Children in Wisconsin's Foster Care System Need Mental Health Counseling

Tuesday, June 27th, 2023 -- 10:00 AM

(By Natalie Eilbert | Green Bay Press-Gazette) Nicole Klug, a foster care case manager in Green Bay, has never been able to shake the memory of the teenage girl tossed from county to county in the wake of her parents' deaths, or the boy who entered her agency still high after being removed from his drug-ridden home.

According to Natalie Eilbert with the Green Bay Press-Gazette, what they needed was trauma-informed support that offered a path forward. What they got was a cycle of foster homes, the path forward harder to find by the day.

Klug, who works at Foundations Health & Wholeness, said that despite their obvious need, youths in out-of-home care, the term for court-monitored placement and services for children removed from their homes, are the least likely to gain access to mental and behavioral health treatment.

Under Wisconsin's parental consent laws, foster parents can take youths to a primary care doctor for routine visits and to a dentist for cleanings, but they can't get them counseling to help them unpack the trauma from their upbringing, home removal and foster placement.

Caseworkers like Klug see that as a deterrent to prospects for real behavioral change. A recent report from the American Academy of Pediatrics drove that point home, saying mental and behavioral health represents the largest unmet need for children and teens in foster care.

"Many children have been cared for by a variety of adults, even prior to foster care, and may not have experienced the predictable nurturance necessary for healthy development," the report reads.

"The emotional trauma of removal from all that is familiar and placement in foster care is emotionally traumatizing for all but the youngest infants. This is compounded by the ongoing separation, losses, and uncertainty that are endemic to foster care."

As of Dec. 31, 2021, the latest comprehensive year of data available from the state Department of Children and Families, or DCF, about 7,000 Wisconsin children have been placed in out-of-home care, roughly 0.5 percent of all children living in the state.

More than 80 percent of those children enter out-of-home care with a significant mental health challenge. Additionally, a little less than 1,500 have documented disabilities, with emotional dysregulation accounting for about 80 percent of all types of determined disabilities, by far the largest condition.

Emotional dysregulation is a core trait of ADHD and can involve angry outbursts, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts, self-harm and other self-damaging behaviors. But even if a child enters out-of-home free of a mental health condition, the rupture of removal is its own disorienting condition.

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