State Governments’ southern office. “…Two states have tried it there. They’re still very new. So it’s hard to say but initial results seem to show that it does result in lower turnover because, you know, get those benefits.”

On average, a child stays in foster care in Georgia for 24 months before reunification or being adopted — above the national average of 21.4 months, Moore said.

Committee chair Kay Kirkpatrick said the committee plans to meet again Sept. 26 for more presentations and public testimony, likely at a meeting space at the Georgia Capitol.

Among more than a handful of bills Georgia lawmakers approved this year to reform the state’s foster care system was a bill that attempts to prevent the unnecessary ordering of children into DFCS custody. 

Before placing a child in DFCS custody on a non-emergency basis or in the absence of exceptional circumstances, SB 133 requires the court to consider what services have been provided to the child or his or her parent/guardian, and also consider what services are available to them that could allow the child to remain at home.

Additionally, $10 million was added to the state’s 2024 budget to help address hoteling of children in DFCS custody.