Survey of WA foster care teens finds most happy

A survey of Washington teens in foster care found the kids feel they are treated OK, but don't see their social workers enough and aren't getting the help they need to prepare for their adult lives.

The telephone survey of 700 teens, ages 15 to 18, who were in foster care in 2007, was done in response to the 2004 settlement of a class-action lawsuit in which the state promised to improve the foster care system.

"In some cases, the state is doing a good job. In other areas there is room for improvement," said the survey's principal investigator, John Tarnai, director of the Social and Economic Sciences Research Center at Washington State University.

The results of the survey released Thursday showed that most teens in foster care are optimistic about their future.

"It reflects a good deal of hope, and it reinforces some things that we already know," Cheryl Stephani, the Department of Social and Health Services assistant secretary in charge of the Children's Administration, said in a statement.

She said all of the 1,700 adolescents who are in the state-run system have faced challenges.

About 30 percent of the teens surveyed said they were expelled or suspended from school last year. A quarter of the teens said the state had placed them in at least two foster homes last year and said they disliked being moved around. A quarter of the youths surveyed reported running away from their foster parents in 2007.

About 88 percent of the youths said they had been treated somewhat well or very well in foster care, but just 44 percent said they had had a face-to-face visit with a social worker at least once a month.

The survey also showed the disproportion of minority children in the child welfare system. Seven percent of the teens surveyed identified themselves as American Indian or Alaska Native, although they make up just 1.7 percent of Washington's population.

Casey Trupin, of Seattle-based Columbia Legal Services, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer he believes the survey had some contradictory results because teens in foster care have not allowed bad experiences to "quash their aspirations, hopes and dreams."

State officials should make sure caseworkers are meeting with youth and asking them what they need and that they have a say in their own legal proceedings, said Trupin, who is one of the lawyers representing foster children in the 2004 settlement of the class-action lawsuit.

State officials are aware of complaints from foster teens that some social workers are not listening to them, said Children's Administration spokesman Robert Nelson. He said officials are working to improve foster care and get kids ready for life after high school.