How stressed is your foster care system?

[JoyFilled]

I read on here that someone signed up to foster and they waited for 2 months before someone was place with them.

We finished our paper work in the middle of December last year and our home visit was just before Christmas holidays so the social workers would have been told about our place on Jan 7th when they all came back to work. A child was placed with us Jan 9th.

Our system is so over taxed. We are so short foster homes. Many foster homes are overloaded.

What is it like in your area?

[queenjane]

I'm not sure what its like in my area, as i dont really know other foster parents IRL (my agency is 25 miles from me, and i am not that involved with them.) I got my license in Jan., and got my baby in Feb but only because i happened to call them right when they were needing to re-place him in another foster home. I personally dont think they would have called me had i not called at the exact time they were looking.

When i was getting licensed, the licensing worker did not want to license me for the max kids i am allowed (sq ft wise), she said something like she wouldnt do that to my son (fill me up with FKs)...i can technically have two additional kids in his room, plus one infant in mine. She only licensed me for one. That was a provisional license, another worker came out six months later to do my "real" license (good for two years), and was willing to license me for two (but not three.... )...at that time, i increased my ages from 0-4 to 0-10. So that was in July. I have not had one call in three months. In fact, no one has ever called me (as i said, i called *them* to get my foster soon-to-be-adopted son)...when my new-ish foster care worker came out recently, i mentioned i was willing to take at least one more and she said she didnt realize i wanted (or could have) an additional child. She mentioned several kids (all babies, yikes!) that needed to be placed in FHs willing to adopt, and got me all excited at getting another one. A couple weeks later i called again, reminding her that i would also love to foster an older child (such as a school aged boy)....still, nothing.

So, while i suppose there is a great need for homes where i live (i live in a suburb of Detroit), i'm not seeing it personally. FH placements are now supposed to be made by zip code (and there probably arent that many kids coming into care in my city), but i'm not even being considered for kids being moved within my agency, and i know that must happen frequently. So i dont know whats up with that.

Its strange to me, i read of FPs waiting months for their first placement, or for additional placements, then i read of even young babies spending days or weeks in receiving homes/shelters for lack of space in foster homes....i guess it just really varies based upon geographic location.


Katherine

[alicia622]

When we were open for placement the calls seemed to come in waves- we'd get several calls over a period of a week or two and then go months before getting another call. The state has fewer foster homes and less need for them because they are working at finding kinship homes first.

[Momily]

I am not a foster mother but would like to be one. I do know that when I looked into it before every agency I spoke to in my area had specific children in my area that they wanted to speak to me about -- that is young children (I was interested in 0-3) who they did not currently have homes for and for whom they did not anticipate finding homes during the time it would take for me to get liscenced. Based on that, and on other things I hear I have to assume that the system is very stressed.

[canadianchick]

I just went to a training about this a couple weeks ago. When we remove kids, we try to place kids into kinship homes whenever possible. We also talked about the importance of not just filling the slot in a foster home but making sure that the home is a fit for the child.... something that I thinks gets tossed aside at times.

[JoyFilled]

canadianchick - I think they try for kinship first here. And then a good fit. They told them our house was for active boys as we would take them fishing and camping. We have a 7 and 12 year old boy and their little sister. They all came at different times and they didn't want to place the little girl with us because they wanted her with a SAHM. But her placementS fell threw so they placed her with us.

I think they were saying that they need about 10 more homes here to not be overcrowded. And I know a couple of months ago social workers were sleeping in hotels with kids because their were no homes.

[canadianchick]

Originally Posted by JoyFilled

canadianchick - I think they try for kinship first here. And then a good fit. They told them our house was for active boys as we would take them fishing and camping. We have a 7 and 12 year old boy and their little sister. They all came at different times and they didn't want to place the little girl with us because they wanted her with a SAHM. But her placementS fell threw so they placed her with us.

I think they were saying that they need about 10 more homes here to not be overcrowded. And I know a couple of months ago social workers were sleeping in hotels with kids because their were no homes.

I work in the US, not Canada.

[liz-hippymom]

in my area they have lost a ton of money from the whole fdls thing (texas), so they are trying more inhome services and many more "kinship" placements which arnt always the best. they are also mostly placing with cps foster homes instead of private homes, which means my agency is getting like no calls and no babies. our 4 yr old went to a kinship home two days ago (it was a good move) and now the phone is silent. before all this we would get about 3 calls per week.

[Milkymommi]

My paperwork sat on a desk for 4 weeks. I was licensed as foster- adopt since Sept 30.... I'm waiting. I hope I get called soon, Im so ready to hold my baby. I know Im a little different because Im waiting to adopt, not just foster. But in my opinion, with babes coming into foster care, there's always that chance they will go to a birth family member. We were foster parents for 3 years. We had 15 babies. Our first placement was born the day after we were licensed. We had a great worker! This time, our previous worker retired and we have someone new- completely new to our office..... I feel like our baby is coming soon, but then I feel like we may never get a baby with 4 kids already. I really would like Anna to have another adopted sibling.

[azedazobollis]

Ugh. Kristie did not log out on my computer after she came over yesterday. The post above is mine......

My paperwork sat on a desk for 4 weeks. I was licensed as foster- adopt since Sept 30.... I'm waiting. I hope I get called soon, Im so ready to hold my baby. I know Im a little different because Im waiting to adopt, not just foster. But in my opinion, with babes coming into foster care, there's always that chance they will go to a birth family member. We were foster parents for 3 years. We had 15 babies. Our first placement was born the day after we were licensed. We had a great worker! This time, our previous worker retired and we have someone new- completely new to our office..... I feel like our baby is coming soon, but then I feel like we may never get a baby with 4 kids already. I really would like Anna to have another adopted sibling.

