we salute these and support them. today, i will focus on four areas. i'm going to focus on notice to relatives, licensing, invention, and trauma-informed supports. notification. supportorking to relatives receiving notification to make best decisions for children. provide that relatives are notified when children are removed from the home. caregivers know very little about this requirement. many say ito do, was prevented in a confusing and threatening way. second, licensing. we recommend congress directs states to make necessary changes

to their licensing standards using the new model. now, there have been no national family foster home license and standards, so they vary dramatically from state to state and often pose unnecessary barriers. this results in appropriate .elatives denied for example, jj and his little brother, who went to live with their grandparents. they struggled against the clock to make the required changes to their home so they could meet state requirements and be able to continue as a stable, unified family. jj's grandparents had to file for bankruptcy because of the cost to make their home comply with standards. it was a home filled with love, but not enough bedrooms. prevention.

child in foster care with a relative, there are about 23 outside the system being raised by the relatives without a close parents present. under current child welfare financing laws, these families receive little or no preventative or supportive services to keep them together or out of foster care. trauma-informed supports. we urge that kinship families --uld have the same level of supports.ccess to therapeutic foster care provides residential-level services for youth and family.

too many kinship families, our --ers of these supports these supports are not offered. the important role of federal funding streams in supporting children in relative care must be recognized. todayaia angelou said, people are so disconnected that they feel they are blades of grass, but when they know with her grandparents and great grandparents were, they become trees, they have roots, they can no longer be mowed down. all of america's children deserve a way back home. thank you for this opportunity to offer testimony. host: thank you so much. nyby: first off, i want to

express my appreciation to chairman hatch, ranking member widen, and the committee. i plan to talk about my experience in 13 years working in the child welfare system. when i started working for child welfare right out of college, i was not prepared for the challenges of the work. when you listen to the testimony previously provided, part of was how to overcome the perception of the system with the families and the kids that i worked with. early in my career, it seems like we used foster care as a solution for kids who were not safe in their home. it often felt like a consequence. i was really naïve. when kids were

experiencing abuse and neglect, kids would want to leave and they would not want to go back until things had changed. what i found is that kids would run away from foster care. they would live on the streets, they would go back to homes they came from because they preferred that. it was a huge learning experience for me to understand the impact foster care had on kids. i started to question the work i was doing. in 2007, oregon adopted a safety to use foster care as a last resort. despite my excitement, change in any system can be slow and it has been a process in oregon. that same year, i became a supervisor. that was a really challenging job.

as a supervisor, i had to be available to them. when of my biggest challenges was help them make decisions for work i was not doing. one of the common challenges was fear. fear that something bad would happen to a child. fear that we would take a child and to care when we did not need to. fear of ending up on the front page of the paper or losing our .obs a supervised high-profile cases. challenging toy not let 1% or 2% of the cases affect all of the work we did. i saw services started to come into place that were more upfront services available to families. there were gaps in those services. without filling those gaps -- in

an3, i took a job as operation and policy analyst in oregon and i have been doing that since that time. state, differential responses supported by legislative services. the past twot in years, i have felt more energized and excited about the work i am doing than ever before. the practice model now comes with a service array providing flexibility to help families in a way that we have never had. foster care is slowly becoming what it was intended to be. but change takes time. i think we are making progress. ordermy opinion that in to continue that progress, changes need to be made in the way welfare systems are funded. oregon has had a title 40 waiver

for years. any waiver savings are matched and used to finance the expanded service array. it has allowed oregon to increase services available for families. that is set to expire in 2019 and i worry that without legislative change, our ability to invest in these services will be reduced. funding child care through foster care is not the best way. saying thatclose by my journey as a case worker and supervisor, i would not trade that for anything in the world. helped me that level understand challenges. to helprained me families, caseworkers, and supervisors see families and see solutions differently. i understand that working for

child welfare will always be a challenging job. but it comes with great reward when we can be successful. thank you very much. ms. williamson. thank you for: the opportunity to appear before you representing the utah department of human services. utah, we value not only what is in the best interest of children, youth, and their families, but also what is cost effective. illustrate the strength of our approach. with one of the nations highest percentage of minors per capita, utah has one of the lowest entry rates into foster care. 1000.ildren for every the national average is 6.1. the average length of stay for a

