Suffer the Children

The problem, Shauffer says, is that kids in shelters are cared for by staffers who come and go, rather than a single parent or couple they can count on. While there haven't been extensive studies of the impact of shelter stays in this country, Shauffer cites studies of kids coming out of orphanages in Asia and Eastern Europe, who often show developmental problems even after adoption.

And so Shauffer's group threatened Arizona with a lawsuit over the shelter stays. Only then did CPS commit to no longer using the shelters as a long-term placement for kids. (CPS also agreed not to place kids younger than 3 in shelters, unless special circumstances exist.)

"Then we had so many foster homes lined up for these kids and the children removed from Marcus House so quickly, it made your head spin," Cohn recalls.

Porter says that Crisis Nursery is trying to reposition itself now that there's no steady stream of long-term CPS placements. But Marcus House ended up folding under the new policy; it couldn't stay afloat without CPS's endless supply of $110-a-day placements.

"Really, I don't know why they didn't beef up the foster care system much sooner," Cohn says. "They were obviously spending a lot of money on shelters, and that wasn't cheap for them."

But with so many problems to address in the short term, the big picture wasn't always in focus.

Kris Jacober, director of the Arizona Association of Foster and Adoptive Parents, generally praises Napolitano's efforts and the reform process. But she says that she and other foster parents have pushed CPS to do more for foster care recruitment.

"We sat on every committee, and so we know reforms are coming," she says. "But where the rubber meets the road, we're not seeing a lot of what's supposed to be happening."

Foster parents wanted a statewide campaign. As a woman who runs her own marketing and public relations company, Jacober knows what that should look like.

It hasn't happened yet.

"I still don't see a billboard," she says, sighing.

The number of foster homes has increased 16 percent since Napolitano took office, records show. Mickens says the agency is now focused on targeted recruitment, in hopes of keeping kids within their communities and even the same school district.

And, recently, CPS has done a good job of increasing the numbers of foster beds available — which means that more foster parents are willing to take multiple placements or sibling groups.

Records show that the number of kids in shelters has finally dropped.

After the Youth Law Center's lawsuit threat, and with Crisis Nursery's blessing, CPS assigned a caseworker to the nursery. The goal is to keep the kids there from falling through the cracks and find them foster homes quickly, rather than just dumping them.

The shelters are not yet empty. According to the most recent statistics, for June 2006, 806 kids have been living in shelters for 21 days or more. The average length of stay is 87 days.

Mickens, CPS's administrator, says those are mostly sibling groups and hard-to-place kids.

But Shauffer says the state is "not hitting the marks" that it agreed to in order to avoid a suit. Still, she feels confident that they can keep working together.

"I believe the governor is actually committed to ending the use of group care, and understands the problems with it," she says. "The question is how quickly they're committed to moving — and how much of a priority it is. That's really the question."

On one subject, Napolitano has earned raves from both top CPS staffers and the constituencies that interact with the agency: her willingness to listen.

Christa Drake, an alumna of Arizona's foster care system and director of a Tucson-based program called In My Shoes, recalls attending a forum where Napolitano took suggestions from the community on CPS reform.

"There were people who'd had their children taken away, and they were just yelling at the governor," Drake recalls. "But we talked to her about what we were hoping to do with In My Shoes, and she put our peer mentoring program into her 'Blueprint for Success' as a statewide model. She actually listened. And I think she did a wonderful job."

Jacober, director of Arizona's foster parent support group, agrees. When her group insisted on a voice in the reform process, they found Napolitano was willing to hear them out.

"She said, 'I will support you,' and she has never wavered from that," Jacober says.

Among top staffers at CPS, the mood is optimistic. Mickens, who's worked for the agency since 1985, says she's never witnessed such excitement.

"It is a wonderful time to be working at CPS," Mickens says, "the best four years I've had in the whole time I've been at the agency."