Dispute Over Need Clouds Foster Children’s Program

The number of children receiving foster care in Orange County increased by nearly 50% in 1984 from the previous year, overloading a program that needs more beds and more adults to care for troubled youngsters, the county grand jury said Wednesday.

However, Sara Walker, the assistant director of the county Social Services Agency, said the number of children in foster homes had remained generally constant over the past few years, adding that she had no idea where the grand jurors obtained their numbers.

Numbers From Agency?

The dispute was not settled when Phyllis R. Drayton, chairman of the five-member subcommittee that investigated the issue for the grand jury, said it was the Social Services Agency that reported the 47% increase from 1983 to 1984. She said much of the jump was probably due to a heightened awareness of child abuse.

The grand jury reported that as of last October, there were 675 licensed foster care homes with a total of 1,107 beds. But as of March, 298 homes, or more than 40%, had left the program.

While some of the dropouts were replaced, the number of foster homes decreased by 70 overall between May of 1984 and last May, Walker said. She agreed that the county could use more foster parents.

But the grand jury said, “The housing of dependent children has reached a crisis stage with more children entering the system and fewer foster homes available for their placement.” The report added:

“Recruiting, supporting and retaining foster homes must be an immediate goal of the Orange County Social Services Agency.”

Foster parents care for children who have been removed from their natural parents, often because they have been physically, emotionally or sexually abused. They are considered dependents of the Juvenile Court and are under the protection of the Social Services Agency.

Foster parents generally care for children placed in their homes for up to 18 months. If the children are not returned to their natural parents by then, they become eligible for adoption in most cases.

Walker said agency budget figures showed the number of children in foster homes and group homes to have been about 1,500 for the past several years. Last July, there were 1,156 in foster homes and 370 in group homes, which provide a higher level of care for handicapped children. Two months ago, the foster home census was 1,077 and the group home count was 325.

Walker said the agency had established a task force that was already working on most of the problems mentioned by the grand jury, including a lack of communication between agency social workers and foster parents, and more training of both.

Agrees With Jury

Tamra Watson of Laguna Niguel, who with her husband, Les, has been a foster parent almost continuously since 1979, agreed with the grand jury’s suggestions.

“We’re really overloaded (with children needing homes) right now,” Watson said, citing a special need for homes “for babies and toddlers.”

Although many people “look at us like a bunch of baby sitters who sit home and eat chocolate or something,” many foster parents take special courses to learn how to handle abused children, Watson pointed out.

Another foster parent, Jane Boehringer of Laguna Hills, said a number of foster parents hold licenses to care for a specific child--often a niece, nephew or grandchild--and are dropped from the program as soon as they relinquish custody of the relative, which would account for some of the decline in the numbers of foster parents.

Boehringer, whose husband, Joseph, is president of the Assn. of Foster Parents of North-Central-South Orange County, said some foster parents also leave the program because of hostility from the child’s natural parents, who blame the foster parents for taking their children.

A more recent problem, Boehringer said, is fear of being accused of molesting a foster child.

“We advise our foster dads not to be near foster daughters if they’re in the bathroom, and not to tuck them in bed at night, just as a preventive thing,” Boehringer said. “It’s a very hard way to live; it’s a very difficult thing to do.”

She said some people decline to become foster parents because of concern that “just one anonymous phone call can call in an investigation.”