.hild is 10.4 months the national averages 13.4 months. allowing changes that utah to successfully exit a settlement agreement, our system was touted for its effectiveness. we incorporated family team meetings, had quality reviews, established an independent office, and a fatality review panel. in recent years, we identified the need to build the lead effective in-home supports to safely keep children with their families, reducing the need for foster care. it foster how well care system operates, the fact remains that children are best served in homes, with families, familiar schools, and community. the voice of one brave young woman who aged out of foster care prior to our recent changes underscores the opportunity we have to do better. as a young child, she was

because of her care her mother's mental illness. instead of remaining in her home, she was swept into a perilous journey between multiple foster homes, the juvenile justice system, truancy, and homelessness. when asked why she continued to run away from foster homes, she said it was to get back to her mother. she expressed feeling out of control and without a voice. the positive influence of her final fosterfather and resultedr's influence in her graduating from high school, getting a job with child welfare after college, and is now enrolled in law school. hers was a rare success story in that era. her insights are profound and motivating. we know we can do better. we can avoid the kind of human and financial cost. we are doing so. angelou describes

utah's commitment to serve. "do the best you can until you know better and when you know better, do better." utah believes we can better serve the short and long-term interest of those in need of child welfare. supporting safe care for children in their homes without separating them from their families in foster care is less true mattock and lest costly. the multigenerational approach more effective on breaking the cycle of reliance on expensive government programs. our demonstration project was 2013 and isin late being replicated statewide through this year. we are able to invest federal funds to support that has much

greater value. not only to keeping children safe with their family, but also to the taxpayers receiving greater return on the dollar. for the average cost of serving one child in a foster care home for one year, we can serve 11 families through homework. through the average cost of serving one child in a group congregants setting, we can serve 34 families through homework. these are compelling proofs of the sound business of this practice while the humanitarian merits of investing children to .eep children safe we worked with jim. modelng the homework's has preserved his safety in the home. is engaged and his school counselor and behavioral

therapist are working to support him. more 1000e of the families we have served through homework. the waiver has allowed us not only to assist individual families, but to work with long-termamilies for behavioral change that reduces the risk of repeat maltreatment and ongoing involvement with government interventions. this includes structured decision-making, caseworker training, assessment, and more staff time with families, and community results. -- resources. uph is focused on shoring what we have begun. therefore, thank you, senator wyden. what you have proposed is an encouraging measure. we would like to see financial investment in childcare practices supported by evidence.

federal statute that emphasizes early intervention, family development, and local partnerships that cultivate community ownership of a child's well-being will strengthen the child welfare system and benefit our citizenry in total. we seek to partner with you to forngthen families sustained child safety, well-being, and permanency. we look forward to the alignment of policy, practice for the greater public good. thank you.ch: we appreciate this. let me start with you, ms. burton. beforeou for appearing the committee and for your testimony. you are a remarkable young woman and i am impressed with all you have been able to overcome. i'm so sorry that the foster care system so obviously failed you and your brothers and sisters. you were in the foster care system on and off for 12 years,

is that correct? : i spent a total of 12 years. what are your suggestions that can improve the foster care system? that a plani think that has a child in mind right away. if they believed the situation can be mitigated, to do that, to provide the services before they enter care or as soon as possible when they enter care so that the child can return home and a short period of time. they are spending too much time in limbo and damages created that affects the whole family so that when they do reunify, it is not a successful reunification. does that answer your question? senator hatch: it does. that will be fine.

