Ms. Joyce Williamson, MN State Representative

From: LaNaya Allen <lallen.rgmv4@live.com>
Subject: This is a letter from Itasca County Commissioner Karen Burthwick
To: "Joyce Williamson" <jw_mnstrep.gr4childrensrights@yahoo.com>
Date: Monday, January 18, 2010, 2:54 PM

 

Dear Representative Williamson,

My name is Karen Burthwick, I am an Itasca County commissioner in my
first term of office. Recently I have been working with LaNaya Allen and
her family and others to put pressure on the political and legal systems
of Itasca County to have LaNaya's niece and nephew removed from the
Foster Home and placed with the Grandparents. The grandparents are
working toward an adoption, we are hoping for the best and crossing our
fingers that the HS efforts to place these children in a permanent
adoptive situation with the foster family or elsewhere has been
derailed. We are not letting our guard down until the adoption by
Grandparents is final.

Hopefully it has helped just to have a Commissioner questioning what is
going on. There is much to do yet as we are all in the learning process
and working on this together to the extent we can. LaNaya has been
amazing in her pursuit of justice for these children. She has shared
your e-mail address and brief explanation of your families loss of
contact with your granddaughter. I hope this is O.K. This is a subject
that has concerned me personally for some time as I also have an issue
with how Human Services treats family in these situations as my
step-grandson was caught up in the system a few years ago.

You have indicated that your granddaughter's was to be an open adoption,
however, from what you have described my suspicion is that such may not
be what happened. Minnesota Statute 257C.08, Subd. 6 provides for
grandparent visitation rights, but appears not to apply in cases where
the adoption was other than step-parent or family. You could certainly
follow-up with an attorney (I am not one) to see if you have any legal
recourse. My presumption is that the foster Home allowed to adopt was
perhaps the same as in LaNaya's family's case, that which was granted
temporary custody? Foster families receive some monies for providing
permanency to children.

The Federal government provides significant grant dollars to the state &
local Human Service agencies as an incentive to move children quickly
out of Foster Care arrangements and into permanency. The Minnesota
Permanency Demonstration Project went into effect in 2005 and will
continue for five years, if successful, the project may be extended
another five years and broadened in scope. The intent of the original
federal legislation was positive in that it was to target children that
had been in Foster Care for many years and was intended to move them
into permanent adoptive situations. The study is to examine the impact
of offering some foster families who choose to either adopt or accept
permanent, legal and physical custody of children in their care the same
level of financial assistance they would have been eligible for as
foster families. In the past this financial benefit was reduced by about
1/2 and some support services were eliminated. The demonstration project
requires that children have resided in a licensed foster home for at
least six month in one of these counties: Cass, Dakota, Hennepin, Mille
Lacs or Ramsey. Did your granddaughter reside in one of these counties?
There is not supposed to be any new funding available for this project
only that the Federal government has given Minnesota the authority to
use existing federal funds more flexibly. You can find information on
the Permanency Demonstration Project  on the Minnesota Department of
Human Services website.

In addition, an accompanying news release from Monday, September 14,
2009 notes that the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services awarded
$35 million to 38 states & Puerto Rico for increasing the number of
Children adopted from foster care, using funds from the adoption
incentive award program. The adoption incentives program was created as
part of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of  1997. Under the Fostering
Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 (P.L.
110-351), the adoption incentive was revamped to provide stronger
incentives for states to redouble their efforts to find children loving
and adoptive homes. This law introduced the concept of an adoption rate,
which is derived from comparing current year adoptions to the number of
children in care at the end of the previous year. States receive
additional money if they exceed their highest foster child adoption rate
for previous years back to 2002. The incentive program gave states
$4,000.00 for every foster care child adopted above the 2007 baseline,
plus a payment of $8,000.00 for every foster child age nine and older
and $4,000.00 for every special needs child adopted above the respective
baselines and an additional $1,000.00 for every child adopted over and
above the level of the states highest foster child adoption rate for
previous years.  Previous to this awards were given in 2004 to states
for increased adoptions.

This raises a serious ethical question, could the State & Local Health &
Human Services Agencies be promoting and favoring the placement of
children for adoption into their former Foster Care Home settings,
because there is a financial incentive for them to do so? In addition,
the faster children can be placed the more benefit to these HS agencies.
The more children an agency places in a year the more money they are
bringing in. In addition, since the HS agencies already have a
relationship with the foster care homes it would be much quicker to
allow them to adopt than to work with families to set up an adoption.
Typically, it is much easier to quickly place a young healthy child than
an older one and/or a special needs child, particularly so if the child
has serious needs. It makes the statistics look good. Such could account
for the quick placement and manipulation that is going on with the fast
placement of more desirable young children and the failure of these
agencies to seriously consider family members for adoptions as required
by statute.  Unfortunately, this is not what the law intended.

A good friend once told me to "follow the money" and my father, bless
his heart, said, "to beat 'em, you have to think like they do." My gut
instinct tells me they were right. In any case, as a state legislator, I
would ask that you look into this and that you consider introducing
legislation that will make it much more difficult for HS agencies to
ignore family options.

In your personal situation, if it were me, I would consider filing a
lawsuit as it appears from what you describe that misrepresentation and
very possibly outright fraud occurred. Any written records of what was
said by those in authority over this would be beneficial in such effort.
In that legal process your attorney should be able to obtain the
adoption file, (I am assuming you cannot access it), and you can learn
exactly what the adoption terms were. You may very well have been
mislead and may not have been given any rights to visitation and may not
be able to get any. If fraud occurred on the part of HS agency folks
perhaps you could overturn the adoption??? This assumes it is not to late.

I will anticipate your response and/or telephone call.

Sincerely,

Karen Burthwick
218-245-2824