The foster care system in America continues to be in crisis.
Story after story of children placed into foster care sleeping in hotels in several states, including Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Virginia, Texas and Washington. Some states, like Montana, have sent children placed into foster care to other states.
Indeed, this practice of “hoteling”, or placing children in foster care into temporary housing such as hotels or offices, has increased over the years. This issue of “hoteling” can have tremendous negative impacts on the mental health and well being of a child in foster care. In truth, children enter foster care through no fault of their own and they often suffer from mental health issues, some undiagnosed or caused by the initial separation from their first family.
Yet, the issues that face foster care go far beyond “hoteling”.
Credit: contributed
Credit: contributed
In some parts of the nation, there has been a sudden and large increase of children placed into care due in good part to an increase in parental drug usage and substance abuse, with heroin use being the chief drug increasing among parents. Other substance abuse among parents includes meth, cocaine and prescription medication abuse. In addition, some studies show that up to five million children in the United States experience and/or witness domestic violence each year.
Foster care agencies struggle across the country, as today’s caseworkers are overworked, overwhelmed, underresourced, undersupported and understaffed. In addition, agencies are also challenged with the task of placing children into foster care homes, even though there is a shortage of foster care homes and foster parents.
Recruitment as well as retention, or retaining of good foster parents, has been challenging for many agencies as well. Indeed, the annual turnover rate of foster parents ranges from 30% to 50%. A study by The Foster Care Institute, of which I’m the director, found that foster parent retention suffers from several different factors.
The study indicated that the majority of foster parents either currently, or had previously, suffered from feelings of grief and loss. Of this number, half expressed they did not feel supported by their caseworker or agency during this time, with only 36% stating that they did feel supported. Along with this, about 60% of foster parents felt that they did not receive the training they needed each year to be effective. Furthermore, more than half felt that they wanted to quit being a foster parent at some point, with 19% of these stating that they felt like quitting more than once.
As more and more children and youth are placed into a foster care system that is overwhelmed, many of these children and youth do not get the proper services they need. Issues from anxiety can manifest themselves in a number of ways. Professional therapy and counseling is essential for the well-being of the child, yet many of these children in crisis never receive these services.
As a result, issues of anxiety, anger management and other mental health challenges also rise. So many of today’s foster parents are not properly trained or equipped to help the children placed in their homes or help these children address these issues. Thus, for those foster parents who are simply overwhelmed and overburdened with the anxieties the children face, their own anxiety levels increase, resulting in many foster parents looking for support where there is often none to be given and quitting as a result.
Agencies are also considering the use of kinship care as an alternative to placing a child into a foster care home. Kinship foster care is an out-of-home arrangement for full-time care by relatives, including grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and sometimes even older siblings. There are positive benefits to kinship care, as it allows families to stay together, which can help improve mental health, stability and behavior of a child in crisis.
Funding also needs to be increased as it relates to foster care. To begin with, foster care child welfare workers, or case workers, are underpaid. In the state of Georgia, the average pay for them is $13.63 an hour, which corresponds to many other states. This low wage, coupled with a difficult job that is often overwhelming, leads to a large turnover rate of caseworkers.
Funding also needs to be increased in providing children in care consistent and regular mental health services, professional therapy and counseling. An increase in funding for foster parent support training and support is also imperative in order to help retain foster parents. Also, increased funding needs to be used to help families in crisis before a child is placed into foster care. The cycle of abuse and neglect is often a generational one. For many children, their parents themselves have suffered abuse and trauma in their own lives for which they’ve never received any professional help.
This is not an issue of goods and services. This is an issue that revolves around children in crisis.
If we do not act now, more children will suffer, there will continue to be an increase in the number of children who are suffering, who are in crisis and who are placed into a foster care system that can not properly address it.
Dr. John DeGarmo is founder and director of The Foster Care Institute in Monticello. He and his wife have been foster parents to more than 60 children who have come through their home in Jasper County. He is a consultant to foster care agencies, child welfare organizations, legal firms and a TEDx Talk presenter.
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