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Group Homes Will Have To Compete,
Provide Better Services to Abused or Neglected Children
For the first time, the State is requiring group homes to address the different needs of abused or neglected children in each part of the State. Group homes will have to compete for contracts by responding to a new Request for Proposals issued by the Maryland Department of Human Resources. This is a major step forward in holding group homes accountable and lays the groundwork for ensuring that children put in institutions are returned as quickly and safely as possible to family-based placements.
Key elements of the new plan are:
- The State has identified seven different types of group homes: diagnostic evaluation and treatment; group homes; high intensity group homes; teen parents; medically fragile; developmentally disabled and psychiatric respite.
- Based on historical data, the State has established the number of beds it needs for each of the seven types of group homes, broken out by county or region.
- For each type of group home, the State has identified the level of intensity of services needed for each of five types of services: care and supervision; clinical services; education; health and medical services; and family support services. The levels are low, moderate and high; the services for each level are described in detail.
Only currently licensed providers can submit proposals, and they can only seek contracts for beds up to the number set forth in their existing licenses. This is in part because the Department has not yet issued a Statement of Need, which is required in order to license new group homes or expand existing homes. However, the Department claims that it does not see an initial need to expand beds anywhere, mostly due to the significant reduction in the number of children in group homes that has occurred over the past two years. As a result, there is a significant oversupply of licensed beds.
The glut of licensed providers should mean that the competition will be fierce, and the State will get to select from among strong proposals.
This is a significant step forward. The State will decide where to place abused or neglected children and ensure that it is getting what children need, not more or less.
The next step is creating stronger incentives for group homes to return children quickly and safely to family-based placements. Even under the new system, group homes will receive more money the longer they keep a child. In a recent study, Advocates for Children and Youth found that there is often little or no effort to find a family-based placement once a child is put in a group home. As a result, children remain in group homes longer than necessary, which is costly to the State and harmful to children.
One relatively straight forward solution is to increase the required level of intensity for family services, one of the five domains mentioned above. Under the RFP, the level will be set at “low” for regular group homes. Low means that the provider is expected to help a child maintain his connection with the family and help the family access community services needed for reunification. These are minimal requirements, and it is not clear whether and how they will be enforced.
A “high” intensity for family services requires the group home to provide or ensure access to a variety of services for a family while the child is in placement and afterwards. Every child would benefit from these higher expectations, and they will result in faster, more stable returns to family-based placements and therefore more than pay for any additional, initial costs.
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