Keeping track: states are finding better ways to ensure foster children's personal information follows them through the system, and is updated and comprehensive.

• Author: McCann, Meghan
• Position: FOSTER CARE

Why can we track a package around the world, but we can't keep track of our kids in foster care?

"Since I moved around from school district to school district so often, tracking down alt of the paperwork was a huge problem. No one knew if I had enough credits to graduate. If I had known, I could have applied to college," says one former foster youth.

In the information age we live in--where personal data and records are needed to do just about anything--children in foster care without school and medical records can be at a real disadvantage.

Data Disconnect

States use a variety of data collection and sharing systems to track numbers--how many children are entering and exiting foster care, for example. But there are roadblocks along the way that can make it quite difficult to obtain and maintain complete, consistent and specific information about each child.

Child welfare caseworkers typically, but not always, collect health histories, immunization records and school records.

In many instances, however, the information is never entered into an electronic database, often because of a chronic lack of time and resources.

Children in foster care move frequently--often for their own safety--but too often, their information doesn't keep up with them. State and federal laws that require confidentiality of foster children's records present other special challenges, as does the inconsistency in the kinds of data reported, recorded and managed by all the different agencies involved in a foster child's life.

Ensuring health records follow children in foster care as they move through the system is critical to their well-being. Because they often have complex behavioral and mental health care needs, the lack of records can have serious consequences, like an over-prescription of psychotropic medications or duplicate immunizations, for example.

This lack of consistent, complete information can lead to misunderstandings and can potentially harm children in foster care in the long term.

Current Systems

The system currently used by most states is the Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System, which is used to collect statewide information on children in foster care. (The rest of the states use a similar system.) This information is reported to the federal Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System, which then provides the national picture on children entering and exiting foster care.

The Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information...