Klamath County, Oregon

Reason Children are Removed

Children are often removed from their homes and placed in out-of-home care for multiple reasons. However, if the most serious reason were identified for each of the children removed, the following profile would characterize children entering care between 1991 and 1993.

Level of Vulnerability

State Office for Services to Children and Families has formalized a child welfare priority system known as the level of vulnerability. This system, which replaces an informal prioritization system in each branch office, assures workers provide services to the more vulnerable children and recognizes the level of service provided in each branch office.

SOSCF administration, program managers, and researchers created the level of vulnerability system in 1990. There are seven levels in the system. Level 1 includes the most severe abuse and neglect cases: life threatening neglect, abandoned or orphaned children, siblings of children who have died from abuse or neglect, severe familial sexual abuse, and severe physical abuse. The least vulnerable children are identified as Level 7: chronic acting-out teenagers, adolescents exposed to chronic neglect, teenage victims of mild physical abuse, court ordered services where no abuse has occurred, and voluntary requests for services where abuse, neglect, and threat of harm are not apparent. Younger and more vulnerable children are in the higher levels of vulnerability (levels 1-3); older children, better able to protect themselves from moderate and mild abuse, are assigned to the lower levels of the system (levels 4-7).

Child's Problems

Children and youth entering the foster care system exhibit a variety of troubling behaviors and suffer from myriad of physical and mental problems. The following table contains a list of the child's problems most often cited by case workers.

Family Factors

Parents who abuse or neglect their children are themselves often burdened by a host of problems known as family factors. The table below contains the 10 most prevalent problems exhibited by parents in the community who have their children in Foster Care.

Most Prevalent Barriers in Klamath County

Barriers are problems or conditions that a caseworker identifies as requiring some resolution before a child can be returned home.

Services Provided to Children and Families in Klamath County

Klamath County Summary

About 90 children per year from Klamath County were placed in substitute care and stayed in care for two weeks between 1991 and mid-1993. Fifty-three of these cases were randomly selected and reviewed by researchers from the Child Welfare Partnership at Portland State University. A profile of children entering substitute care in Klamath County is compared to the state profile for the following: The types of abuse/neglect which prompt placement into care, the severity of abuse, the problems of the children, the problems of the parents, barriers to returning children home, and services offered to the parents and children.

The most common reasons are physical abuse, neglect, treatment issues of the child, parental absence, and sexual abuse. The most common reasons in Klamath County include physical abuse, parental absence, sexual abuse, neglect, and threat of harm to the child. The prevalence of physical abuse is 79% higher in Klamath than in the remainder of Oregon. The higher percentage of physical abuse in Klamath County is attributable to mild and moderate abuse of younger children (ages 0-12 years). Parental absence, which includes everything from incarceration to abandonment, is 56% more prevalent in Klamath County than in the remainder of Oregon. The higher incidence of parental absence reflects parents who are incarcerated and parents who desert their children; most of the children are less than 13 years old. Other reasons for children entering care such as sexual abuse, child's behavior, short-term care for a parent's condition, and threat of harm to the child are equally common in Klamath County branch offices in Oregon. Neglect and treatment issues for the child are less common in Klamath County than in other Oregon counties.

The level of vulnerability system considers numerous factors including severity of abuse and age of the child. A greater percentage of Klamath County children are identified in the highest vulnerability levels (48%) than in the rest of Oregon (29%). Although there are similar percentages of level 4-6 cases in Klamath County as in Oregon, Klamath County SOSCF tends to serve a greater percentage of highly vulnerable children (levels 1-2) and a lower percentage of less vulnerable children (level 7).

About 80% of the children entering care in Oregon and Klamath County are afflicted with problems. Thirty-one percent of the children in Oregon and Klamath County are sexual abuse victims and 10% are emotionally disturbed. Although a higher percentage of foster children in Klamath County are developmentally delayed, a lower percentage are delinquents or out-of-control. This does not imply there are fewer delinquents or out-of-control children in Klamath County -- it does imply a lower percentage of these children enter foster care in Klamath County.

Parents with children entering foster care are often burdened with a number of problems or conditions. Many parents have drug/alcohol problems, have poor parenting skills, are single, are unemployed and were/are teen parents. The profile of parental problems in Klamath County is similar to the state profile with three exceptions. Overwhelming child care and inadequate income are more prevalent in Klamath County while teen parenthood (at the time of the first child's birth) is less prevalent.

Barriers are parental problems or conditions which prevent the child from returning home. Generally the parental problems which contributed to the child's abuse or neglect and prompted the removal are considered barriers. Drug/alcohol involvement, angry/aggressive behavior, criminal involvement, and physical/emotional/mental conditions are more prevalent in Klamath County than elsewhere in Oregon. These four barriers can make returning children home most difficult.

Services are offered to parents to resolve barriers and encourage reunification. Children are provided services to minimize the impact of abuse/neglect or meet other treatment needs. Visitation, parent training, and drug/alcohol treatment are the most common services provided to parents throughout Oregon. These same services and counseling are the most common services offered to parents with children entering the child welfare system in Klamath County.

About 76% of the children return home within the year after the removal in Klamath County. Other branches serving the same client population would return 49%. Of the children returned home and the children remaining in their homes after a valid abuse/neglect referral, 13% are abused in the following year in Klamath County. This is slightly higher than the 10% which would be expected if the same families were served elsewhere in Oregon. Considering the high proportion of children returned home in the year after their removal, one would expect a higher proportion of children to be reabused.

The Klamath SOSCF branch office strives to balance child safety with efforts to preserve families. This delicate balance weighs the potential for reabuse with the emotional needs of the child to remain with their parents. Services to children and families attempt to moderate the effects of child abuse and neglect and ensure the most vulnerable children are protected from abuse/neglect.