Published on: Tuesday, November 24, 2009

By Tiffany March, Special to The Sentinel

The need for social services in Prince George’s County has increased in the past few years as families have been hit hard by the recession, and major budget cuts mean there is less to go around. The impact on the county’s most vulnerable population is one example: the number of children in out-of-home placement increased in 2008 while foster care and adoption programs were cut.

“There has been an increase in the number of people who seek out other services, but our resources have decreased,” said Evandra Jackson, a family resource specialist with the Prince George’s County Department of Social Services.

In 2008, the peak of the recession, both the state and Prince George’s County experienced an increase in the number of children entering some form of out-of-home care, according to the Governor’s Office for Children. A report from March 2009 states that the total number of children entering out-of-home care in Prince George’s County rose between 2007 and 2008 from 1,119 to 2,065, which includes foster care, treatment facilities, detention facilities and placement with other relatives.

In 2009, the number of Prince George’s County children placed in foster care homes slightly increased, from 603 in January to about 625 in November, and some programs affecting the children have been cut.

Areas that were impacted, Jackson said, include the recruitment and retention budget for foster parents, which has decreased by about 30 percent, and adoption promotion funds, which have decreased about 50 percent.

She also noted that while the number of children in foster care has not significantly increased this year, that “right after the recession hit there was an increase in inquiries [into foster care] because of the additional income [it could provide].”

“But the number of applications has probably declined,” Jackson said.

Tamara Carroll, the founder and executive director of Sparrow’s Nest Ministries in Prince George’s County, said “we are seeing a greater need for what we are doing, for mentoring... because parents are having to take two or three jobs to make ends meet.”

Carroll hopes to eventually establish a group home for children, and currently offers a mentoring program in Landover to help children with homework. The biggest impact is on the school system, Carroll said, calling the problems “horrendous,” because “they’re cutting back on teachers and emergency personnel.”

Elyn Garrett Jones, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Human Resources, maintained a positive position, noting that 2009 was the first year since 2002 that DHR met its statewide goal for number of adoptions, with 770 children. She said she was not aware of any services that had been cut.

Ann Marie Binsner, the executive director of the children’s advocacy nonprofit CASA [Court Appointed Special Advocates] of Prince George’s County, disagreed; “The sate has cut funding to everybody. Specialized evaluations are being cut, transportation services to see family members [were cut], additional services to help the child are not as available.”

“I would say that there’s an increase across the board in families seeking services,” Binsner said. “When there’s a higher demand accompanied by a decrease in the financial support available, families and children are going to suffer.”

Binsner also said that it was a difficult time for people to think about becoming foster parents or adopting, because “it’s not a time for families to be taking on additional responsibilities.”

Jannie McNeil-Hayes, president of The Coalition of Adoption Programs, another nonprofit in Prince George’s County, said that she had several calls from families who wanted to find out how to give their children up for adoption, because they could not afford to take care of them due to the recession.

Her job is to recruit new foster and adoptive parents, but she says “I have talked to families about adoption and foster care, and the thing is the money--’we’d love to do it but we can’t.”

McNeil-Hayes said that the numbers are improving overall, but that “we need a lot of foster parents.... It’s a great need, and it’s really serious right now.”

Not all the news is bad, however; the state Department of Human Resources recently published a summary report for 2007-2009 called “Place Matters in Maryland” that said there are now about 3122 foster families compared to 2863 in mid-2007.

Many new families have opened their homes to children in need, despite difficult economic conditions, such as Dorothy and Gregory Price of Clinton, Md. The couple said at a Nov. 18 informational meeting on foster care and adoption that they do not have the financial resources for adoption, but they want to do what they can to help through foster parenting.