NYC Comptroller Lander Releases Audit on Foster Care Safety Oversight by Administration for Children’s Services

 

Incidents of neglect and abuse trending downward, but over 1,600 children in foster care still faced neglect and/or abused over three-year period

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander’s latest audit found that Administration for Children’s Services’ (ACS) mechanisms for monitoring the safety of children in foster care was generally adequate, with the exception of oversight of residential care facilities.

The audit found that incidents of neglect and abuse trended downward in recent years, from 4% of children in foster care with substantiated cases in Fiscal Year 2020 to 3.1% in FY 2023, but that many children in foster care still suffer neglect and/or abuse. Over the three years reviewed, 2,154 incidents of neglect and/or abuse involving 1,641 children in foster care occurred. Over 76% of incidents happened while children visited their birth families.

“The first job of government is to keep our kids safe,” said Comptroller Brad Lander. “ACS deserves praise for the declining number of kids facing abuse of neglect. But even one child abused or neglected is one too many, let alone over 1,600. Every single child under the care of our City deserves a nurturing and safe environment.”

Substantiated incidents of neglect and/or abuse of children in foster care during FY20 – FY23:  

In some instances, ACS or the foster care agencies with whom ACS contracts did not make the decisions concerning visitation and supervision, but instead New York State Family Court did. The audit found that ACS does not track the aggregate number of incidents that occurred during court-mandated versus non-court-mandated visitations with birth families.

In a letter to Honorable Rowan Wilson, Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals, sharing his office’s report, Comptroller Lander urged the courts to review the report’s recommendations and coordinate with ACS to prevent instances of neglect and abuse during familial visits.

Although ACS’ monitoring mechanisms were found adequate in most areas of the foster care system, auditors found that ACS did not conduct site visits at the sampled residential care facilities in a timely manner, as called for in its policies. For four sampled providers that had been issued safety and risk alerts, ACS allowed an average of 10 months to elapse between visits—far exceeding the target timeframe of at least one visit every six months. Foster children in residential care account for less than 10% of the foster care population.

To address the abovementioned findings, the Comptroller’s office issued the following recommendations, all except the last of which ACS agreed with:

1. Make all reasonable efforts to collect, aggregate, and analyze data that would allow the agency to track substantiated incidents that occur during unsupervised visitations, court ordered visitations, and trial discharges to better identify and track the occurrence of incidents over which ACS and foster care agencies have a greater degree of control and to evaluate outcomes from Family Court decisions.

2. Identify the factors contributing to the decrease in the rate of substantiated instances of neglect or abuse and, where feasible, take steps to continue that trend.

3. Ensure that the agency conducts the required number of site visits at all residential care facilities, and that those visits are done in-person and at reasonable intervals.

4. Perform unannounced visits to all foster care agency-run residential care facilities on a regular basis to ensure that the children at those facilities continue to receive appropriate care.

5. Require any parent found to engage in neglect or abuse during a visitation undergo mandatory counseling to address underlying factors (e.g., substance abuse, anger management) that are a contributing cause of the behavior leading to the maltreatment.

Read the full audit here.