The Money Behind the Madness by Nev Moore

POLITICS

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Adoption Bonuses: The Money Behind the Madness

DSS and affiliates rewarded for breaking up families

By Nev Moore

Massachusetts News

Child "protection" is one of the biggest businesses in the country. We spend $12

billion a year

it.

The money goes to tens of thousands of a) state employees, b) collateral

professionals, such as

lawyers, court personnel, court investigators, evaluators

and guardians, judges, and c) DSS

contracted vendors such as counselors,

therapists, more "evaluators", junk psychologists,

residential facilities, foster

parents, adoptive parents, MSPCC, Big Brothers/Big Sisters,

YMCA,

etc. This

newspaper is not big enough to list all of the people in this state who have a

job,

draw a

paycheck, or make their profits off the kids in DSS custody.

In this article I explain the financial infrastructure that provides the motivation for

DSS to take

people’s children – and not give them back.

In 1974 Walter Mondale promoted the Child Abuse and Prevention Act which

began feeding

massive amounts of federal funding to states to set up programs to

combat child abuse and

neglect. From that came Child "Protective" Services, as

we know it today. After the bill passed,

Mondale himself expressed concerns that it

could be misused. He worried that it could lead

states

to create a "business" in

dealing with children.

Then in 1997 President Clinton passed the "Adoption and Safe Families Act." The

public

relations

campaign promoted it as a way to help abused and neglected

children who languished

in foster

care for years, often being shuffled among

dozens of foster homes, never having a real

home and

family. In a press release

from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

dated November

24, 1999,

it refers to "President Clinton’s initiative to double by 2002 the

number of children

foster care who are adopted or otherwise permanently placed."

It all sounded so heartwarming. We, the American public, are so easily led. We

love to buy

stereotypes; we just eat them up, no questions asked. But, my mother,

bless her heart, taught

from the time I was young to "consider the source." In

the stereotype that we’ve been sold

about

kids in foster care, we picture a forlorn,

hollow-eyed child, thin and pale, looking up at us

beseechingly through a dirt

streaked face. Unconsciously, we pull up old pictures from Life

magazine of

children in Appalachia in the 1930s. We think of orphans and children abandoned

parents who look like Manson family members. We play a nostalgic movie in our

heads of the

little

fellow shyly walking across an emerald green, manicured lawn to

meet Ward and June

Cleaver,

his new adoptive parents, who lead him into their

lovely suburban home. We imagine

the little tyke’

s eyes growing as big as saucers

as the Cleavers show him his very own room, full

of toys and

sports gear. And we

just feel so gosh darn good about ourselves.

Now it’s time to wake up to the reality of the adoption business.

Very few children who are being used to supply the adoption market are hollow-

eyed tykes from

Appalachia. Very few are crack babies from the projects. [Oh…

you thought those were the

children they were saving? Think again]. When you

are marketing a product you have to provide

desirable product that sells. In the

adoption business that would be nice kids with reasonably

good

genetics who

clean up good. An interesting point is that the Cape Cod & Islands office

leads the

state in terms of processing kids into the system and having them adopted out.

than the

inner city areas, the projects, Mission Hill, Brockton, Lynn, etc.

Interesting…

With the implementation of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, President Clinton

tried to make

himself look like a humanitarian who is responsible for saving the

abused and neglected

children.

The drive of this initiative is to offer cash

"bonuses" to states for every child they have

adopted out

of foster care, with the

goal of doubling their adoptions by 2002, and sustaining that

for each

subsequent

year. They actually call them "adoption incentive bonuses," to promote the

adoption of

children.

Where to Find the Children

A whole new industry was put into motion. A sweet marketing scheme that even

Bill Gates could

envy. Now, if you have a basket of apples, and people start giving

you $100 per apple, what are

you going to do? Make sure that you have an

unlimited supply of apples, right?

The United States Department of Health & Human Services administers Child

Protective

Services. To accompany the ASF Act, the President requested, by

executive memorandum, an

initiative entitled Adoption 2002, to be implemented

and managed by Health & Human

Services.