ms. williamson, thank you for your testimony. i would like to acknowledge the great work done by two extraordinary members of your team. williamson: absolutely, thank you. senator hatch: we are deeply indebted to each of you for your expertise, professionalism, and willingness to engage. i was pleased to have been one of the authors of the to allow up to 30 states to receive a child welfare waiver. as you testified, you told us one of the very first states to apply was utah. all welfare waivers expire in 2019. i believe we should build on what we have already learned through state innovation relative to these waivers to draft policy to benefit all states. you have testified that because utah was able to use certain federal dollars to provide front

and services, utah is able to realize can that are herbal savoring's. with you elaborate? ms. williamson: it would be my pleasure. indeed, what utah recognized his at the expense that it was , namelytaxpayers extended stays in the foster and too often in the deepest end of the foster care system with residential congregant care, as mentioned, it only costs about on average $2400 to keep a family stable and together in the home for a year. $2400 to survey family, keep children safe, and facilitate long-term behavioral change. the average cost for a year for one child and a congregant care facility is over $83,000. the financial logic of focusing

our services and their efforts on early, in-home intervention services has naturally allowed us to have these dollars go farther because we have reduced our reliance on long-term, intense the congregant care. senator hatch: thank you. mr. nyby. i want to thank you for appearing before the committee. as i indicated in my opening statement, i believe that we should reduce the reliance on foster care group homes. in order to do that, we must improveo -- also efforts to keep children safe at improve family-like improvements. oregon has one of the lowest rates of children living in foster group homes. can you talk about that?

mr. nyby: being from oregon, one of the strong commitments oregon has made as to reduce foster care across the board. not just group homes, but across the board. i know that the way that we train our caseworkers and is to really use foster care as our last resort, to give i already to relatives. commentsenator wyden's about the priority of relatives is something that is well ingrained in our culture and their practice. relative placements are something that we prioritize over foster care or group homes. those are viewed as our last resort options. are not viewed anymore as solutions for kids. senator hatch: my time is up. senator wyden. sen. wyden: thank you very much.

want toiamson, i don't make this a full bouquet tossing ,ession, but let me say congratulations on the good work you are doing. , just want to be clear particularly with your kind words about legislation and the ability. the whole point of that is to say once and for all, the flexibility you are talking about is going to be permanent. that is the point of where we .re to go for the future i really appreciate the good work you are doing. let me see if i can get a couple of points in. yby, you have run the gauntlet in terms of your services in the field. a measure of we have given you a chance to say what services you think are most important. we are going to have to find our way, given the fact that resources are tight, to say,

there are choices to be made, here are the ones that are the real showstoppers, the ones that will make it big difference for families. tell me what you think those services are. by: the services that would help our services prevent or avoid further and more intrusive intervention, what we see, and i don't have data or statistics to share, but i can tell you that drug and alcohol, substance abuse is a really important service. systems families, the set up to help them are complicated. bureaucracies are complicated. they need understanding of where to go, how to navigate a transportation system. services that assist with general challenges around poverty and housing, child care. in oregon, one of the primary services we have for the strengthening of family services

is navigators. parent advocates that help parents navigate the system. it is a very complex system and they have to navigate multiple sometimes. we know that domestic violence is a challenge. advocacy for women who are experiencing domestic violence. i think those are some that i can think of offhand. sen. wyden: you are doing a terrific job. i look forward to partnering with you in the days ahead. , let me talk to you about kinship care. i look back to the debates in the 1990's. thought kinship care was going to make a big difference. we unleashed them on some skeptical legislators and we were able to get the law that i described past, giving families and seniors a first preference. by anybody's calculation, that first kinship care law has far

exceeded what people thought was possible. some numbers, as well, about the extraordinary role that kinship care plays. i guess the question really becomes, if you had to name one big step for the future on the kinship care side, what would it be? because i have a set of choices. and one of our earlier hearings, we heard about an older parent, really a grandparent, who wanted to take care of a child, but they were told that even though they had a wonderfully comfortable place to stay, it did not have the exact number of bedrooms. i don't know if i can turn my last set of ideas into getting rid of mindless bureaucracy, but i write that and i see ms. williamson knotting, as well. let's say you get one choice on ,he next step of kinship care

what is your next step? ms. butts: [indiscernible] [inaudible] we have been through those battles together and see the change from country club itndmothers who are only in for a few dollars to realizing that families believed deeply in family and they want to support the family option. we know that that is one of the tosons why it is important look at the licensing standards in states. i grew up in a family of six with three bedrooms. i shared a bedroom with my sister my entire life. to think that relatives cannot figure out how to make do with a little bit less space does not make any sense. we need to take that into consideration.

