Karen and I have fostered about 40 kids and were at it for about 12 years. We, like many active foster parents eventually suffered from burn-out. We would be back at it again now were it not for health issues, but as those resolve we may start again. We are also adoptive parents and in '96 our family was named as one of the six Outstanding Adoptive/Foster Families in Ohio.....That was nice, but it didn't matter but it was pleasant to be noticed for a good job. Like social workers, there are far too few foster parents and the best work hard at it and many of them, like Karen and I, burnout.
The foster parents that rarely do well are the ones who believe that love and/or a better home environment with more $$$ will conquer all. Most kids in the system want to go home, even when the home is abusive/filthy/etc.,etc. We loved our kids and some we were sorry to see move on.....others, well, it was party time. I was a foster parent trainer doing training in FDAS and Attachment Disorders, a subject we were all too familiar with. I say all this to offer up that I do know of what I speak and I have put my money where my mouth is.
Foster parents undergo background screening and checks that include things most of us would not normally agree to. We have days and days of initial training and are required 12-36 hours a year to retain a license. All of this can vary from state to state and from agency to agency so some people slip through the cracks....a sad and many times tragic thing. But I never knew people in charge of foster care programs who didn't try to do all within their means to insure good homes/parents.
In my first post I sarcastically suggested that we license biological parents, but were it in my power I would do so. While no amount of testing, screening, and training, would make everyone a competent parent of any sort, the real problems start at the level of the biologic family. Yet our laws still include (even after great changes/advances made in recent years regarding the best interest of the child) lines like, "Parents are entitled to their children as they are their other property." Other property.......Kids and dishware are equals in every state! Isn't that nice now? Christalmighty............
Sadly, it does seem to take an entire village to raise a child but it wouldn't if so many in the village weren't assholes. Ask any social worker though....A great foster placement will not harm a child will it? They will tell you that even if they remove a child for the best of reasons including physical safety, damage is done as soon as the child goes into care. They are now different and we are a herd species. One of our kids was told they could not date a classmate because the clasmate's parent said no....they were a "foster kid." Ain't that some crappola?
But knowing that we try to do our best for the children in care and that means trying to find the best possible home the first time. Kids who move between homes do worse....statistical fact. The real questions are can the home provide the structure and understanding (and discipline and love) for that particular child. And now you come to that point where you do the best with what you have. Sometimes that means a home that is not perfect. But no one that I have ever known places kids in situations where they think the odds for failure are high (forget about abuse)......The best interest of the child is first. For awhile we operated an emergency home to have kids for a few days until the best possible placemment was made.
Sorry.....I'm off topic here.................But this entire topic is ridiculous. We don't have enough foster families. We don't have enough minority foster families of any sort We don't have enough adoptive families of any sort. What we do have are kids in trouble and in danger and laws that still remain archaic at best. We have a social service system that is overloaded and underfunded and a jackass in Washington who knows zip about it. At the state and municipal level we have some good people but still too many local judges and other politicos interpreting what they think is in the best interest. Most of them have never seen the trenches from the trench level and are of no real help.........four juvenile judges in my county, only one worth a damn.
Gay/Striaght/African/Asian/Indian/Blue Eyed/Brown Eyed........I don't care. Can they do the job?