The initiative not only gives the cash

adoption bonuses to the states, it also provides

cash

adoption subsidies to

adoptive parents until the children turn eighteen.

Everybody makes money. If anyone really believes that these people are doing this

out of the

goodness of their hearts, then I’ve got some bad news for you. The fact

that this program is run

HHS, ordered from the very top, explains why the

citizens who are victims of DSS get no

response

from their legislators. It explains

why no one in the Administration cares about the

abuse and

fatalities of children in

the "care" of DSS, and no one wants to hear about the broken

arms, verbal

abuse,

or rapes. They are just business casualties. It explains why the legislators I’

talked to for

the past three years look at me with pity. Because I’m preaching to the

already

damned.

The legislators have forgotten who funds their paychecks and who they need to

account to, as

has

the Governor. Because it isn’t the President. It’s us.

How DSS Is Helped

The way that the adoption bonuses work is that each state is given a baseline

number of

expected

adoptions based on population.

For every child that DSS can get adopted, there is a bonus of $4,000 to $6,000.

But that is just the starting figure in a complex mathematical formula in which each

bonus is

multiplied by the percentage that the state has managed to exceed its

baseline adoption

number.

The states must maintain this increase in each

successive year. [Like compound

interest.] The bill

reads: "$4,000 to $6,000 will be

multiplied by the amount (if any) by which the

number of foster

child adoptions in

the State exceeds the base number of foster child adoptions

for the State for

the

fiscal year." In the "technical assistance" section of the bill it states that, "the

Secretary [of

HHS] may, directly or through grants or contracts, provide technical

assistance to

assist states

and local communities to reach their targets for

increased numbers of adoptions

for children in

foster care." The technical

assistance is to support "the goal of encouraging more

adoptions out

of the foster

care system; the development of best practice guidelines for

expediting the

termination of parental rights; the development of special units and expertise in

moving children

toward adoption as a permanent goal; models to encourage the

fast tracking of

children who have

not attained 1 year of age into pre-adoptive

placements; and the

development of programs that

place children into pre-adoptive

placements without waiting for

termination of parental rights."

In the November press release from HHS it continues, " HHS awarded the first

ever adoption

bonuses to States for increases in the adoption of children from the

public foster care system."

Some of the other incentives offered are "innovative

grants" to reduce barriers to adoption [i.e.,

parents], more State support for

adoptive families, making adoption affordable for families by

providing cash

subsides and tax credits.

A report from a private think tank, the National Center for Policy Analysis, reads:

"The way the

federal government reimburses States rewards a growth in the size

of the program instead of

the

effective care of children." Another incentive being

promoted is the use of the Internet to

make

adoption easier. Clinton directed HHS

to develop an Internet site to "link children in foster

care

with adoptive families." So

we will be able to window shop for children on a government

web site.

If you don’t

find anything you like there, you can surf on over to the "Adopt Shoppe."

If you prefer to actually be able to kick tires instead of just looking at pictures you

could attend

one

of DSS’s quaint "Adoption Fairs," where live children are put on

display and you can walk

around

and browse. Like a flea market to sell kids. If one

of them begs you to take him home

you can

always say, "Sorry. Just looking." The

incentives for government child snatching are so

good that I’

m surprised we don’t

have government agents breaking down people’s doors and

just shooting

the

parents in the heads and grabbing the kids. But then, if you need more apples

you

don’t chop

down your apple trees.

Benefits for Foster Parents

That covers the goodies the State gets. Now let’s have a look at how the Cleavers

make out

financially after the adoption is finalized.

After the adoption is finalized, the State and federal subsidies continue. The

adoptive parents

may

collect cash subsidies until the child is 18. If the child stays

in school, subsidies continue to

the age

of 22. There are State funded subsidies

as well as federal funds through the Title IV-E

section of

the Social Security Act.

The daily rate for State funds is the same as the foster care

payments,

which

range from $410-$486 per month per child. Unless the child can be designated

"special

needs," which of course, they all can.

