The Boulder County 360 Foster Care Program will be phased out in the coming months after county officials decided to shut down the program, citing financial pressure.

After July 1, the county will no longer place children directly into its certified foster homes. Instead, the county will only contract with third-party foster agencies to newly place children.

The Boulder County 360 Foster Care Program matches certified foster parents with children in the county who need foster homes. Mollie Warren, the director of the Family and Children Services Division for Boulder County Human Services, sent an email to Boulder County foster families on Wednesday announcing the decision to shut down the program.

“We will not move any children currently placed in Boulder County foster homes and will continue to support families with children placed with them, however, we will not continue to do work to recruit, certify or place children in new foster homes,” Warren wrote in the email.

Foster parent Oliver Ward said the decision was completely unexpected.

“That is, to me, shocking that this is happening so suddenly,” Ward said.

After July 1, Boulder County will exclusively contract with certified placement agencies — which are private or nonprofit foster care organizations — to place Boulder County children in foster homes. Six staff members who helped run the county’s program will be laid off as a result of the decision.

“Boulder County Human Services is making every effort to ensure transparency, provide early and respectful notice, and support each affected employee throughout the process,” Warren wrote in an email to the Daily Camera. “Impacted staff have been informed well in advance of the program’s sunset date and are being offered dedicated support to explore alternative roles within the department or elsewhere in the county. Our intention is to retain this talented and experienced group of professionals and to ensure that they feel supported as we move through this transition together.”

Despite the upcoming change, Warren said she expects the county to continue supporting families as needed through 2026.

“While the staffing structure will change, Boulder County will continue to fully uphold all responsibilities related to the licensure, support, and oversight of the twelve foster homes that currently have children placed in them,” Warren wrote in an email to the Daily Camera. “These homes will remain active and supported until the children in their care achieve permanency — whether through reunification, adoption, or another planned transition. The 360 Foster Care Program will be considered fully closed only once no children remain placed in these homes.”

Warren said since 2021, the county has seen a 47% overall reduction in the number of children in out-of-home care. Out-of-home care is when a child lives outside their biological parents’ home due to safety concerns.

Placements in Boulder County foster homes have declined by 70%, and kinship care, when children live with family or close friends, has increased by 14%, said Warren, who didn’t specify a timeframe. She said the fixed-cost model used to operate a county-run foster care program has become increasingly expensive per child, and moving to a fee-for-service model through certified placement agencies is projected to reduce county costs by about $700,000 annually.

“There is good news reflected in this decision: out-of-home child placements in Boulder County have been reduced for several years now,” Boulder County Commissioner Claire Levy wrote in an email to the Daily Camera. “This means we are doing great work in keeping families together, keeping children safe, and supporting parents through the challenges they face. As a result, supporting foster care in-house is no longer a cost-effective approach.

“We believe strongly this is the right decision for the continued well-being of families and children across Boulder County as well as for us financially.”

‘Potential negative effects’

There are about 85 children in out-of-home placement in Boulder County, which includes kinship care, Boulder County foster homes, child placement agency homes and other placement types. Of those, Boulder County has 15 children placed in 12 Boulder County foster homes and 13 children placed through child placement agencies. The vast majority of the 85 kids are in kinship care with family or friends.

Over time, the number of kids in Boulder County homes has decreased, and the number of kids placed by certified placement agencies has increased, Warren said during a virtual town hall on Friday. When asked by a foster parent why this was a trend, Warren said there have been no changes in policy or action in how the county places children. If a child can’t be fostered by family or close friends, the county reaches out to Boulder County foster parents if the child is a match based on age and other preferences. If there’s no match, the child is placed through an outside agency.

One foster parent said it seemed like the county hasn’t been reaching out to the Boulder County foster parents for placements. Multiple people in the virtual town hall said they’d been waiting for a call.

Ward said his household has been waiting for their next foster child for more than a year, and foster parent Audrey Arroyo said she has been waiting for about eight months.

In the program, Ward said, reunification with the child’s parents is always the goal and almost always is the outcome. The foster parents provide love, care and safety for the kids until the time is right, whenever possible, to re-unite with their biological family. Foster parents are required to complete many hours of training, a background check and home check to become certified with the county.

