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Child welfare's view of the world is shifting.

The providers of foster care - and other services for families and children who need help in so many areas of their lives - are undergoing a complete culture change.

They are learning to think in new ways.

The work has been hard, really hard, with plenty of challenges.

Recently, one of the six private agencies with which the state contracted to provide foster care and family services, pulled out - deciding not to sign the contract.

In the final days, the Alliance for Children and Family Services, one of two contractors in the central service area, said it just wasn't financially feasible.

"We have recrunched the numbers over and over in several different ways," said Gary Henrie, executive director of the Alliance. "The money's just not there, and it won't be there for years."

The majority of contracts were signed after the Nov. 1 startup date and one is still pending - Boys and Girls Home of Nebraska.

The new system is going to take time to turn around -from one in which the majority of children are in out-of-home care to one in which most get services in their homes.

With this change, many families would be kept intact.

Reforming the system, totally changing the way child welfare services are delivered, is exciting and scary, said Jeff Hackett, chief operating officer of Boys and Girls Home, provider in the central, northern and western service areas.

But it's what providers have been wanting for decades, he said.

The potential for improving the lives of children and families is the greatest thing about the reform.

Nebraska has one of the highest rates of kids in out-of-home care. When the state takes a child out of the home, chances diminish that child will ever return, Hackett said.

Removal is traumatic. Children and families are damaged.

Safety is never negotiable, he said, but it's always better, whenever possible, to keep families together and provide services until they can do it on their own.

Many of these families have no one else to call.

They have little hope.

"Restoring hope is significant," Hackett said.

Children need stability and routine, not chaos, he said.

Families need connectedness, a sense of belonging.

"That's what we build. Hope, stability, connectedness," he said. "When they have these things, they're much more self-sufficient. They don't need the state in their lives."

And so the agencies have risked much in signing up to do the work.

"We're very much in the middle of the very hard work of this transformation," said Jim Blue, executive director of Cedars in Lincoln. "It is a venture that will answer some of the longstanding concerns about the child welfare system."

In the old system, overworked caseworkers had too many families to watch over.

The state had 150 or so contracts with different groups - both for-profit and nonprofit - for services such as transportation, foster care, family support, parenting education and supervision of court-ordered visitation.

"Too often it was a very fragmented system of care, too many organizations involved in kids' and families' lives," Blue said.

More than 40 percent lived with four or more families.

When kids grow up in that system and look back on their childhoods, would they know who raised them?

Power in partnerships

In the reformed system, families will be referred to one of the lead agencies, which will take responsibility for those children.

"I love that concept," Blue said.

It's a community response, rather than a state employee brokering contracts.

With the new system, a foster care specialist will support each foster family, said Sandra Gasca-Gonzalez, president of KVC Behavioral Healthcare Nebraska.

The agency will ensure parents and children are matched up correctly.

They will have 24-hour support, be offered couples counseling. Families will feel more in control of the services they need.

"The power in all this is in the partnerships," Gasca-Gonzalez said. "It's a huge advantage to have the public and private sectors working together."

Cost: $106 million

But back to the money.

Officials say a full year of doing things the new way will cost the state $106 million.

The agencies will have contractual incentives and penalties to hold them accountable.

It's going to be challenging, said Judy Dierkhising of Nebraska Families Collaborative, a provider for the eastern service area that includes Omaha. The agencies will have to be "very creative," she said.

It will take several years to see substantive changes.

By 2012, the state wants to reduce the number of state wards to 5,000. The goal is to have 70 percent of kids in their own homes with services.

Funding will be adequate only if agencies are successful in finding more efficient ways to do that, Blue said.

Todd Reckling, director of the HHS division of children and family services, said the private agencies will be required by contract to show children are safe, and that they are working toward permanent placements in the home or with adoptive families.

Everyone knows there is a limited amount of money to do this, Reckling said.

"We're going to do this with what's available to us."

Chris Hanus, HHS child welfare administrator, said the process has been "very open," and until last week no agencies had shied away because of the money.

"This is an incredible window of opportunity to do business differently, to serve our families differently," Reckling said.

KVC's Gasca-Gonzalez said HHS has learned from other states' mistakes and successes.

"We have not seen anything the state has not followed through on," she said. "They are being very honest, very transparent. I think that's a good thing."

The state is holding the private agencies to a "very rigid and time-limited response" to families, said Dierkhising, with Nebraska Families Collaborative.

"If we are saying this reform is very family-centered, we have to live by that," she said. "There are many standards that are being held out there to meet."

Even if everyone wishes more money were available, "we went into this with our eyes wide open," she said.

Child advocates watching closely

Child advocates and outside observers are watching development of the privatized system closely.

Kathy Bigsby Moore, director of Voices for Children in Nebraska, said reform can be positive, but only with adequate funding, support and monitoring.

The concern about money is real, she said.

If the private agencies are able to provide outstanding services and are sufficiently funded, "it will be wonderful for kids," Moore said.

If not, it will be hard for child advocates to evaluate that, because the responsibility for services is more diffused.

"It will be difficult to know, in the end, if (reform) is a good thing or not."

Voices for Children in Nebraska will likely seek funding for focus groups to evaluate how the new system is working, Moore said.

Georgie Scurfield, chairman of the state's Foster Care Review Board and Sarpy County coordinator of CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), is concerned about accountability and the ability of agencies to provide the diversity of services and level of care needed.

Some of the contractors have a history of providing competent and efficient services, she said. But there is evidence of dramatic failures by HHS to monitor, measure and contain the costs and quality of services provided by some agencies.

The Foster Care Review Board will be watching, along with court-appointed advocates and judges.

"It's good to have that wonderful enthusiasm. But we will have to wait and see," she said.

Hackett, of Boys and Girls Home, said the new system must work.

"We can't allow it to fail. The state understands that. So do the contractors," he said.

"That is very sobering."

Reach JoAnne Young at 473-7228 or jyoung@journalstar.com.