The Foster Parents Also Need Care

Faced with dwindling numbers of foster parents to meet a growing demand for their services, local and state agencies nationwide are coming up with new programs to ease the financial and emotional strains of the job.

Focusing on getting children out of group homes and institutions and into their communities, the programs promise to give officials tools they need to bolster the ranks of foster parents.

“It’s one of those things that can’t be solved just by doing a better recruitment campaign,” said John Mattingly, a senior associate with the Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore, a national children’s welfare research and funding group.

“If they still treat foster parents as if they were paid help and not really partners in the work, you’ll still have a problem,” Mattingly said.

The number of children placed in foster homes nationwide, and particularly in California, has nearly doubled in 15 years, but the corps of foster parents volunteering to take them on has dwindled, he said.

California accounted for one-fifth of the 500,000 children in foster care nationwide in 1997, the latest year for which figures are available, according to the Casey Foundation.

“Every research study has [found] that the [government] agencies have been unable to provide the training and the support that the families need to take care of the youngsters, many of whom have special needs,” Mattingly said.

Foster parents need financial aid, response from government bureaucracies, crisis resources and respect, said Carole Shauffer, director of the Youth Law Center in San Francisco.

County and other local agencies are eager to provide needed support and attract more foster parents.

Orange County recently allocated funds to reimburse foster parents for child care, provide occasional relief from the rigors of the work and send in helpers on a spot basis for anything from tutoring to transportation to the doctor’s office.

Los Angeles County has found homes for some of its hardest-to-place kids by calling on churches in a program that has attracted national attention. San Diego County is mining untapped groups to find potential foster parents and is operating the Options for Recovery program, which helps foster parents caring for drug-exposed or HIV-infected babies.

“What we’re trying to do is come up with a whole set of practices that will enhance the care of children,” said Michael Riley, director of Orange County’s Children and Family Services Department. “We should be more [focused on] family needs by developing more resources in the community that would help support foster parents.”

Orange County studied how Cleveland and Cincinnati used the Family-to-Family Initiative, which was designed by the Casey Foundation to focus more on neighborhood-based foster homes and less on institutional care. The program aims at reducing disruptions in children’s lives by trying to place them in homes from their original community and keep them in the same school district.

“Once you’re able to get that network [of foster parents and community resources] in place, there’s a much more robust and functioning [foster care system],” Mattingly said.

The two Ohio cities, which have a history of removing large numbers of children from their homes, have significantly increased the number of foster homes and moved more children out of institutions since they embraced the initiative in 1993.

Los Angeles County received a Family-to-Family Initiative grant in 1996. A pilot project in Pacoima proved successful, and officials are expanding the program countywide.

Orange County is overseeing an average of 5,054 children a month. The average caseload 14 years ago was 2,173 children a month.

About 1,850 children are in foster homes, according to a recent count. About 2,400 more are supervised in their own homes or in relatives’ homes, and the rest--about 800--are in county group homes and institutions.

“If we had a larger pool of foster parents, it would open up more opportunities for kids [now in private or county group homes] to be placed,” Riley said.

More foster parents also are needed because some foster parents have preferences, limiting the children they take by, for instance, sex, age, race or religion, he said.

The county could not provide numbers showing the decline in foster homes over the years, but Riley said he expects to lose 140 homes in the county this year, mainly because families adopt their foster children, their circumstances change or they move.

Riley wants to add 200 county-licensed foster homes. Both the county and 32 privately run social services companies hired by the county are searching for those willing to become foster parents.

Statewide, the problem is just as exasperating. There are nearly 10 foster children for every 1,000 California children--a rate that is 59% higher than the national average, experts say.

Child-care experts point to a number of reasons for the high rate.

“There aren’t many families where there is one person who can stay at home and take care of the children all the time,” Shauffer said. Child-care payments would help two-income families take in foster children, she said.

Bill Grimm of the Youth Law Center said California statistics are dominated by Los Angeles, which he estimated had more than half the state’s foster children.

In addition, he said, California has a lower threshold than some states have for deciding when to remove children from their parents. “In some states, unless there is a broken bone or blood, you don’t end up in foster care,” he said.

Other factors, such as economic conditions, higher substance abuse rates and the longer periods in foster care, also could be pushing California’s numbers up, according to Grimm, the Child Welfare League of America in Washington and Children Now in Oakland.

Nationwide, Riley said, people are becoming more aware of child abuse and are reporting more cases to authorities--and the abuse has become more violent. In addition, parents today are more mobile and less likely to have the family support nearby to help them when problems crop up in the home, he said.

To attract more foster parents, government officials have to understand their burdens better, experts say.

“There are a lot of responsibilities [in] taking foster children into the home,” Riley said. “We are trying to support foster parents so they can focus more on providing love and nurturing for that child.”

Orange County’s Board of Supervisors recently approved two projects to help foster parents--child-care reimbursement and the Options for Recovery program.

Supervisors allocated $500,000 to pay for child care--essentially baby-sitters and day care--to give foster parents with multiple or special-needs children a break from their rigorous duties. The county also is seeking matching state and federal funds.

The county is using $1.3 million in state and federal grants to implement Options for Recovery, a program to recruit, train and provide relief for foster parents of drug-exposed or HIV-infected infants.

“Just to find people who are willing to take these children into their homes is absolutely amazing to me still,” Riley said. “They’re willing to open their arms to these children and take them into their homes and their communities. It behooves us to do everything we can to support them.”

In July, the county will offer family support services to provide parents’ helpers, who could, for example, help with the children’s homework or take them to a doctor’s appointment. The county has allocated $140,000 from the federal Child Welfare Fund for the program.

“We’re happy that Orange County is doing all this,” said Shauffer of the Youth Law Center.

Elsewhere, San Diego County is developing a targeted marketing campaign and seeking foster parents from the ranks of infertility support groups, retirees and, most recently, corporations.

Even if few respond immediately, said Donna Duane, a foster home developer for the county, “we’re planting seeds about the need to nurture and guide these forgotten children.”

In Los Angeles County, a faith-based recruitment program called Home Connection has been successful in finding foster parents for hard-to-place teens, “children who . . . probably have failed many placements,” said Ruby Owens, project manager.

County workers gathered religious leaders and asked them to challenge their congregations to help in the communities’ foster care needs.

Home Connection, which began in 1997, has recruited 280 foster parents so far, 58 of whom have completed all of the licensing and training requirements.

The program tries to get church members who are unable to be foster parents involved in “wrap-around” services, such as child care or tutoring. It also offers psychiatric support for the foster families.

Shauffer said the success of such programs often comes from personal connections between county workers and parents, a connection that is too often lacking.

“Foster parents are not treated with respect. They’re not part of the team,” she said. “As foster parents are treated more professionally and given that kind of psychological and bureaucratic support, not only can [counties] get more foster parents, but they’re able to retain them.”

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How to Become a Foster Parent

Foster Parent applicants can be married or single and any age, gender, handicap or ethnicity. There is no minimum income, though applicants must have an independent means of income other than foster care payments. Other requirements:

* Completion of a licensing application

* Providing personal information, including a fingerprint and criminal records clearance

* Complete medical exam, including TB screening

* Current CPR and first-aid certification

* Twelve hours of specialized training

* A home study and interview by a county licensing worker

For more information, call (714) 704-8704

Source: Orange County Children and Family Services