i think the bill you will be introducing goes a long way in helping to understand that the grandparents need those supportive services to be successful and i think that is what you and many of us have advocated for. they need to know what services to exist -- what services exist. they need mental health services because of the children who come into their care that have been through different traumas, different situations. it is understanding that just because they are family does not mean that we leave them on their own. we need to support them and provide them with services. thanks very much for your years of good work. i want to note that the ideas that this panel has offered, these are not big, expensive kind of proposals you are making. nobody is saying this is going to break the bank. some huge,aying that

new titanic bureaucracy has got to be built. up ideally fort us to go forward and do some legislating in this area. senator hatch: thank you, senator. senator step in no. >> > thank you, very much. it is my pleasure to be cochairing the foster youth andus with senator grassley to work with everybody on the committee. thank you to each of you for being here. appreciative. i have worked on these issues a long time. it makes me feel old. i was back in the michigan legislature in the 1980's doing foster care reform. i'm incredibly frustrated that

we are still talking about these issues because we have two sets of issues. and thewhat happened system failed you. i'm sorry that that happened to you and ms. burden. situation where people get caught up in the system and cannot bring nurse children home -- bring their children home. at the other end, we have serious abuse and neglect, where kids get caught up in both ends of these things. i am very concerned that one way or the other, foster care should be temporary and move people , or move to ame permanent family, one where the other is not caught in limbo. for your eloquence.

mr. chairman, i do want to say that as we listen to all of this and the cost-effectiveness that ms. williamson talked about, we are about ready to go into a debate on the budget, where there is great willingness to add money to the department of defense. but we are not yet at a bipartisan agreement on how to defend their families and things that we can do that will make a tremendous difference. i hope when we go into discussions about appropriations, we will remember what we have heard here. we were very pleased to be able to offer a pilot project to address mental health and substance abuse in the community that will allow eight states to dramatically increase what they do. it is eight states. it is not 50 states. it would not take a lot to make it 50 states.

i appreciate that we were able there arerward on a that things that we should do, we just have to want to do it. i hope you will help us be able to want to do it. for both isquestion it killett? burton regarding one piece of this that i have worked on with senator altman and senator portland to because sponsor in a bill on family-based foster care services and the whole question working on therapeutic foster care for you know, what can be done on that front. i wonder if you might speak a limit more about that in support of therapeutic foster care and family-based foster care services? senator, i can't say that i can speak directly to

therapeutic foster care, but this is what i can speak to. what i can speak to is that if my son had received actually in home intensive therapy, which i guess you could call it therapeutic, he would not have went into foster care, right? so that is the intensive therapy that would have been needed. in therapeutic in foster homes, you would say that foster homes need to be thoroughly trained or young person they're going to be receiving into their household. so they would need to know what has been going on with the youth , where they have come from, and how that is impacted them. i will tell you something as simple as removing a child from a home and placing them in another home is a dramatic impact. so they may not have had any type of issues other than maybe something that was going on at home sometimes with the parents and sometimes not, right?