Ward added that often, foster parents are actually relatives or close friends of the child. The goal is to keep kids in their communities and with their families whenever possible.

If the county contracts only with outside agencies, Arroyo is worried that children will be placed in foster homes outside of Boulder County and about the negative impact that would have.

“My primary concern is for the potential negative effects on the vulnerable children and families that are facing an out-of-home placement now with the shift to CPAs (certified placement agencies),” Arroyo said. “A big part of the goal of reunification in foster care is trying to keep that child in their community, whether that’s their school or being able to have family time with parents or other relatives. With CPAs, there are families … that range all the way from here to Pueblo. They’re all over the state. And so my concern is it would make it harder for these children to remain in their communities, and it could have negative impacts on the goal of reunification and act as a barrier when these children are placed further away from the counties that they were originally living in.”

Contracting with outside foster care agencies is not new to Boulder County. Boulder County has contracts with 19 certified placement agencies right now and has contracted with outside agencies for decades, Warren said during the town hall on Friday. She said the county is aware that this could lead to an increase in kids placed outside of Boulder County and is finding ways to mitigate that.

There were about 30 people on the virtual town hall, and foster parents filled out a Google sheet with dozens of questions about the decision and what happens next. Many used the time in the town hall to voice their concerns.

Ward told the Daily Camera he has several concerns about certified placement agencies. For one, he said many queer foster families opt to work with Boulder County because it has a reputation for being highly inclusive. Now, Ward said, this decision opens the door for faith-based foster agencies to come in, which he fears could lead to discrimination against LGBTQ+ families.

He added that he’s concerned about the privatization and institutionalization of foster care happening in Boulder County, where many kids end up in group homes and don’t get the same level of care and attention.

“It adds up to more harm to kids,” Ward said. “That’s really all there is to it. It’s so sad.”

He said it’s like privatizing the prison system, adding that “it’s shocking” that Warren has used language of inclusion as justification for this kind of action.

“This shift to the privatization and institutionalization of foster care should be particularly concerning in a western state like Colorado,” Ward said. “It’s like we learned nothing from the days of Native American boarding schools.”

Privatization of foster care has been a growing trend in the last few decades. Texas has overhauled its foster care system and divided the state up into regions assigned to third-party contractors.

A 2017 report from the U.S. Senate Finance Committee examined the privatization of foster care, using one of the largest for-profit providers of foster care services in the United States as a case study.

“State child welfare agencies report they have procedures in place to monitor child welfare providers’ performance and outcomes,” the report read. “But this investigation conducted by the bipartisan staff of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee shows that these policies are not always followed; exceptions are made, waivers are granted, profits are prioritized over children’s well-being, and sometimes those charged with keeping children safe look the other way.”

The committee found that “agencies charged with and paid to keep foster children safe too often failed to provide even the most basic protections, or to take steps to prevent the occurrence of tragedies.”

In Florida, a USA Today investigation reported in 2020 that the Department of Children and Families and the 17 private agencies that manage the child welfare system across the state sent nearly 170 children to live in foster homes where there was some evidence that abuse occurred.

‘This decision is strategic and financial in nature’

Warren said Boulder County works with “some great CPAs,” in response to a question during the town hall about the quality of staff at the agencies. She said the county trusts and feels very positively about all the agencies they work with.

Moving forward, Boulder County foster families have the option to transfer their foster certification to one of the third-party agencies or obtain certification with another county.

Arroyo said becoming a licensed foster parent is an intense process. Transferring the certification with an agency will take time, and potentially cost money, which is demanding, especially for people who have already gone through it. She said she’s feeling discouraged and not sure what the right move for her and her family will be.

“Each CPA, they probably have their own beliefs and ways of doing things, and it may be completely different,” Arroyo said. “So it just seems like a big administrative hurdle and emotional hurdle, especially with having such little notice. It’s difficult to know what to do.”

Warren said the decision to close the foster program was based on clear data, shifts in policy and practice, and the financial realities facing the county’s system.

“This decision is strategic and financial in nature — it is not a reflection on the performance of the 360 Foster Team, the dedication of Boulder County foster families, or the leadership of the program,” Warren wrote to the Daily Camera. “It represents an intentional shift in service delivery to align with a transformed child welfare landscape, improved practice outcomes, and our responsibility to be effective stewards of public resources.”