Last Wednesday, the Deschutes County Commission on Children & Families, CASA of Central Oregon, and the Department of Human Services-Child Welfare, hosted a community-wide work session to create a local foster care reduction plan. The County is only one of eight counties across Oregon invited to participate in the important project with the goal to safely reduce the number of children in Oregon’s foster care system.

Deschutes County is working on the project with the Oregon Department of Human Services (DHS), Oregon Commission on Children and Families (OCCF), and Casey Family Programs (www.casey.org ).

DHS, OCCF and Casey Family Programs have set six statewide goals (to be achieved by the year 2011):

1. Safely reduce children in foster care by 20 percent

2. Increase relative placements by 50 percent

3. Reduce children entering care by 10 percent

4. Increase foster care exits by 20 percent

5. Reduce the inequity of Native and African American children in foster care

6. Hold the child abuse/neglect recurrence rate at or below 7.9 percent

The foster care goals were created to increase the number of children who can remain at home safely and were not set with the current budget crisis in mind.

Over 50 community members gathered this past Wednesday to develop community-based strategies to help achieve the goals listed above.

For additional information about the outcomes of this meeting, please contact Deschutes County Commission on Children & Families Community Project Coordinator Sarah Johnson at 322-7461.