ATLANTA (AP) Georgia has received its highest marks yet for improving child welfare in Fulton and DeKalb counties in a progress report issued Friday by court monitors charged with overseeing reforms of the agencies as part of a 2005 consent decree.

``Today, there are fewer children in foster care, more children are being placed with relatives, the recurrence of child maltreatment is well below the national average and the average caseload per caseworker has significantly decreased,'' Department of Human Resources Commissioner B.J. Walker said in a news release in response to the report. ``These aren't just figures on a piece of paper these are achievements that have enhanced the lives of Georgia's children.''

That report used 28 outcomes to measure the DHR's Division of Family and Children Services' performance on things like keeping foster children in safe settings and placing them in permanent homes quickly from July 1 through Dec. 31. The report says DFCS' overall performance was the best measured in the consent decree's six reporting periods.

``The state continued to be successful in relatively quickly returning recently removed children to their families or finding them new, permanent families,'' read a copy of the report provided to The Associated Press by a DHR spokeswoman. ``With the Period VI performance, 62 percent of the children entering custody since the consent decree had, by the end of December 2008, exited to reunification or to another family-connected permanency.''

The monitoring is the result of a 2002 class action lawsuit.

Children's Rights, a New York-based advocacy group, filed the original challenge in 2002, claiming that Georgia's child protection agencies were overburdened and mismanaged. The group contended that children languished for months in dangerous shelters, and others were living in dirty and overcrowded conditions.

Officials settled the court case in 2005, agreeing to monitoring and periodic progress reports.

Friday's report showed the number of children achieving permanency after an episode in foster care improved, with the rate of re-entry into foster care within 12 months standing at 6.5 percent. That surpassed the performance threshold of 8.6 percent for the first time.

``The progress highlighted in this report is really encouraging,'' Ira Lustbader, associate director of Children's Rights, said Friday.

``Are there still real problems in the system? Sure there are,'' he said. ``But we'll continue to meet and put pressure on state officials to address them.''

The nonprofit recently accused DFCS of contempt of court for not finding homes for 500 children who have been in foster care for three years or more.

In December, Atlanta U.S. District Judge Marvin Shoob ordered child welfare officials to do a better job of finding permanent homes for those children, some of whom are older or have emotional problems.

DFCS has to establish a special unit to coordinate efforts for intensive individual reviews and strategies to find the children permanent homes.

The report said state officials could improve the number of caseloads per case manager, the timeliness of permanency hearings and the monitoring of maltreatment reports in DFCS-supervised foster homes.

On the Net:

Children's Rights: www.childrensrights.org/

Georgia DFACS: http://dfcs.dhr.georgia.gov/portal/site/DHR-DFCS/

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)