Fostering Permanency of Children in Out-of-Home Care: Psycho-Legal Aspects

Over the past 20 years increasing interest has been given to children's rights that grant special protections to children living apart from their biological parents. The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 was promulgated to prevent unnecessary removal of children from their original families and to ensure perma-nency when return to their families could not be secured. The psychiatrist's role in this process has been to ensure that effective interventions occur prior to the child being removed from home and that every effort is made to return the child to his or her family of origin once placement has been made. In the event that the child cannot return home, the psychiatrist can assist the court by providing grounds for termination of parental rights and by otherwise ensuring that the child's best interests are protected.-In 1980 more than two million children in the United States were under child welfare supervision. ' Of these, more than one-half million, almost 14 percent of all children under age 18 in out-of-home care under the auspices of the child welfare system, had been placed in state custody by parental request or as the result of a court order.2 In 1983 a quarter of the 47,783 children receiving services for children and youth in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania were either in community placement (foster family homes, group homes, emergency Dr. Fialkov is psychiatric consultant to the Westmore