Kanumuru 1

Dangers in the Pennsylvanian Foster Care System

Traumatizing Children
Nikitha Kanumuru

For a system that involves thousands of vulnerable children each year, the American

foster care system is dangerously flawed. In Pennsylvania alone there are currently about 114,000

children in the system, many of whom experience (and may continue to experience even after

leaving the system) less than desirable living conditions. Because instability can cause trauma in

young children, the goal of foster care should be to nurture children temporarily outside the

home so that they can have some semblance of normalcy during a period where their family

situation is uncertain. However, many foster parents come into foster care with ulterior motives

that can compromise children’s wellbeing. In Pennsylvania, these ulterior motives are not being

investigated to the full extent that they should, leaving many children in the foster care system

vulnerable to long term abuse and neglect at the hands of their foster parents. This leaves lasting

impacts on children that hinders their ability to succeed in life later on. In order to improve this

situation, the Pennsylvanian government should increase the allocation of budget for foster care

caseworkers by 12.5% of the overall child welfare budget for higher salary and benefit packages

in order to retain caseworkers so that foster parents are more monitored and less likely to subject

their children to abuse.

Loopholes in the System: A Concerning Case Study

1 “The Facts,” The Facts | Pennsylvania State Resource Family Association, accessed April 13, 2023,
https://www.psrfa.org/being-a-foster-parent/the-facts/, 1.
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In an ideal world, the foster care system should give a child a sense of normalcy2 during a

tumultuous time in their lives. However, this is not always the main focus in the eyes of some

foster parents. Some, like the Duncans of Lebanon County, may be more concerned about the

reimbursement and free domestic labor they can receive from fostering, without concern for the

children’s welfare.

In 2021, Stephanie and Robert Duncan arrested under charges of child abuse in Lebanon

County, Pennsylvania3. The couple was convicted for extended and heinous abuse inflicted over

several years on all five of their adopted sons, whom they had previously fostered. The children

were kept on a strict schedule and were controlled in every aspect of their lives. The brunt of the

abuse was directed towards their eleven year old son, who was kept in the basement with little

nourishment and beaten regularly4. It was reported that he almost died several times. Social

services were not made aware of this entire situation until the eleven year old was taken to the

hospital due to hypothermia.

Though this represents an extreme case of abuse that is not representative of all foster

parents in Pennsylvania, it shows a dangerous loophole and flaw to the system. The Duncans

were able to get away with their crime for years without consequence. They collected stipends

from the welfare services to provide for their children and pocketed it, never letting it benefit the

children they were supposed to be caring for. They were never held accountable for treating their

children like income sources until one of them was on his deathbed. This all happened due to

lack of intervention from the community and the foster care system.

2 The Annie E. Casey Foundation, “Foster Care: What It Is and How It Works,” The Annie E. Casey Foundation
(Annie E. Casey Foundation, February 6, 2014), https://www.aecf.org/blog/what-is-foster-care, 1.
3 Steve Maronni, “'Horrific' Abuse against 5 Children Leads to Guilty Plea from Pa. Adoptive Mother,” pennlive,
October 20, 2021, https://www.pennlive.com/news/2021/10/horrific-abuse-against-5-children-leads-to-guilty-plea-
from-pa-adoptive-mother.html, 1.
4 Matt Miller, “Pa. Mom Gets up to 47 Years in Prison for Brutal Torture of 5 Adopted Kids,” pennlive, December
22, 2021, https://www.pennlive.com/crime/2021/12/pa-mom-gets-up-to-47-years-in-prison-for-brutal-torture-of-5-
adopted-kids.html, 1.
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Current Advances in PA Foster Care and their Disadvantages

Pennsylvania is a state that has made some significant advances in foster care over the

past few years. However, those advances have evidently not been effective enough in protecting

children. In 2018, Congress passed the Families First Prevention Services Act. This gives states

funding to allocate towards family services and strives to give the resources to families to keep

children in their original homes5.

This has been successful in some regard. Statistics show that the foster care entry rate in

Pennsylvania after the program’s implementation has decreased. Compared to 2018, there were

reported to be 3,000 less children in foster care in 2021, with a steady rate of decrease over the

years in between6.

However, despite these statistics, the focus seems to be on preventing children from

going to foster care at all rather than supporting the children in the system with outside resources

to prevent abuse. This difference in focus has proven to be detrimental to children in the past

years, as seen in the case of the Duncans.