[CATPAT30]

yeah many kids placed out of range

We have so few foster homes our soon to be son (kinship care - temporary guardianship until he can go home to family of origin) is 50 minutes away because there were no homes for him here - they are all full. if siblings go into care there are no places for them to stay together.

i've thought about doing foster care as well as adopting and this kin care but right now it is not in us to give kids back to homes that may just abuse them again or neglect them or treat them badly.

[heythere heather]

Originally Posted by canadianchick

I just went to a training about this a couple weeks ago. When we remove kids, we try to place kids into kinship homes whenever possible. We also talked about the importance of not just filling the slot in a foster home but making sure that the home is a fit for the child.... something that I thinks gets tossed aside at times.

That's how they do it here, too.

Even with that, the system is stressed. We had a placement call (we didn't take that one) even before we knew we were licensed. It was a week or so after we sent in our final paperwork. We had 2 placements (we are licensed for 2), and still kept getting calls for more. We decided to stay with one placement (2 newborns are hard!!), and got call after call after call before we finally got on the "hold" list and they stopped calling. If we took ourselves off of hold, I bet we'd have another placement within 2 weeks. And most of the calls i was getting were for newborns.

[griffin2004]

I don't know if our system is stressed or not. In training, they said it was. There is a huge PR campaign going on to recruit more foster parents. But I've been licensed 2 months and haven't had a single call.

[lovinlife1219]

We want to be foster parents. From what I understand, the system here is very stressed. When we were filling out the paperwork, and told them we would foster a child (or 2) aged 3-10, we were told that they had just received 25 children that week that were in that age group that needed placement.
So, so, sad.

We want to foster and help out anyway we can, but they aren't very family friendly, which I don't understand. The classes are twice a week, for four hours a day, and my 1-yr old daughter is still BF'ing a lot (A LOT!) and they said I couldn't bring her and she won't take a bottle for anyone. I asked if I could have DH sit with her in another room and come get me when she was hungry and they said no. I told them that as much as I want to help and be a foster mom, I'm not willing to wean my baby for it. Bummer too, I think we'd be a great foster family. But that is another story, sorry for going off topic!

[DTmama1]

My county is in need of certain type of foster homes. They have said that most of the families they have want the perfect caucasian infant with no special needs. They need famlies for preteens and teens, special needs children, and children of other races.

It took us 2 months to get our first placement, then had 3 in a row separating by a few weeks. After that with one opening we didn't get any calls for almost 6 months. We went up to licensed for 4 instead of 2 and they filled us up pretty quick after that. We had 4 foster kids for a month or so, but after K left we have had an opening for 2 months now with no calls, but we're comfortable with that. We are pretty picky on our remaing spot who we would take due to bedrooms and such. We are only open to a single boy btn age 2 and 8 since the girl's room is full, we already have one 1 year old, and our oldest foster son would definitely thrive most as the oldest in the home.

[Momily]

Originally Posted by lovinlife1219

We want to be foster parents. From what I understand, the system here is very stressed. When we were filling out the paperwork, and told them we would foster a child (or 2) aged 3-10, we were told that they had just received 25 children that week that were in that age group that needed placement.
So, so, sad.

We want to foster and help out anyway we can, but they aren't very family friendly, which I don't understand. The classes are twice a week, for four hours a day, and my 1-yr old daughter is still BF'ing a lot (A LOT!) and they said I couldn't bring her and she won't take a bottle for anyone. I asked if I could have DH sit with her in another room and come get me when she was hungry and they said no. I told them that as much as I want to help and be a foster mom, I'm not willing to wean my baby for it. Bummer too, I think we'd be a great foster family. But that is another story, sorry for going off topic!

That's so sad that being a good mom is what's keeping you from being a foster parent.

However, why can't your DH just take the class? Initially I assumed they needed you to take it together -- but if you think just you taking it while DH stays with the baby is an option -- why not the reverse?

[Polliwog]

I'm sure both of you have to take the classes, at least most states require both parents to be licensed.

I would talk to someone else in their licensing division. I'm sure that there's a way around your challenge.

[mariaz]

Our STATE has a lot of kids but the tri-county area that I work out of has way more homes than children. It's great really but as a foster parent it leaves you feeling like your not doing very much.

[heatherdeg]

We had back to back placements our first year and then took the summer off. We were "open" effective Labor Day and now--nothin'. We had a call, but it fell through. Part of that is that we're only taking newborns through flu season (bs has an immune deficiency and the state just changed to a model where kids are only seen for bruises and scarring coming in--not health).

I also know that many states are moving to a "keep them in the home and supply services" mentality. Partially for budget reasons but partially because it's supposed to serve the family better. I saw an article on it when I had my first placement (May '07-ish).

Add to it that we lost our resource coordinator. If she were still here, I could tell you how taxed we are or aren't because she'd be calling me in desperation if there was truly nowhere else for some of these kids to go and then I'd know they were hurtin'.

We have lots of "I want to adopt a caucasian foster infant with no issues" here, too.

[JoyFilled]

"We have lots of "I want to adopt a caucasian foster infant with no issues" here, too. "

Here for adoption people want a healthy kid under 3.

But I have never heard of a preferance for foster parents. Although we said our house is best for a boy age 6-12 because we can take him camping and fishing etc.