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Sorry if that sounds blunt and suspicious. :grin: I am a short term foster mother in Europe and I am trying to understand the US system. I have read anything from "they make too much money, which makes some people mistreat the children" to "the money is not even enough to cover the child's expenses."
Where I live, short term foster parents make a real salary, a small one -but enough- for taking care of one child, 2 times the same amount for caring for two, and so on. I used to say that I would keep fostering even if there was no salary, assuming I had enough money to survive, but really only meant the part of loving and caring for the child. When a social worker makes decisions that I cannot agree with, or something else happens that hurts the child, I often think that there is no way I would keep fostering if it was not, at the same time, my job.
In my country almost no family could afford to have one parent home basically doing full time volunteer work, so this is the only way the system could work. Yet, if I understand correctly, some stated only give the foster parents about 300 dollars per month for the child's expenses. Have I misunderstood? Are there really thousands of basically voluteer foster parents in the US?
Where I live, short term foster parents make a real salary, a small one -but enough- for taking care of one child, 2 times the same amount for caring for two, and so on. I used to say that I would keep fostering even if there was no salary, assuming I had enough money to survive, but really only meant the part of loving and caring for the child. When a social worker makes decisions that I cannot agree with, or something else happens that hurts the child, I often think that there is no way I would keep fostering if it was not, at the same time, my job.
In my country almost no family could afford to have one parent home basically doing full time volunteer work, so this is the only way the system could work. Yet, if I understand correctly, some stated only give the foster parents about 300 dollars per month for the child's expenses. Have I misunderstood? Are there really thousands of basically voluteer foster parents in the US?