WASHINGTON – The head of Maine’s Department of Human Services says he agrees with a report that called on the federal government and courts to move foster children into permanent homes more quickly.

The Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care found that on any given day, half a million children are in foster care, many languishing five years or more. To address the problem, states need to be more accountable for how long children remain in foster care, the federal government should change how it pays for the care, and courts need to give greater priority and keep closer watch on the children’s cases, the report said.

“The basic message of this report lines up with what we are working toward in Maine,” said DHS Commissioner John Nicholas. “We want better services to keep families together whenever possible, and we want to find permanent homes sooner for those children who do come into foster care.”

Maine’s DHS is seeking a waiver to use federal funds to support families and relatives who choose to become legal guardians of a child in foster care.

“We believe that the focus on permanent homes for children and on giving states the financial flexibility to create that permanency is a good match with our reforms and our vision for kids in our care,” Nicholas said.

The commission’s report and recommendations were released Tuesday, culminating a review that began in May 2003. The report will help ignite a debate on an issue that already has the attention of U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and other members of Congress.

Former Rep. Bill Frenzel, R-Minn., chairman of the 16-member Pew commission, said: “The system has done a pretty good job of taking kids out of unsafe, unhealthy family environments and protecting them from harm. But states then had incentives to keep children in foster care, instead of moving them to a more permanent kind of situation, which is what any kid would love.”

In 2002, 534,000 children were in foster care. Although the number appears to be flattening out, it is almost double the number of children in foster care in the early 1980s.

In Maine, there are now 2,913 children in foster care, down from 3,226 in 2001.

Nationally, infants are the fastest growing sector, and minority children, particularly black children, enter foster care at the fastest rate and leave at the slowest, the commission reported.

Federal child welfare money emphasizes foster care at the expense of other services that might keep families together or move children to permanent homes, the commissioners said.