Ms. Shalini Ahuja

To my immediate right is Shalini Ahuja, who is the Family Desk Director of the Center for Urban Future.She joined the Center in July of 1999 to guide the Center's policy work on child welfare and human services issues.She recently completed her Master's of Science degree from the Harvard School of Public Health, concentrating in maternal and child health.
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SHALINI AHUJA: I think that when we talk about the way that the landscape of child welfare has changed in New York, since the passage of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, I think one of the most significant changes as the Watch details, is the dramatic increase that we've seen in the filings of terminations of parental rights from fiscal 1998 to 1999.An increase of almost 30%.
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SHALINI AHUJA: Sorry.
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You put that in place after you have built a system with due process for families, with the legal changes Shalini mentioned, with the up front services, because then you know the kids who, by God, have made it over and are in the foster care system anyway really need to be there and then you can very well justify expedited termination of parental rights.
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SHALINI AHUJA: The fingerprinting provision.
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SHALINI AHUJA: Well, in general, the majority of adoptions that happen are foster parents adopting foster children.Just percentage-wise.
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Well, before I get to that, one of the unmet policy needs is as Shalini said, the majority of children that are adopted are adopted out of foster care.
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SHALINI AHUJA: Child Welfare Watch interviewed countless parents and agency directors and one thing that I heard over and over again from them was this very point.
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SHALINI AHUJA: I think you raised a very, very important point and I think in some of the work that the Child Welfare Watch has done, we've looked at what happens to children when they leave foster care.
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Ms. Shalini Ahuja Family Desk Director, Center for Urban Future Ms. Ahuja joined the Center for an Urban Future in July 1999 to guide the center's policy work on child welfare and human service issues.She recently completed her Master's of Science degree from the Harvard School of Public Health, concentrating in maternal and child health.At the Center, she guides research on child welfare and human service issues, working with advocacy groups, policymakers and the media in an effort to achieve fair and publicly accountable reform of New York City's child welfare and human services systems.

To my immediate right is Shalini Ahuja , who is the Family Desk Director of the Center for Urban Future.She joined the Center in July of 1999 to guide the Centerâs policy work on child welfare and human services issues.She recently completed her Masterâs of Science degree from the Harvard School of Public Health , concentrating in maternal and child health.

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SHALINI AHUJA : I think that when we talk about the way that the landscape of child welfare has changed in New York , since the passage of the Adoption and Safe Families Act , I think one of the most significant changes as the Watch details , is the dramatic increase that weâve seen in the filings of terminations of parental rights from fiscal 1998 to 1999.An increase of almost 30 %.And I think what this highlights and what we tried to highlight in the Watch is that the Adoptions and Safe Families Act makes it more apparent and more obvious that services to birth families need to be frontloaded and thatâs one of the dangers of the limited or shortened timeframes that the Adoptions and Safe Families Act mandates.In terms of the court system , I think we are going to be seeing a dramatic increase in the numbers of cases that are brought into the court system , in terms of the numbers of filings of adoptions.In terms of filings of TPRs and I think that court system is definitely going to be overloaded.
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SHALINI AHUJA : Sorry.
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SHALINI AHUJA : The fingerprinting provision.I think judges should be given more discretion in deciding whether families can provide appropriate adoptive or foster homes for kids.

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SHALINI AHUJA : Well , in general , the majority of adoptions that happen are foster parents adopting foster children.Just percentage-wise.But I think that raises a very interesting point.The whole question of legal orphans.Weâre freeing up children to be adopted but we really need to think about whether or not there are families out there that can adopt these children or whether these children will just sit around in the system as legal orphans.So maybe other panelists can sort of address that.But I think thatâs a very important question.

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Well , before I get to that , one of the unmet policy needs is as Shalini said , the majority of children that are adopted are adopted out of foster care.There are many more children who can have permanency , but who are not going to be adopted by their families , because there are cultural considerations and if the federal law would allow for subsidized legal guardianship , it would meet the need of permanence without having to go through the legal procedures , which are an anathema to many low income families and families of color of an absolute legal termination.I cross swords with some of the adoption advocates in this country , because they oppose legal guardianship and subsidized guardianship , but I see no reason why we shouldnât treat subsidized guardianship the same way weâre treating adoption.It is , after all , permanency.

And again , the bottom line is to hold the agencies accountable to either help the family , serve the family , help the child , serve the child , place the child in a permanent setting or put the child back in the home.But the biggest racist component of the child welfare system in America is the concept of long-term foster care.
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SHALINI AHUJA : Child Welfare Watch interviewed countless parents and agency directors and one thing that I heard over and over again from them was this very point.The concern that there are not enough programs or services out there to provide help for families that suffer from mental health conditions and in particular families that suffer from mental health conditions and have additional problems , such as a substance abuse or alcohol problem.And many of them mentioned over and over again that providing services for these types of families , getting these families into programs in a timely way , is a very , very large problem here in New York especially.

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SHALINI AHUJA : I think you raised a very , very important point and I think in some of the work that the Child Welfare Watch has done , weâve looked at what happens to children when they leave foster care.And I think there are very few studies that actually document what does happen but the outcomes that we do know are very poor.A large percentage of them end up homeless.A large percentage of them end up with very little health insurance and I think also this raises a point that I wanted to mention earlier and thatâs this whole perception that adoption is the sort of cure all to the problems of foster care.And I think in our study of the Adoption and Safe Families Act , we found it very striking that there is no mention in the legislation of providing post-adoption services to families and we need to realize that once a child is sent home with an adoptive parent or with a foster parent , for that matter , thatâs not the end of the road.That doesnât mean that this will be a wonderful happy family from there on in.And itâs very interesting also , in our conversations with New York child welfare experts , we found that of all the child welfare services , post-adoption services are the only ones that have no specific funding stream attached to them here in New York.
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Ms. Shalini AhujaFamily Desk Director , Center for Urban FutureMs. Ahuja joined the Center for an Urban Future in July 1999 to guide the center's policy work on child welfare and human service issues.She recently completed her Master's of Science degree from the Harvard School of Public Health , concentrating in maternal and child health.At the Center , she guides research on child welfare and human service issues , working with advocacy groups , policymakers and the media in an effort to achieve fair and publicly accountable reform of New York City's child welfare and human services systems.