Foster Care Support Group
Foster care is a system by which a certified, stand-in parent(s) cares for minor children or young peoples who have been removed from their birth parents or other custodial adults by state authority. Responsibility for the young person is assumed by the relevant governmental authority and a placement with another family found.
I wrote this letter to two of my state representatives hoping to shed light on how broken the foster care system is. I realize that not everyone will agree with my opinions of the system, I did this based on my personal experiences. I do believe the system is broken and that something needs to be done soon so these children get the help they so richly deserve. Anyways, here is the letter:
I would like to voice concerns regarding the foster care system in Calcasieu Parish, although I believe the issues are state perhaps even country wide. As a foster parent I can tell you, the system is broken. The workers are overburdened which leads to burn out. This is turn leads to multiple case workers on one case, this causes several issues due to new case workers having less familiarity to a case. This makes it difficult on DCFS, on the foster parents, on the courts and most of all on the foster children. The high rate of turnover means that communication is disrupted, familiarity is thrown out the door and uncertainty is a constant. It also means wasted court time due to needed continuances to allow new case workers to get familiar with new cases.
The rotating door of workers is caused by a severe overloading of cases per worker. Our first worker had over 30 cases she had to try and keep up with. Thirty!! That means she had to try and plan 30 visits per month, go to court for anything regarding the 30 cases and answer calls from 30 foster parents with questions. Our current worker is lucky, she only has 24. Because of this high rate of cases things get overlooked, communication between worker and foster parents falls apart, this leads to animosity between both parties. It also means that less experienced workers are thrown into the fire much quicker and burn out much sooner. Good people with good intentions are being buried under an avalanche of cases that no single person can handle.
Foster parents in general seem to have two choices: fight against everyone to get the help they feel their foster child needs or just go along with things to get a paycheck. We chose the former and seem to constantly be vilified by DCFS. Who do you think knows what the foster child needs the most, the guardians who are with them 24/7 or the workers who may see them once a month? This is why there is such a high percentage of foster parents that give up and quit. We as foster parents open up our home and heart to these children yet we are at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to decisions regarding our placements. We have fought for the last year to make sure our foster (soon to be adopted) son got the help (medical and therapy) that he needed. We have done everything we could to do whats right for him, whats best for him. So why are we having to fight to get this done? Why are we villainized by DCFS because we wont bend to fit some preconceived mold they want us to fit? Why are we expected to make everything easier for everyone else when everything is made more difficult for us? Mostly though I wonder, why isnt something being done to keep the good foster parents from quitting? I wont pretend to speak for all or even most of foster care parents, I will only speak for myself here, I am tired of having to fight for things that shouldnt even be argued over. This last year has beat us up emotional and psychologically to the point where this will likely be our last time adopting from the foster care system.
These children need someone to be the voice that shouts to get this system fixed. My voice alone isnt strong enough to get anything done, yours might be. All I ask is that you look into the foster care system, talk with people involved in it and come to your own conclusion. I have no doubt that you will see that it is a noble system but a broken one as well. People always say that children are our future, please help these foster children to have a future. These arent bad kids they are just kids from a bad situation. They are all capable of great things but are being derailed by a flawed system that holds many of them back. Will you be the voice of these children? Will you be the one that helps them to have the future they deserve? I hope so, I will continue to yell as loud as I can but the more voices that are heard the better.
Thanks for your time and hopefully your support!
I would like to voice concerns regarding the foster care system in Calcasieu Parish, although I believe the issues are state perhaps even country wide. As a foster parent I can tell you, the system is broken. The workers are overburdened which leads to burn out. This is turn leads to multiple case workers on one case, this causes several issues due to new case workers having less familiarity to a case. This makes it difficult on DCFS, on the foster parents, on the courts and most of all on the foster children. The high rate of turnover means that communication is disrupted, familiarity is thrown out the door and uncertainty is a constant. It also means wasted court time due to needed continuances to allow new case workers to get familiar with new cases.
The rotating door of workers is caused by a severe overloading of cases per worker. Our first worker had over 30 cases she had to try and keep up with. Thirty!! That means she had to try and plan 30 visits per month, go to court for anything regarding the 30 cases and answer calls from 30 foster parents with questions. Our current worker is lucky, she only has 24. Because of this high rate of cases things get overlooked, communication between worker and foster parents falls apart, this leads to animosity between both parties. It also means that less experienced workers are thrown into the fire much quicker and burn out much sooner. Good people with good intentions are being buried under an avalanche of cases that no single person can handle.
Foster parents in general seem to have two choices: fight against everyone to get the help they feel their foster child needs or just go along with things to get a paycheck. We chose the former and seem to constantly be vilified by DCFS. Who do you think knows what the foster child needs the most, the guardians who are with them 24/7 or the workers who may see them once a month? This is why there is such a high percentage of foster parents that give up and quit. We as foster parents open up our home and heart to these children yet we are at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to decisions regarding our placements. We have fought for the last year to make sure our foster (soon to be adopted) son got the help (medical and therapy) that he needed. We have done everything we could to do whats right for him, whats best for him. So why are we having to fight to get this done? Why are we villainized by DCFS because we wont bend to fit some preconceived mold they want us to fit? Why are we expected to make everything easier for everyone else when everything is made more difficult for us? Mostly though I wonder, why isnt something being done to keep the good foster parents from quitting? I wont pretend to speak for all or even most of foster care parents, I will only speak for myself here, I am tired of having to fight for things that shouldnt even be argued over. This last year has beat us up emotional and psychologically to the point where this will likely be our last time adopting from the foster care system.
These children need someone to be the voice that shouts to get this system fixed. My voice alone isnt strong enough to get anything done, yours might be. All I ask is that you look into the foster care system, talk with people involved in it and come to your own conclusion. I have no doubt that you will see that it is a noble system but a broken one as well. People always say that children are our future, please help these foster children to have a future. These arent bad kids they are just kids from a bad situation. They are all capable of great things but are being derailed by a flawed system that holds many of them back. Will you be the voice of these children? Will you be the one that helps them to have the future they deserve? I hope so, I will continue to yell as loud as I can but the more voices that are heard the better.
Thanks for your time and hopefully your support!
ren0318
AGREE! We are in Ohio and my husband and I just went through our pre service classes to become foster parents, however we are not sure we want to even go through with it, from what we can tell the system is MAJOR broken! My husband said after our last class that we too should write to our senator and tell them the same thing!
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