Wallowa 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 Families and Children 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 11 most prevelant problems exhibited by parents in the community who have their children in Foster Care.

Most Prevelent Barriers in Wallowa 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 Wallowa County

Wallowa County Summary

Wallowa is a beautiful and sparsely populated county that has very few children who enter substitute care. There were only 36 children in Wallowa County who entered substitute care for two weeks or more between 1991 and mid-1993. Researchers from the Child Welfare Partnership at Portland State University reviewed twenty-six cases where children entered care and stayed in care for two weeks in the year after their removal. Although a large majority of the Wallowa County cases were reviewed, comparisons between Wallowa County and Oregon's client profile are not definitive. Despite the limited data from Wallowa County, there are still some noteworthy trends. The most prevalent reasons children are placed outside their homes in Wallowa County include physical abuse (35%), sexual abuse (17%) and child's behavior (13%). Neglect tends to be less prevalent in Wallowa County than in other Oregon counties.

The State Office for Services to Children and Families or SOSCF developed a seven level priority system which recognizes the vulnerability of the children served. Level 1 includes the most severe types of abuse and neglect cases while level 7 includes the least severe. The most common levels of vulnerability for children entering care in Wallowa County are level 3 (26%) and level 7 (22%). Most Wallowa County children in these two levels are children who require residential treatment (level 3) and non-adjudicated delinquent teenagers (level 7). In Oregon, 71% of children entering care are identified as levels 1-3; fifty-two percent of the children entering care in Wallowa County are identified as levels 1-3. A higher proportion of children are identified as level 7 in Wallowa County than elsewhere in Oregon.

Children entering care often exhibit problems resulting from their abuse, neglect, and family dysfunction. About 1/3 of the children from Wallowa County have behavioral problems. Behavioral problems are common with level 7 children, and are more common with children from Wallowa County than in other Oregon counties. In addition to behavioral problems, depression, and victim of sexual abuse are evident with 1/4 of the children entering care in Wallowa County.

Parents with children entering care are often burdened with their own problems. Drug/alcohol involvement, single parenthood, and poor parenting skills are pervasive with the SOSCF population in Oregon; these factors are also the most common parental problems in Wallowa County. Certain combinations of factors are known to increase the risk of a child being abused or the risk of a child being placed in foster care. Drug/alcohol involvement, which exists with nearly 3/4 of the families with children entering care in Wallowa County, contributes to the dysfunctional, abusive environment that increases the risk of a child being placed in care. Parental drug/alcohol involvement is common with dysfunctional and abusive families throughout Oregon.

The most severe family problems or situations which prohibit a child from returning home are known as barriers. The most prevalent barriers in Wallowa County include poor parenting skills (62%), drug/alcohol involvement (38%), and parent-child conflict (38%). Sexual offenders are identified as barriers more in Wallowa County than in other Oregon counties. Sexual offenders are identified as barriers when the perpetrator remains in the home and the child is placed in care. Generally the alleged perpetrator is requested to move from the household or is removed by the non-offending spouse. If the non-offending spouse does not believe the abuse occurred or is not protective, the child will remain in care and "sexual offender" will be identified as a barrier.

Returning children home and reuniting families is an agency goal. The return home rate is defined as the percentage of children who return home to the same parent(s) in the year after removal. The percentage of children returned home in Wallowa County (57%) is slightly higher than return rate for counties serving a similar clientele (53%). Although more children are returned home, more children are subsequently reabused in Wallowa County (17%) when compared to other Oregon counties serving a similar client population (11%).

There is a large array of services provided by communities and SOSCF to help families resolve problems and improve family functioning. Non-SOSCF family counseling, drug/alcohol treatment/evaluations, and parent training are the most common services available to parents with children entering care in Wallowa County. Child counseling, residential treatment, and sexual abuse treatment are the most common services provided to children in Wallowa County. Family counseling and drug/alcohol evaluations are provided more in Wallowa County than elsewhere in Oregon.

The Wallowa 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 attempts to moderate the effects of child abuse and neglect and ensure the most vulnerable children are protected from abuse/neglect.