County Has Shortage of Foster Homes for Children in Need

Ventura County is in dire need of more foster parents, county officials say.

“We’ve had as many as 345 licensed foster homes and now we’re down to 310,” said Douglas Miller, deputy director of the county’s Public Social Services Agency and head of the agency’s Children’s Services Division. “It’s a significant drop from last year.”

The shortage may partly reflect the poor economy, he said, because some families have moved out of the area to find work while others have stopped taking in foster children because they are working extra jobs to make ends meet.

And of the existing foster homes, a third of the families are licensed only to care for a particular child, frequently the son or daughter of a friend or neighbor, Miller said.

The lack of foster families puts more children in limbo, living on a day-to-day basis in homes licensed as emergency shelters as they wait for more placements. Not all foster homes take children on an emergency basis.

“On any given day of the week, there are probably 25 to 30 children in shelter status,” Miller said.

The greatest need is for families who are willing to take in children 11 years old and up, he said.

County officials also hope to recruit more Spanish-speaking and African-American foster parents.

For more information, call Diana Caskey, the county’s foster-home recruitment specialist, at 654-3450.