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GREENSBORO — Although the number of children in foster care across the state has remained consistent from February 2002 to 2009, Guilford County’s number has dropped by nearly a third.

The decline of children in custody for Guilford County — the state’s third-highest in population — also outpaces drops in children under government custody in the state’s two most-populated counties.

The decline means fewer custody cases for social services workers, a lower demand for foster and adoptive families and fewer children pulled out of their homes. It also means an overall reduction in direct costs to taxpayers to support children in the foster care system.

To work on dropping those levels, Guilford County’s social workers began supporting the home environments of would-be foster children with parenting classes and by putting children with family members before taking them in custody.

Nonetheless, there are cases such as Kali Martin, the 4-year-old who died in March under custody of a family member while Kali’s mother was in jail.

When deaths such as Kali’s happen, social services can find itself in a difficult situation.

“If the DSS takes children from families at the higher rate, then they are criticized,” said Karen T. McLeod , president of North Carolina’s Children and Family Services Association, which works closely with government agencies to benefit child care and improve conditions for foster children.

On the other hand, she said, if something bad happens to a child that stays with family, DSS gets criticized then, too.

Overall, she said, keeping children with families is good for the child’s development and the unity of the family.

“What we’re saying is that we believe in permanency, for the well-being of children,” McLeod said.

The numbers

From 2002 to 2009, for the month of February, Guilford County’s rate of children in custody steadily decreased from 573 to 396, a 31 percent decline .

That decrease is greater than in Wake and Mecklenburg counties over the same time period.

In Mecklenburg County the number of children in custody dropped by 15 percent from 2002 to 2009. In Wake the number dropped by 3 percent. Meanwhile, the state’s rate remained steady.

And the child death rates investigated by the state — the most grim indicator for the success of foster programs — has not increased dramatically over that time for Guilford County. The state reviews suspicious deaths of children in custody, and since 2002 fewer than two per year for the county have been investigated.

The impact can be seen in the wallet for taxpayers. Although about 60 percent of the county’s foster care funds comes from the federal government, state and local funds make up the rest.

Foster parents receive $500 to $600 a month to care for a child.

Kevin Kelley, section chief for the state’s child welfare services, attributes Guilford County’s decline to a change in perspective on child foster care. Rather than take a child from the home as a first response, caseworkers approach parents and family to get them involved in fixing the home first.

Guilford County has been a testing ground for parenting and family programs involving would-be foster children, and often that money comes from outside foundations and government grants.

“If you spend a little extra money up front, then you will save money for a child coming into care,” Kelley said.

The system

When a child is taken from parents, he or she enters a government system that can rip away identity, a sense of place and friends.

“And we know from the research that a child loses developmental milestones when they are removed,” said Steve Hayes, assistant director of Guilford County’s Department of Social Services over the foster care program.

Instead, would-be foster children often stay with their families through a combination of programs such as parenting workshops and finding a home with relatives instead of a strange new family.

Before that change in mindset, social services workers were more likely to take a child from a home first than work with the parents and relatives on improving home life.

No single path offers all solutions to keep children out of foster care, experts say, but a multiple-program approach helps overall.

“I don’t think that we can ever say that one thing causes another,” Lisa Paine-Wells, senior consultant for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, said about Guilford County’s programs. “And they have done some very good work to practice change at the front-line, interactive level.”

That front-line work here includes a fatherhood program that works to incorporate dads into children’s lives.

“It’s actually nationally recognized,” Paine-Wells said.

Hayes said that the benefit comes from more than just one parent — typically a mother — to help with a child’s growth and development. A social worker goes after fathers, now, for more than simply child support money.

The county also has a program that pairs young mothers with nurses for the first two years of their child’s life.

“It clearly reduces the incidence of child abuse and neglect, and it has good outcomes for the mother and the child,” Rosie Allen, president of Prevent Child Abuse in North Carolina, said of the nurse program, which has been replicated in other counties since it began here earlier in this decade.

The Casey Foundation also gave Guilford County a three-year, $1 million grant at the beginning of the decade to work on reducing the rate of children in foster homes.

Since that grant ended, Paine-Wells said, the county has gotten nearly $100,000 annually from the foundation to run the Family to Family program that brings families together in a moderated session.

The intention there is to keep children from leaving the family by placing them with people such as an adult sibling, grandparent, aunt or uncle.

“Frequently, Grandma is hearing what’s happening for the first time,” Hayes said, “and somebody steps up and says, 'My grandchild, or my niece, is not going into foster care.’”

Contact Gerald Witt at 373-7008 or gerald.witt@news-record.com