According to the NAATRIN State Subsidy profile from DSS, "special needs" may be

defined as:

"Physical disability, mental disability, emotional disturbance; a

significant emotional tie with the

foster parents where the child has resided with

the foster parents for one or more years and

separation would adversely affect the

child’s development if not adopted by them." [But their

significant emotional ties

with their parents, since birth, never enter the equation.]

Additional "special needs" designations are: a child twelve years of age or older;

racial or ethnic

factors; child having siblings or half-siblings. In their report on the

State of the Children, Boston’s

Institute for Children says: "In part because the

States can garner extra federal funds for special

needs children the designation

has been broadened so far as to become meaningless."

"Special

needs" children

may also get an additional Social Security check.

The adoptive parents also receive Medicaid for the child, a clothing allowance and

reimbursement

for adoption costs such as adoption fees, court and attorney fees,

cost of

adoption home study,

and "reasonable costs of food and lodging for the

child and adoptive

parents when necessary to

complete the adoption process."

Under Title XX of the Social

Security Act adoptive parents are

also entitled to post

adoption services "that may be helpful in

keeping the family intact," including

"daycare, specialized daycare, respite care, in-house

support services such as

housekeeping,

and personal care, counseling, and other child welfare

services".

[Wow! Everything short of being

knighted by the Queen!]

The subsidy profile actually states that it does not include money to remodel the

home to

accommodate the child. But, as subsidies can be negotiated, remodeling

could possibly be

accomplished under the "innovative incentives to remove

barriers to adoption" section. The

subsidy regulations read that "adoption

assistance is based solely on the needs of the child

without regard to the income

of the family." What an interesting government policy when

compared

to the

welfare program that the same child’s mother may have been on before losing

her

children,

and in which she may not own anything, must prove that she has no

money in the

bank; no boats,

real estate, stocks or bonds; and cannot even own a

car that is safe to drive

worth over $1000.

This is all so she can collect $539 per

month for herself and two children. The

foster parent who

gets her children gets

$820 plus. We spit on the mother on welfare as a

parasite who is bleeding

the

taxpayers, yet we hold the foster and adoptive parents [who are

bleeding ten times

as much

from the taxpayers] up as saints. The adoptive and foster parents

aren’t

subjected to

psychological evaluations, ink blot tests, MMPI’s, drug & alcohol

evaluations,

or urine screens as

the parents are.

Adoption subsidies may be negotiated on a case by case basis. [Anyone ever tried

"negotiate"

with the Welfare Department?] There are many e-mail lists and

books published to

teach adoptive

parents how to negotiate to maximize their

subsidies. As one pro writes on an e-

mail list: "We

receive a subsidy for our kids of

$1,900 per month plus another $500 from the

State of Florida.

We are trying to

adopt three more teens and we will get subsidies for them, too.

It sure helps out

with the bills."

I can’t help but wonder why we don’t give this same level of support to the children’

s parents in

the

first place? According to Cornell University, about 68% of all child

protective cases "do not

involve

child maltreatment." The largest percentage of

CPS/DSS cases are for "deprivation of

necessities" due to poverty. So, if the

natural parents were given the incredible incentives and

services listed above that

are provided to the adoptive parents, wouldn’t it stand to reason that

the

causes

for removing children in the first place would be eliminated? How many less

children

would

enter foster care in the first place? The child protective budget

would be reduced from

$12 billion

to around $4 billion. Granted, tens of thousands

of social workers, administrators,

lawyers, juvenile

court personnel, therapists, and

foster parents would be out of business, but we

would have safe,

healthy, intact

families, which are the foundation of any society.

That’s just a fantasy, of course. The reality is that maybe we will see Kathleen

Crowley’s children

on the government home-shopping-for-children web site and

some one out there can buy them.

May is national adoption month. To support "Adoption 2002," the U.S. Postal

Service is issuing

special adoption stamps. Let us hope they don’t feature pictures

of kids who are for sale. I urge

everyone to boycott these stamps and register

complaints with the post office.

I know that I’m feeling pretty smug and superior about being part of such a socially

advanced

and

compassionate society. How about you?

The Money Behind the Madness

   By Nev Moore

    Massachusetts News