The Need For Monitoring Abuse and How it Currently Lacks

Ordinarily, when a child is placed into foster care, they are assigned a caseworker7 that is

supposed to conduct regular visits to a child’s home, ensuring that the placement was successful

and monitoring for any possible abuse. However, the role of a case worker is a “thankless” job

that involves dealing with traumatizing situations regarding children8. This coupled with the

pandemic causing a large decrease in labor means that there are currently not enough

5 Kim Strong, “Foster Care Nightmare Cases Aren't the Norm. but the Norm Still Fails to Meet the Need in Pa..,”
York Daily Record (York Daily Record, February 22, 2022), https://www.ydr.com/story/news/2022/02/21/three-
lebanon-county-foster-parents-jailed-abuse-pa-changing-its-emphasis-on-foster-care/6797661001/, 1.
6 Pennsylvania, accessed April 13, 2023, https://cwoutcomes.acf.hhs.gov/cwodatasite/pdf/pennsylvania.html, 2.
7 “Guide to Caseworkers and Visits,” Philadelphia Foster Care, April 5, 2020,
https://www.fosteringphilly.com/caseworkers-and-visits/.
8 Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, “State of Child Welfare in Pa - 2022,” FlippingBook, 2021,
https://online.flippingbook.com/view/1067488899/14/, 15.
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caseworkers and employees within the child welfare system to support the roughly 14,000

children currently in Pennsylvanian foster care.

When a survey of case workers leaving the profession was conducted in Pennsylvania,

80% of respondents said that the primary reason they left was that they were not compensated for

the volume of work that they had to do. Pennsylvania case workers often take on 30 cases at a

time, for little compensation9.

The statistics regarding child welfare currently

corroborate with this. There were 38,013 reports to CPS in

2021, which was a dramatic increase from 2020 (which

had 5000). The statistics for abuse and neglect also show a

slight increase, and were at an all time high in the last five

years when the report was created10.

Ordinarily, with

reports to CPS, the claims must be substantiated with

further investigation, however, due to the overloading of reports and lack of child welfare

workers, the reports were never fully investigated as they should have been. This shows that the

child welfare system in general is exhausted, meaning that checking on children and ensuring

that they are not being abused is not something that is fully possible at current capacity due to

case workers being forced to take on more cases than they can handle.

Fixing the Problem: New Jersey’s Successful Solution

9 Danielle Smith, “Report: Pa Child Welfare Workforce Faces Low Pay, Turnover,” Public News Service, March
20, 2023, https://www.publicnewsservice.org/2023-03-20/childrens/report-pa-child-welfare-workforce-faces-low-
pay-turnover/a83495-1#:~:text=Kim%20explained%20that%20they%20also,to%2040%25%20were%20not
%20uncommon.
10 Carolyn Myers, “State of Child Welfare Report Highlights Stresses Placed on Pennsylvania's under-Resourced
Child Welfare System,” PA Partnerships for Children, September 27, 2022, https://www.papartnerships.org/state-of-
child-welfare-report-highlights-stresses-placed-on-pennsylvanias-under-resourced-child-welfare-system/.
 Kanumuru 5

Over the course of the last couple years, the Pennsylvanian budget recap has consistently

shown that the government is putting more funding into already existing initiatives instead of

investing in new ones11. This, coupled with the fact that case worker

retention is at an all time low means that more money needs to be

invested in caseworkers and new initiatives for their wellbeing must

be established.

One successful instance of caseworker retention is seen in New

Jersey. While the annual turnover rate in the child welfare sector in

Pennsylvania averages around 20%-40% per year12, New Jersey has

consistently kept this number at 6%-10% each year, indicating a stable

and content workforce, even in the face of the pandemic13. One of the

reasons cited for this is the fact that New Jersey both supports its

caseworkers wellbeing by being welcoming and supporting. They also

offer concrete resources like manageable caseloads and benefit

packages, something that Pennsylvania does not currently do. Workers are not allowed to take

more than 12 cases and are paid salaries that they are content with14.

This retention has also proven to be successful in regards to foster care statistics in New

Jersey. Although the state had more instances of investigated maltreatment in 2021 (at a rate of

32.8 out of 100015 compared to Pennsylvania’s 12.8 out of 100016), 0.1317 percent of children

11 “2021-22 State Budget Recap,” PA Partnerships for Children, July 13, 2021,
https://www.papartnerships.org/2021-22-state-budget-recap/.
12 Danielle Smith, “Report: Pa Child Welfare Workforce Faces Low Pay, Turnover,” 1
13 “Preventing Staff Turnover,” Casey Family Programs, February 7, 2022, https://www.casey.org/new-jersey-
staff-turnover/1.
14 Ibid, 1
15 New Jersey, accessed April 13, 2023, https://cwoutcomes.acf.hhs.gov/cwodatasite/pdf/new%20jersey.html.
16 Pennsylvania, accessed April 13, 2023, https://cwoutcomes.acf.hhs.gov/cwodatasite/pdf/pennsylvania.html, 2.
17 New Jersey, accessed April 13, 2023, https://cwoutcomes.acf.hhs.gov/cwodatasite/pdf/new%20jersey.html
 Kanumuru 6

were actually maltreated in foster care (compared to Pennsylvania’s 0.20%18). This shows that

caseworkers in New Jersey are able to respond more effectively to reports of abuse and pinpoint

the problem quickly resulting in less maltreatment over time.

