Breaking Barriers: Helping More Kids Find Family-Like Homes 

Over the past three years, Wellpoint Care Network has partnered with Casey Family Programs, the Division of Milwaukee Child Protective Services (DMCPS), and Children’s Wisconsin on a system-wide initiative called Breaking Barriers and Rightsizing Congregate Care in Milwaukee.

The goal of the initiative was simple but ambitious: reduce the number of children living in group care and help them move into home or family-like settings. 

“We know that when youth spend less or preferably no time in group care, they have much better outcomes than their peers that do,” said Jill Collins, Ongoing Services Section Manager at DMCPS.

“This is a population of kids that gets overlooked a lot in our system,” added Sarah Henery, Administrator at DMCPS. “It was great to have so many people spend so much time trying to improve outcomes for them.”

The initiative began in December of 2021. At that time, Milwaukee had 179 youth who were placed in group care. By the end of 2024, Milwaukee achieved a 34% reduction in group care placements. This means 60 fewer children are living in group settings today.

“From a national lens, residential care has been one of those challenging hot spots that makes it really difficult not only getting kids to the right locations, but also getting them out,” said Toni Rozanski, Senior Director in Systems Improvement for Casey Family Programs.

Wellpoint Care Network contributed to this success with a 20% reduction in the number of youth we support in group care. 

“It is very humbling to work alongside so many hard-working individuals each and every day that are part of our Child & Family Well-being team,” said Lisa Vega, Director of Family Case Management at Wellpoint Care Network. “Throughout this initiative, we have embraced a culture of ‘one organization’ as we continuously worked hand-in-hand across our program-specific area of expertise to break down system and community silos and hurdles that impede families from being able to access resources they need to succeed.”

Breaking Barriers shed light on the importance of teamwork not only within our organization, but across multiple organizations within our community, to ensure that our organization is exploring all options for youth to be in family-based settings. This included helping families reunite, finding relatives or kin to care for children and providing extra support for foster parents. 

“Together, we have built a sustainable change, restored connections and created spaces where children and families can thrive,” added Vega.

Though the project is formally ‘complete,’ the work is far from over.

“We will continue to prioritize what group care looks like in Milwaukee,” said Collins. “There are a lot of things that individual child welfare staff have implemented on a case by case or team by team basis that really help us achieve these goals. And they’re also things that we’re going to continue into the future.”

Become a part of the change. Find available job opportunities at Wellpoint Care Network or learn about becoming a foster parent.