Child Deaths Led to Excessive Foster Care Placements, Critics Say

Child Deaths Led to Excessive Foster Care Placements, Critics Say

A year ago, Banita Jacks was found living in a rented Southeast Washington rowhouse with the corpses of her four little girls. That discovery nearly derailed the District agency charged with protecting the city's children.

Yesterday, several child advocates said the Child and Family Services Agency has overreacted -- removing children from homes more readily than it did before Jacks's children were found.

The 41 percent increase in children placed in foster care in the first nine months of 2008, compared with the same period in 2007, is "a foster-care panic that cut a swath of destruction through families in the District," said Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform.