SALEM --An unsparing report spurred by Oregon's latest foster care scandal identifies fairly obvious remedies for the state's troubled child welfare system.

But those recommendations, released Thursday and first reported by The Oregonian/OregonLive, also highlight the Department of Human Services' ongoing failure to adopt solutions identified year after year in previous reviews.

Oregon needs to fill a deep shortage of foster homes and programs equipped to care for children with significant trauma and other intensive needs, the report found -- echoing warnings documented as recently as 2011. As a result, the state might be certifying foster homes that fall below its standards.

Moreover, Oregon must still work up a strategy for recruiting foster care providers, despite acknowledging in a 2007 federal review that it lacked a process "to ensure the diligent recruitment of foster homes, despite significant shortages of all types."

"Desperation for placements appears to be increasing the risk of (the human services department) certifying foster homes where abuse is more likely occur," the report said.

And inconsistencies in how child welfare workers screen reports of abuse, a problem identified by consultants as far back as 2002, remain today. Children in the foster care system, as well as people who have reported abuse, called the state's system for tracking and investigating abuse "untrustworthy."

The report notes at least six lawsuits against the Department of Human Services over cases in which multiple reports of abuse were closed at screening.

"I'm still stunned that (the human services department) wasn't coming to sound the alarm, because the system has clearly been in crisis for a very long time," said Sen. Sara Gelser, D-Corvallis, a longtime advocate for reforms who sponsored legislation this year to increase accountability for foster care providers. "These kids have always been in a crisis, but it's been hidden."

Gov. Kate Brown commissioned an independent review of the state's child welfare system in November, answering outcry over accusations that a Northeast Portland provider misspent $2 million in state money and abused children in its care.

Consultant Public Knowledge, LLC presented the preliminary findings to an advisory committee appointed to oversee the review, including Brown's handpicked choice to lead the human services department in the aftermath of the scandal, Clyde Saiki. The consultant plans to issue a final version at a meeting in September.

"I just kind of went back and said, 'What did we do with this, or what happened here?'" said Saiki, who was placed atop the agency at the same time Brown announced plans for her review. "It was kind of difficult to hear that in some cases, we'd started work that was never completed and in other cases we never even started."

The consultants identified two seemingly straightforward ways for the state to prevent child abuse: line up more appropriate foster homes and programs, and better coordinate the response to reported abuse to keep mistreatment from happening again.

The availability of foster homes, the consultants said, "rather than the needs of foster children and youth," currently drives decisions on where to place children. They found the state has a "shrinking" number of spaces for the most vulnerable children in the system who might have behavioral issues or other specific needs.

The consultants also determined that "foster care providers are not adequately trained or supported to safely care for children and youth with high needs."

They pointed to news reports that found an average of six children per week spending the night at a human services office or hotel.

At the same time, nearly 90 percent of attorneys and judges surveyed by the consultants said they observed the state asking foster parents and programs to accept children beyond their certified or licensed capacity.

"Those kids that are in crisis in a hotel room or a conference room, they were in crisis when they were sitting a decrepit facility that should have been shut down," Gelser said. "We just didn't see it ... We're going to see more of these issues as we have accountability."

Half of the foster programs surveyed said the children placed with them needed more care than they could provide. Currently, the state does not evaluate the needs of children entering the foster care system, or the foster parents or agencies who will care for them, until after the children are placed.

But even then, the state assessment mostly focuses on how much it should pay the foster parents.

Children who participated in focus groups for the review said the "system treats them as 'bad' kids who did something wrong to end up in foster care, and, as a result, doesn't trust them." There is a "culture of disbelief" toward children in the system, the consultants wrote.

The state also handles reports of abuse inconsistently across the state.

"Because the system is disjointed, not coordinated, and minimal follow-up is conducted, there is no effective way to ensure that cases and abused children do not 'fall through the cracks,'" the consultants wrote.

The same consulting firm identified the lack of consistency in screening child abuse reports more than a decade ago.

"Fourteen years ago, a Public Knowledge study found that (Child Protective Services) branches appear to be inconsistent in the abuse screening and assessment criteria that they apply," the consultants wrote. "This appears to still be true today."

Although the consultants did not estimate how much the state might need to spend to boost foster parent recruitment and improve its response to reported abuse, they said they would try to include those numbers in the final report in September.

Saiki also said human services officials are working on identifying those funding needs in time for the governor and lawmakers to consider them for the next two-year budget in 2017.

Gelser said the state has been insufficiently funding child welfare. The department's current budget allows it to employ only 83 percent of the caseworkers it needs. Regular caseworker visits are seen as a vital check against abuse.

Saiki said he plans to combine the consultants' suggestions with the results of a federal review anticipated in December, to create a "unified implementation plan" overseen by a new project manager.

"I think, to everyone's point, 'so why is this gonna be different?'" Saiki said. "Our job is to put a system in place and make sure things get implemented and people know exactly what we're doing, why, and when we'll do it, and hold us accountable."

-- Hillary Borrud

503-294-4034; @hborrud