Children removed from their biological parents because of abuse
or neglect enter a child welfare system that is broken and needs
to be fixed. The number of children in foster care has nearly
doubled in the past 15 years while the number of potential
foster families has declined. Foster care was designed to
provide a temporary home for children who would eventually be
reunited with their parents or adopted. But not all parents can
be rehabilitated and many children—older, handicapped, and
minority children—are difficult to place in adoptive homes. This
brief argues the need to confront this crisis in the child
welfare system by broadening the options available to include
congregate care or group homes that would provide a more stable
environment for these children. In early 2000, theWashington
Post chronicled a Washington, D.C., child welfare case in which
two-year-old Brianna Blackmond was returned from a loving foster
family to her biological mother. Within weeks, she was dead.
Police are investigating not o