Maryland’s welfare system has 20 percent fewer children under foster care and half the number of children in group homes than it did in late 2007, according to Gov. Martin O’Malley.
The state’s welfare system has placed 8,760 children in permanent homes since 2008, O’Malley announced Wednesday.
O’Malley credits the draw-down in child welfare enrollees to a program his administration began in 2008 called Place Matters.
The program trained social and child-welfare workers to better their success rates in placing children in permanent homes, and provided updated computers and other technology to increase the system’s efficiency.
In the last three years, 2, 100 Maryland children were adopted, 5,100 were reunified with their families and 1,500 were placed under guardianship with another family member.
