Public Counsel eNews

"ARM" - Twisting To Help Special Needs Foster Kids

Gail van Slootin watches proudly as her foster daughter, Catie, energetically scoots across the carpeted floor of the children’s room at Public Counsel Law Center. Catie, 3, seems very pleased with herself too. Gail would like to adopt Catie, who is partially blind and who suffers from cerebral palsy and is unable to walk. Catie’s multiple treatments are very costly and Gail is not sure she can afford to pay for them without government assistance.

That assistance has been held up for over a year because of a dispute between two branches of the California Department of Health and Human Services as to whose responsibility it is to write an ARM (Alternate Residential Model) Rate letter. This letter is the vehicle through which the California government determines how much financial support to give foster parents who are adopting developmentally disabled children. In May 2005 this issue came to a head yet again when a group of Regional Center Directors from the Los Angeles County area published a letter stating that no more ARM Rate letters would be written by their offices.

“Effectively, this means that all the adoptive parents of developmentally disabled children living in Los Angeles County can no longer get the support they need to care for their vulnerable children and the support to which they are entitled by law,” says Ines Kuperschmit, staff attorney in Public Counsel’s Children’s Rights Project (CRP).

Andrea Ramos, CRP’s directing attorney, explains the bureaucratic maneuverings at the core of this dispute: “The contesting government offices, The California Department of Social Services (CDSS) and The California Department of Developmental Services (CDDS), both under the umbrella of California Department of Health and Human Services, are supposed to work together in the best interest of the child. This ARM Letter is a brief one page form letter that tells the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) how much it would cost Regional Center to send the child to live in one of their full-time facilities for developmentally disabled children and uses that amount to determine the Adoption Assistance Payments (AAP) to adoptive parents.

This dispute has real-life consequences. “The Los Angeles foster parents who want to adopt developmentally disabled foster children cannot get ARM Rate letters,” says Karen Ullman, senior staff attorney in charge of Public Counsel’s Adoptions Project, “and, therefore, cannot get the support that they need, and are entitled to, to care for their special needs kids.”

“We’re glad to report some good news for the van Slootins and for the many other families awaiting assistance,” says Dan Grunfeld, Public Counsel’s President and CEO. “With the help of many parties including Bill Lockyer’s office and John Sharer of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, the parties entered into an interim settlement agreement on December 15, 2005. This agreement calls for the Regional Centers to continue writing ARM Rate letters until the end of March 2006."

“This is great news, but,” cautions Ines, “this settlement is only an interim agreement. All court dates after March remain on calendar. It is the hope of The California Department of Health and Human services that a reform package, which they have been working on for over one year, will be complete by the end of the interim settlement period.” The van Slootins are hoping too.