but when they come in to the system, they developed a lot of these behavioral issues. so i will have to go back to say , and i plead with you again, i will go back and say this -- for my household, that was a stable household. we were secure. our protective factors were in place. we knew -- i knew exactly what was necessary and needed for my family. we did not give that. because of that, you, me, taxpayers, paid an enormous amount of money for me to go through the criminal court system, the family court system, an attorney, an attorney for my child, and remain foster care and still end up not getting any of the services that we needed as a family, destroying a sibling relationship in which the younger brother becomes withdrawn, now yes to go into therapy. so i think if i could say i know you asked me about therapeutic in care, but i can tell you that if that foster home does not get

the very things that i needed in my home, we will be looking at the same thing. so essentially, across the board, families need what families need. i can echo every single thing that was said across the board for the families i come in contact with and what they share with me about what they need. we work with herons, foster parents, and youth. i will say the system is not kind to anyone. , mr.know my time is up chairman. i hope we will have the political will to do the things all of your talking about because it is not rocket science, just a matter of our being committed to do it. thank you. , chairman hatch. i deeply appreciate your holding this hearing with senator wyden. there's a lot of work to do. we have to find a way to reduce the use of congregate care

settings and encourage states to adopt best practices to find families for our children. one of the key themes throughout the hearing is to invest in prevention. what this means in congress, i believe, we need to look on principally at both reducing the number of children -- copper and civil he at reducing the number of children and children ending up in group settings in foster care to begin with. i'm rented using the all kids matter act which will give all states the ability to invest in prevention efforts for families on the front end before our nations children and up in the foster care system and for the 400,000 children in and out of our nation's foster care system, in additional transparency measures for states to reduce the number of children in group homes. we know children do best when placed with individual families. when placed with her own family. in the coming months, look for

to working with the committee to produce a bipartisan project -- product that will elevate the conversation of our nation's most vulnerable children. i am grateful for the attention we are placing on this issue. ms. burton, i would just with you. i wonder if you could describe for the committee the experience you and your siblings had with the education system as you are going through this foster care system. do did people -- how did you in your family do with schools? >> great question. i go into little more detail about each one of my siblings -- i have a lot of them. about half of his graduated from high school and the other half didn't. one brother graduated from ucla. he is now a campaign manager, so he is doing really well for himself. [laughter] so if you guys need anybody. [laughter] >> i want a little clarity on that when. >> two of us are currently in

college. education was really hard for me. i experienced six different elementary schools, five different middle schools in five different high schools, but i went back to some a couple of times. it was really are just a focused and motivated. thank you. >> thank you. mr. nyb, you mentiony in the last couple of years in your new role, you are able to discover flexibility that you haven't had in the past. i wonder whether you could describe that in a little more detail for the committee and to the extent that flexibility has resulted in prevention efforts with families, we would like to hear about that, too. frome flexibility has come -- it redesigns the front door of child welfare. so when a family as reported to us, we don't to them all the same way. severeally, the more allegations of abuse or neglect

are assessed in the more traditional manner, in reports that involve less or more moderate severity are assessed with the family. it is not done to them, but with them. we really try to partner with the family to let them drive the assessment. the other thing that brings is in both scenarios, we have the ability as child welfare to provide services without opening a case, without formerly getting involved with the families. in oregon, we call that early intervention. the family still has reported to our system for us to provide that, but we with the families help to connect them to the supports and their communities so they don't have to come back to child welfare. that is fairly new, but essentially, prior to that, the only way child welfare could offer services was by opening a formal case in the system. provide those to services and really fill the gaps without having to do that. killett, it sounds that

if that early intervention system had been in place in new york, you may not have face the kind of things you had to contend with. >> i think you're absolutely right. i think one of the things mr. nivea mentions is that community-based resource services is really the way to go for families. i should have been able to walk into any community-based program without having entered the door at all having an investigation. >> thank you. thank you all for your testimony and thank you, mr. chairman, for your attention to this really important issue. >> senator casey and then, hopefully, we will go to senator portman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to reiterate my appreciation for the hearing and your work in this area over many years and for chairman wyden's work and in particular his legislation, the family stability kinship care act, which focuses on prevention and

getting a set of services to families long before or at least early in the process. i was struck by for our first two witnesses, miss killett and ms. burton using the same word at some point, "traumatized" and "traumatic" which i know for some people, might seem self-evident in terms of how difficult these issues are for families, but there are a lot of things we do in this committee that involve policy and data and numbers, but few things that we have examined here have the same kind of human gravity to them and severity. so we appreciate you bringing your own personal stories. it is not easy to talk about what you have been through. it is to talk about things when they are theoretical and policy

