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Date: Friday, July 18, 1997 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Michael Kharfen (202) 401-9215
"The President is committed to making sure that every child has a healthy and stable home and to supporting and strengthening their families," said Secretary Shalala. "We applaud Governor Frank O'Bannon's commitment to improving th e lives of Indiana's most vulnerable children."
Indiana is using this waiver to design its child protection and child welfare systems in a way that will better ensure the safety of children in troubled families, offer preventive services that will intervene early to better address the needs of families at risk, and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of child welfare services.
In order to meet the need to place children, for whom family settings were not appropriate, Indiana has placed children in institutional facilities, some of which are out-of-state. The state expects that the demonstration will increase its capaci ty for community-based placements of children which will be more appropriate for the children's needs. The demonstration invests in recruitment, training and support of family foster care providers.
Community-based placement is expected to reduce the current costs of care as well as family disruption, and in some cases prevent removal from the home, where it is safe for children to remain.
"Indiana's project will give us valuable information about how we can protect children and at the same time most effectively develop and maintain family relationships," added Secretary Shalala.
The state will track and measure three child welfare outcomes: family stability, family safety, and child development. The project will focus on improving outcomes for children and families and the efficacy with which services are provided; and a t the same time, maintain the safety of the children as the primary concern. The demonstration will allow the state to expand Title IV-E eligibility and services to children and families not now eligible for Title IV-E funds and programs. Previously, th ese funds could be used primarily to pay for the room and board of eligible children in outofhome care.
Four thousand children will be covered by this demonstration project. The state will provide appropriate protections for the children, ensure reasonable efforts to prevent placement in out-of-home care or to reunify the family, and make the most appropriate, least restrictive placement possible. A full range of health and mental health care services under the Medicaid program as well as appropriate case management services will be available to the children participating in the demonstration.
"The importance of this demonstration is to prove whether community-based care is safer for children, builds stronger families, yields better results for child development and is more cost effective," said Carol Williams, associate commi ssioner of the HHS Children's Bureau. "We look forward to working with Indiana in this innovative effort."
The project will be implemented on a county-by-county basis with statewide implementation within five years, with all 92 counties phased into the demonstration within 18 months of the project implementation date. The demonstration will operate fo r five years, will be cost neutral to the federal government, and include a rigorous evaluation.