Scope and Urgency of the Need:

• 10,375 children were in foster care in the State of Oregon in 2016 (Annie E. Casey Foundation
  Kids Count Data Center).

• 28.4% of Oregon’s foster children originate from Multnomah, Clackamas, and Washington
  Counties combined with an additional 8.2% originating from Marion County.

• Research shows that more than any other intervention, it is the quality and quantity of family
  time that is the best predictor for whether or not a child can safely reunite with his/her birth
  parents (Simms and Bolden, 1991).

• Oregon’s child welfare system (DHS) is generally able to provide 1 hour per week of supervised
  family time.

• Approximately 56% of DHS involved families ultimately reunite (as compared to 86% of TFR
  involved families).

• It costs taxpayers approximately $2,200/month (conservatively) to keep a child in foster care;
  even with maximum TANF and food stamp benefits, it costs taxpayers approximately
  $800/month to keep them with their birth parents.

• Long term outcomes for children (education, criminality, morbidity) are better when children
  can grow up safely within their birth families (Lloyd and Barth, 2011).

• Males who age out of the foster care system are 4 times as likely as the general male population
  to be arrested and 6 times as likely to be convicted for a crime. The same ratio is true for
  females.
• As a result of the well-known ACE Study (Adverse Childhood Experiences) in the early 1990’s,
  the CDC concluded that child abuse is, in fact, the “gravest and most costly public health issue in
  the United States. [Study researchers] calculated that its overall costs exceeded those of cancer
  or heart disease and that eradicating child abuse in America would reduce the overall rate of
  depression by more than half, alcoholism by two-thirds, and suicide, IV drug use, and domestic
  violence by three-quarters. It would also have a dramatic effect on workplace performance and
  vastly decrease the need for incarceration.” (Van der Kolk, M.D., Bessel The Body Keeps the
  Score).