New Jersey’s success shows that its caseworker retention methods can be successfully

implemented in Pennsylvania.

Implementation of a New Plan:

A policy implemented in the 2015-2016 fiscal year shows that each year, 12.5% of the

proposed child welfare budget is not paid out in the fiscal year. This essentially means that at the

beginning of each year, counties receive an I.O.U from the state for 12.5% that will then be paid

the year after19. Thus, they never start the year with the full budget. If the state balances this

budget (as mentioned in the State of Child Welfare in PA report), counties can have access to the

full budget for the year. The 12.5% of the budget should then be allocated to the wages and

benefit packages of caseworkers so that they will be satisfied with their salary.

This will help with both retaining and recruiting caseworkers so that current caseworkers

will be properly compensated and will not have to take on more cases than they can handle. With

this new change, children will be less likely to remain in conditions of long term abuse due to

more visitations and monitoring by caseworkers.

Concluding Remarks:

Child welfare budgeting is an incredibly nuanced subject that requires many

authorizations on a state level, so implementing the proposed budget change may be difficult.

However, it has been continually shown that the Pennsylvanian foster system is in dire need of

18 Pennsylvania, accessed April 13, 2023, https://cwoutcomes.acf.hhs.gov/cwodatasite/pdf/pennsylvania.html, 2.

19 Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, “State of Child Welfare in Pa - 2022,” 14.

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help due to the lack of resources proportional to the volume of children that are in it. Therefore,

immediate action must be taken in order to prevent cases like the Duncans’ from repeating again.

No child should be subject to repeated and long term abuse due to defects in a system that should

be protecting them. If the recommended budget change is implemented, the foster care system

can function more effectively as a tool to help children experience stability outside of home,

rather than a way for foster parents to receive fiscal benefits for neglecting children. This

stability can allow for previous foster children to succeed at higher rates later in life.

Bibliography

“2021-22 State Budget Recap.” PA Partnerships for Children, July 13, 2021.

https://www.papartnerships.org/2021-22-state-budget-recap/.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation. “Foster Care: What It Is and How It Works.” The Annie E. Casey

Foundation. Annie E. Casey Foundation, February 6, 2014. https://www.aecf.org/blog/what-is-

foster-care.
 Kanumuru 8

“The Facts.” The Facts | Pennsylvania State Resource Family Association. Accessed April 13, 2023.

https://www.psrfa.org/being-a-foster-parent/the-facts/.

“Guide to Caseworkers and Visits.” Philadelphia Foster Care, April 5, 2020.

https://www.fosteringphilly.com/caseworkers-and-visits/.

Maronni, Steve. “'Horrific' Abuse against 5 Children Leads to Guilty Plea from Pa. Adoptive Mother.”

pennlive, October 20, 2021. https://www.pennlive.com/news/2021/10/horrific-abuse-against-5-

children-leads-to-guilty-plea-from-pa-adoptive-mother.html.

Miller, Matt. “Pa. Mom Gets up to 47 Years in Prison for Brutal Torture of 5 Adopted Kids.” pennlive,

December 22, 2021. https://www.pennlive.com/crime/2021/12/pa-mom-gets-up-to-47-years-in-

prison-for-brutal-torture-of-5-adopted-kids.html.

Myers, Carolyn. “State of Child Welfare Report Highlights Stresses Placed on Pennsylvania's under-

Resourced Child Welfare System.” PA Partnerships for Children, September 27, 2022.

https://www.papartnerships.org/state-of-child-welfare-report-highlights-stresses-placed-on-

pennsylvanias-under-resourced-child-welfare-system/.

New Jersey. Accessed April 13, 2023. https://cwoutcomes.acf.hhs.gov/cwodatasite/pdf/new

%20jersey.html.

Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children. “State of Child Welfare in Pa - 2022.” FlippingBook, 2021.

https://online.flippingbook.com/view/1067488899/14/.

Pennsylvania. Accessed April 13, 2023.

https://cwoutcomes.acf.hhs.gov/cwodatasite/pdf/pennsylvania.html.

“Preventing Staff Turnover.” Casey Family Programs, February 7, 2022. https://www.casey.org/new-

jersey-staff-turnover/.

Smith, Danielle. “Report: Pa Child Welfare Workforce Faces Low Pay, Turnover.” Public News Service,

March 20, 2023. https://www.publicnewsservice.org/2023-03-20/childrens/report-pa-child-

welfare-workforce-faces-low-pay-turnover/a83495-1#:~:text=Kim%20explained%20that%20they

%20also,to%2040%25%20were%20not%20uncommon.
 Kanumuru 9

Strong, Kim. “Foster Care Nightmare Cases Aren't the Norm. but the Norm Still Fails to Meet the Need in

Pa..” York Daily Record. York Daily Record, February 22, 2022.

https://www.ydr.com/story/news/2022/02/21/three-lebanon-county-foster-parents-jailed-abuse-

pa-changing-its-emphasis-on-foster-care/6797661001/.