Lots of High- Level, Mind- Numbingly Boring Foster Care Policy Talk You Should Really Care About

Child Welfare Drama! As I've mentioned elsewhere, this is the kind of subtle drama that I live for (http://touch.baltimoresun.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-80830217/). The kind where a person's tone or the direction that they are looking tells you everything you need to know about what they are thinking. In any case, this article (see above and below) has heavy implications for the Finance Reform narrative going on in Congress and the greater Child Welfare Community. While I disagree with some of Daniel's positions in the article, be they implicit or explicit, I think it's worthwhile to consider whether models of Alternative Response could be done relatively better. On that note, the article is too leading for my taste- for example why not ask whether there could be a better model of alternative response?; why not follow the question about whether or not reducing the numbers of youth in foster care overall is a good and noble goal?; why not leave the reader with a question to grapple with rather than a conclusion? Personally, I believe that you should push to add exceptions to rules and not make rules out of exceptions. This is to say that we can't point at the margins of foster care and design a fully functional system out of those margins. You create broad rules for all and then you add exceptions as needed. Alternative Response not working for some? Make it better for them but leave it intact for the rest that are benefiting. If we're agreed on any point it's research. AR could use more research. But then again, what couldn't? By the way, everyone should really care about this in the foster care field because the kind of reforms in foster care that we are talking about here with things like "Alternative Response" will change EVERYTHING about Foster Care. Happy reading! http://touch.baltimoresun.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-80830217/