Marine Homes Open to Foster Care : Agreement Extends County’s Program to Camp Pendleton

Officials with San Diego County’s foster care program are looking for a few good families--and, for the first time, the welcome mat is out for them to recruit parents from the ranks of the Marine Corps at Camp Pendleton.

Until Thursday, the sprawling military base north of Oceanside had been off-limits to the county in its search for foster homes, because of a couple of technicalities.

For starters, civilian non-dependents--in this case, children from non-military families--have been banned from military quarters. Furthermore, there was concern that the stipend that foster parents receive from the county could technically be considered rental income, and federal regulations prohibit military quarters from being sublet by its occupants. Some bureaucrat in Washington might interpret the foster care stipend as just that: income in exchange for private use of military housing.

Both Sides Frustrated

The two stumbling blocks frustrated the county, not only because of a shortage of foster homes in North County but because some of the children who enter the program are from Camp Pendleton families, yet could not be placed with other military families living on the base. Local Marine Corps officials were likewise frustrated.

On Thursday, those concerns were formally set aside in an agreement signed by Brig. Gen. Richard H. Huckaby, the base commander, and Richard Jacobsen, the director of the county’s Department of Social Services, giving the county full access to Camp Pendleton for the first time.

The Marine Corps and the county are now partners in what will become a campaign to actively recruit foster parents on the base.

About 4,600 families live at Camp Pendleton, and Jacobsen said he hopes 50 or more of them will step forward to offer foster homes.

The county has 1,650 foster homes licensed to care for about 5,100 children, about the number now in the system, Jacobsen said.

Although there is no immediate shortage of homes countywide, a disproportionate number are outside North County, and a growing number of children from North County who enter the foster care system are being placed in homes outside the area, Jacobsen said. Among those are children of Marines who are not only placed in civilian neighborhoods--sometimes as far away as the South Bay--but who lose access to Marine Corps benefits, including medical assistance.

Must Report Abuse

There are no figures indicating how many foster children are from Camp Pendleton itself, but, over a 12-month period ended Sept. 30, 280 cases of child abuse or child neglect were investigated at Camp Pendleton, said Lt. Col. Alex Verduci, director of the legal assistance and family service centers at the base.

As are other government employees, Marine Corps officials are required to report cases of possible child abuse to the local office of Child Protective Services.

In some cases, the abusive parent is simply ordered out of the home by military authorities, pending an investigation and corrective measures--a power that civilian law

enforcement agencies don’t wield. In other cases, the children are placed with county foster homes off base.

Under the new agreement, not only will military children be eligible for placement in qualified military family homes, but, if the need exists, other children from North County can be placed in homes on the base, Verduci noted.

He said the transiency of military families is not a significant concern because most foster placements last a year or less, and the foster parents’ current military assignment will be considered before placement is made.

But, if the ultimate reunification of child and parent is unlikely and the foster child and his foster parents have established a good relationship, a Juvenile Court order could keep the child with his military foster parents, even if they are transferred out of state, Verduci and Jacobsen said.

“We’ve had excellent cooperation with the military over the years,” Jacobsen said. “But this agreement goes above and beyond that.”

He said he is particularly excited that the Marine Corps will help actively recruit foster families, not only from on base but from among the 13,000 military families that live off base. Those families previously could qualify as foster homes because their involvement was not compromised by living in base housing, Verduci said.

“But now, since we have a direct link to those families, we can specifically target them as well in our recruiting efforts, which is something we hadn’t done before,” he said.