oriented, so where grateful you're willing to do that because without that kind of personal testimony, i'm not sure we can sit here and really understand it unless we have gone through it. say ,ms. killett, you mentioned as one of the strategies you hope we would employ are part of the strategy on page six of your testimony in the bold headline, early intervention services and focusing on meeting the immediate needs of families and that idea of early intervention i think we saw it somewhere in other throughout the whole range of testimony all the way to miss williamson and we are grateful there is some measure of unanimity on with the strategies must be. we spent a lot of time in this town focusing on national defense strategy, to focus on

terrorists and a focus on a broader national defense strategy. even in the tax code, which is part of the work that this committee does, some of the effort is, what is the best way to change or amend or improve the tax code so it will be a strategy to create jobs? what we don't spend nearly enough time on in this city is, what are strategies that will work to make the life of a child better? what are the strategies that will work to sustain and support families? i will get to a question because i know i'm just talking, but i think we do need a strategy for our kids and for our families. lastrms of to do or our two would mrs. practitioners along with others in the trenches kind of doing a policy work, and i know each of you are conscious and extent, but my one

question would be for mr. nyby and miss winston, i guess for -- miss williams, i guess for oregon, forgetting my terminology, differential response and homework in oregon. tell us about what works in both and what you hope we would derive from those two approaches in both states. i know we are limited on time, but if you could just give brief answers. >> thank you very much. you heard consistency i would highlight evidence-based assessment -- there was a mention of evaluating risk, being very purposeful and structured family support that are directly tied to the risk that was revealed. the other element i would highlight is very consistent between utah and oregon, as chuck mentioned, family engagement, listening to the

family. when families have a voice -- children included, when tillman and families have a voice and a vested interest in their success and in the case plan that allows them to achieve a sustained safety and permanency we will realize those outcomes much more efficiently and effectively. >> i know i am over time. >> quickly, i would echo what miss williamson said in terms of the different parts. the only thing i would add is in order to support and sustain families, you need a workforce who has the tools available to them to support families. to get it to work and support a family to engage with the system am of the system has to bring in offer something that is tangibly and relisted we going to help that family. modeladdition to practice and the supports in the community because depending on what community you live in, that

has an impact on what is available to you. so to fill those gaps in communities doubt families. >> thanks a much. i will some of the questions for the record for the other witnesses. thank you. >> senator portman? >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you for your great testimony this morning. this has been fascinating hearing and i think senator hatch for his longtime advocacy for kids and specifically foster care and kids who are facing issues at home and how do you find the right place for them. i know this is not an easy issue, but the idea of therapeutic foster care and therapeutic care for kinship parents makes a whole lot of sense. and the cost savings we were talking about is interesting. there is an assumption this will be a lot more expensive to have that kind of intensive care, not just for foster parents as miss killett talked about, but

kinship parents and other caregivers as well. . have a couple of questions i have been thinking about it since we have a sexual panel, i want your input. first, i been fortunate to have the congressional coalition for adoption lend as an intern this summer, kerry richman did a terrific job and she, like you, shared her experiences going to the foster care system. sadly, a lot of abuse and her case foster care and adoption. of has come of -- come out it a strong, resilient young woman and helped us to kind of thing through the policy issues. the survey group back home which is a foster youth advisory board, made up of young people who have been to the foster care system. i think that makes a lot of sense. here's the thing that has been bugging me and i what your input. there was a sting operation back in 2013 him at the fbi did it nationwide on child sex

trafficking, an issue i've worked on a lot. i started a caucus on it. it is bipartisan. here's the amazing and very said statistic in that. 60% of the victims said they recovered nationwide from over 70 cities were from foster care or group homes. 60% of the kids and sex trafficking. that, does this go to what you are talking about? in miss the fact burton's case she has been through the system and miss killett has been the other end of it as a mom to the professionals here, is there something that we should be talking about in this regard? in other words, is it less likely those kids will end up being victims of sex trafficking, being vulnerable, if they are not in the cover get care homes, and the group homes?

