The Porch Light Project (www.porchlightproject.org) has released it's annual report that seeks to answer the question, "How well are Pennsylvania and county governments doing to assure safe, stable and permanent families for all children?" For Lancaster County families, the answer may not be one you want to hear.
Children taken by Lancaster County Children and Youth Services were much less likely to be reunified with their families than, on average, in other counties across the state. The state average for reunification with parents or relatives within 12 months, according to the report, is 48.2%. In Lancaster County, it's only 30.5%.
Making comparisons closer to home, Lancaster county children are much less likely to be reunited or placed with family than children in the surrounding counties of Berks, York, Dauphin and Chester.
Further analysis of the report uncovers an even more disturbing statistic. In Lancaster County, the average stay in foster care was 23.2 months, while the state average is only 10.7 months.
The reunification rate for children in Lancaster County is almost 20% less than the state rate (46.7% vs 57.8%).
Latino children in Lancaster County are three times more likely to be taken and placed in foster care than they are, on average, across the rest of the state.
Most disturbing of all, the percentage of children adopted out of foster care in Lancaster County is more than twice the state average.
The full report can be found at www.porchlightproject.org. Look for the "State of Child Welfare" reports under the "News and Alerts" banner.
