Marion 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 Marion 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 Marion County

Marion County Summary

About 375 children per year from Marion County entered in substitute care and stayed in care for two weeks between 1991 and mid-1993. Sixty-eight 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 Marion County is compared to the state profile for the following: the reason children enter care, severity of the abuse, problems of the children, parental problems, barriers to returning children home, and services offered to the parents and children.

The most common reasons children enter foster care in Oregon are; physical abuse, neglect, treatment issues of the child, parental absence, and sexual abuse. Neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, treatment issues, and parental absence are the most prevalent reasons children enter care in Marion County. Although the five most common reasons children enter care in Marion County are also the five most reasons children enter care in Oregon, neglect is twice as prevalent in Marion County than elsewhere in Oregon. Physical abuse, sexual abuse, child's treatment issues and parental absence are less common in Marion County than other locations in Oregon. Neglectful families are often involved with drugs or alcohol, have inadequate incomes, have inadequate housing, and may be criminally involved; these factors are more common in Marion County. Poor parenting skills and unemployment are more common throughout Oregon than in Marion County.

The level of vulnerability system contains seven levels; level 1 cases are the most severe instances of abuse/neglect while level 7 cases are the least severe. The level of vulnerability system considers numerous factors including severity of abuse and age of the child. The proportion of cases associated with each level is similar for Marion County and the state. Marion County tends to have fewer of the lower level cases, but more level 3 cases. Level three cases consist of children requiring residential treatment, parent incarceration, parents needing in-patient drug and alcohol treatment, and chronically neglectful families.

Many children entering foster care are afflicted with problems; mental, physical, or behavioral. Children entering care in Marion County manifest the same problems as children entering elsewhere in Oregon. Although one in six children in Marion County do not exhibit problems, about 35% are beyond parental control and 30% are victims of sexual abuse. Statewide, the proportion of sexual abuse victims has continued to increase. From 1987 to 1990, 26% of the children entering foster care were sexual abuse victims. From 1991 to mid-1993, 31% of the children were identified as sexual abuse victims. This trend is distressing knowing the long term effects of sexual abuse.

Most children enter care after parental abuse. These same parents often exhibit problems known as family factors. The profile of parental problems in Marion County is similar to the Oregon profile. Over half the families with children entering foster care in Marion County have parents with drug and alcohol problems. Nearly a third of the families have parents with poor parenting skills, inadequate incomes, inadequate housing or are unemployed. One fourth of these families chronically neglect their children, and about half are single parent households. Most family factors estimates mimic the state profile. Poverty issues and criminal involvement tend to be more prevalent in Marion County. The higher percentage of criminally involved families could result from the penal institutions near Salem. Parties from these institutions might prefer to stay in Salem than relocate to other counties in the state.

Family problems that contribute to a child's placement in foster care can also be barriers to returning children home. Barriers are family problems that should be addressed before a child is returned home. Barriers tend to be more prevalent in Marion County than in other Oregon counties. The most common barriers in Marion County include parental drug and alcohol involvement, domestic violence, chronic neglect, criminal involvement, and inadequate housing.

There is a large array of services provided by communities and SOSCF to help families resolve problems and improve family functioning. Visitation and parent training are the most common services opened to parents in Marion County. Drug and alcohol treatment (26%), drug and alcohol evaluations (23%), psychological examinations (24%), and SOSCF counseling (24%) are other common services offered to families in Marion County. A lower percentage of child counseling (17%) is provided in Marion County than the rest of the SOSCF branches in the state (26%).

The Marion County 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 children 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.