maybe i will ask ms. burton to start on this and if you could respond, miss butts, i know yet some thoughts on that earlier. >> thank you for the question. it is definitely a part of contradict care. whenever child in congregate care, their status on may be looking at the signs. there are too many children, the child gets lost. abouton't really think what is happening on the street. you have a child may be trying to fill a void because they haven't received therapeutic services to learn about why they are feeling the way they feel, they just want to feel loved. there's so many things we could talk in depth about that ends up with a child and sex trafficking. i'll let some others talk about that. you are so right. what we say is a child can age out of the system, they don't age out of a family. their somebody who stays with them, who watches, who knows they are missing. that makes all the difference in the world. it is so easy for young people

to get lost. and to be then caught up in the sex trafficking world. a stork at covenant house with runaway and homeless youth. we talked about the suitcase, which was a garbage bag. you would see a kid being kicked out of their home and all they would have is a garbage bag and nobody cared where there were going. with the family, they're much more likely to forgive, much more likely to take them back, much more likely to let them sleep on the couch when they don't have any place to be. that family, finding a family, notifying that family is important. >> thank you for that response. we talked earlier in the legislation that we've introduced, senator baldwin, senator stevan oh and myself, abenow and myself, wanting where try to do is great a standard, a national standard, for what is therapeutic foster care because our sense is that

each state does it a little differently. my question to you is, how can a uniform definition of therapy to foster care services promote better quality of care and also more accountability in the training of staff in foster care parents? does that make sense? if you could maybe, mr. nyby and ,iss williamson, or ms. killett give us a response to that quickly, but if you don't mind sending me a written response, that would be helpful. look at the legislation and tell us what you think about this idea of coming up with the uniform definition. a uniform have definition, but i would like to say that i would like to follow up with a written response because i think it is worth and to a lot of thought to give you that information. >> that would be great. >> mr. nyby and miss swainson,

would you do the same? -- miss williamson, would you do the same? >> i thank the members of the panel for your participation and your rich testimony and it is good to know even utah finds incredible assets in south carolina. [laughter] god bless you. we will talk later on why you left, but we will get to that later. this is a moving topic and a hard topic to digest and confront. i know we oftentimes second-guessed $9 billion from one program, but if we only look at the finances, we miss the real point of the service, which is try to find a way to make sure every american experiences their full potential will stop i had an opportunity last year to visit one of the foster care homes in south carolina and spent, i think it was the week of thanksgiving, going to a

couple of locations and talking to the kids about their goals, their dreams, their expectations. one of the points i believe ms. killett made, a point that rings true consistently, what their goal is is to get back home. it doesn't really appear it much , from ourat the home perspective on the outside looking in, what they want is their mom very often. but always i hear the same conversation, no matter how difficult the situation was at their house, they still have this yearning for their family, their bloodline. as a kid growing up in physical parent household, i appreciate the sacrifices, the difficulty, and the road for so many single parents and the challenges that many of the single parents have faced. i know my mother probably wanted to encourage me in many ways at times when i was been a

difficult kid. my brother was the better of the two of us. he was a great kid, i was a rambunctious, challenging, difficult kid growing up. but what i've learned through listening and talking to the kids, they are just brilliant. so much potential. like ms. burton, i had an intern. i'm not sure where your brother is a campaign manager, but i want to talk about the psychology of campaign management with him at some point. i hope he is working for republicans. [laughter] i digress, i apologize for that comment -- but not really. [laughter] summern amazing internet who has gone through the foster care program and she is just going to change the world. she is going to be a doctor one day. before she becomes a doctor, she is going to china to teach english. changes, her moods and she was -- moves and changes, she could focus the way very few of us have been able to focus.

stories,arning their it has been an important part of my questions. ms. burton, the role of drug addiction in tearing families apart seems to be really important in finding that pat back. i would love to hear your comments on that. there is a program in greenville, south carolina facility called serenity place doing some remarkable things for families which deal with addiction. the program provides conference of residential to mention about 120 pregnant women and young mothers each year with 86% of the children still living with their families one year after discharge. in my opinion, that is a powerful program with pretty strong results. i would love to get your perspective on the role of drug addiction, if you can, on that families being cohesive and staying together and the role of programs that have that

type of success in just a year. >> thank you for your question. my personal experience, i believe, i believe that my mom's addiction was directly linked to her childhood being in foster care and the trauma she experienced. she never dealt with that. and no one provided the services she needed to do with it, either, and she did not know maybe how to ask for them. i don't know what happened, but i believe that had she received services and therapy to find what are her triggers, because she would get clean but then get back there. it was not the getting clean, it was staying clean. i also, understanding her illness so that than i did not hold that against her, her diction, could -- her addiction, could of been helpful. the routing services for the whole family to support each other, to keep strong ties.

end, miss winston, one question that keeps ringing in my ears is the system so often hinges on the caseworkers assessment. that seems to be such a powerful part of the analysis. what can be done and perhaps what should be done to make the caseworker better prepared to and, on family cohesion you know, when i think about family cohesion and think about ms. killett's points on the opportunity for in-home intensive therapy, i would love to hear your comments on what the prognosis is going forward on caseworkers and what we might do to think about it from that actual level of the transaction in the caseworkers assessment being perhaps the most important key to the transaction.

i don't know that times adjusting that we should figure that out here in washington, it is going to have to be figured out in states and programs, but i think illuminating what should be done could be helpful to all of us are watching this and paying attention to the issue. talks thank you so much. i have an encouraging response and that is indeed states have recognized the importance of evidence-based approaches to these assessments in ensuring the assessments are not done in isolation of the family. in fact, it is very much with the family, not just the family but the extended family at the table, community representatives of the table, stakeholders in the success of the changed wase so that as mentioned, we need to professionally equipped our staff with the appropriate training on what is an evidence-based research assessment tool and acute component of the efficacy is that the family is involved --

key component of the efficacy is that the families involved. in utah, we have taken a national standard and created a utah family and child assessment tool that is continuously revisited as engagement tool throughout the lifetime of the case. so when a parent says, i really could use assistance in mental health, i really could use assistance with the substance abuse disorder, that it is revisited.y perhaps the initial interventionist unsuccessful, but they still seek a change result. >> thank you. my concern and asking the question about the caseworkers assessment and touring a part of families as ms. killett spoke about is that ultimately, what we may see in the long run are fewer people calling for help when they need it because of the fear of the breakdown of their family. if you want any closing remarks.

my time is actually up. >> thank you, senator. i want to thank each one of you as witnesses are today. you have been really good. each one of you, from ms. killett right on through. somewhatou has brought -- if not important perspective. we're going to see what we can do to help. i want to thank all of the witnesses for appearing today. i also want to thank all of the senators who participated. this is been a very compelling discussion and i do appreciate everyone's participation. any questions for the record should be cemented by no later than tuesday, august 18. i hope you'll give your answers back as quickly as possible because if you get those answers back, that helps us to move forward with legislation that may be helpful to you. i'm grateful to each one of you for taking time out of your different -- busy schedules to be with us.

we have had of writing of you seem to agree that we can do a better job than we're doing right now. and i'd like to see that we do. god bless all of you and thank you for being here. with that, we will recess until further notice. >> here is what is happening on c-span today --

symons look at the obama administration's clean power plant, which calls for 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. facebook.com/cspan ♪ ♪ president obama delivered a speech today in washington that will cover the iran nuclear deal. you will see that live today on c-span. this as three democratic senators give their support to the deal yesterday. the chairman of the house foreign affairs gave the resolution a disapproval. willlican candidates appear in prime time at the other candidates will appear earlier in the afternoon. to network relied on polls decide the lineup.