Plan Would Pay Foster Parents to Find Others

Faced with a shortage of licensed foster parents, the county’s Human Services Agency is pitching a plan that would pay foster parents to recruit new ones.

The finder’s-fee strategy, part of a broad recruitment effort, would award $200 to foster parents for each parent they bring into the system. Half the money would be paid to the finder when his or her recruit is licensed and the other half paid after the recruit accepts a foster child.

The recruiting effort also would include television, radio and newspaper announcements urging adults to become licensed as foster parents, and a push to get state lawmakers to increase the monthly allowances foster parents are paid.

Social workers hope the plan could lead to the licensing of 25 new foster families per year. Since 1991, the number of licensed foster homes has dropped from 363 to 152, while the number of children in the system has slowly increased.

There are about 700 children in the county’s foster-care system.

Overall, the agency says its campaign will cost $5,000--a drop in the bucket considering the agency spent nearly $1.9 million on foster care in December alone.

Before the agency can launch its plan, four of five members of the Board of Supervisors must sign off on it. The super-majority is required because the proposal is considered a budget increase, even though the funding would come from a special pot of state grant money, not the county’s general fund. Board members are expected to consider it Tuesday.

In a letter urging support of the concepts, Human Services Agency Director Barbara Fitzgerald told supervisors that paying a finder’s fee could actually save money. Her reasoning: Many foster children who don’t need special supervision are now sent to specialized homes simply because there are no regular foster parents available to take them. Those special placements cost the county two to 10 times as much per child as a standard placement.

On Friday, the county’s foster care programs director, Diana Caskey, spent hours finding a foster home for a young boy. There were only 18 foster parents countywide who had room in their homes for another child. The list quickly grew shorter. One parent was on vacation. Several wanted only girls or infants.

“We don’t have the luxury of finding the best place for a child, [a place] that can offer them what they really need, the kind of home that maybe has the same ethnic background or other kids of the same age,” Caskey said. “Literally, we’re trying to find a vacant bed for a child. That’s the state of affairs we’re in.”

Caskey said the number of available homes has dwindled in part because there are fewer stay-at-home parents, and in part because the monthly allowances foster parents receive per child--which range from $393 to $553, depending on the child’s age--are not enough to cover costs.

Children stay in foster homes anywhere from a few days to a year, Caskey said. They have often been abused and neglected and sometimes come from homes in which parents were violent or abused drugs or alcohol.

Becoming a licensed foster parent typically takes three to four months. Four mandatory training classes are free, as is the criminal background check and fingerprinting required of all applicants. Would-be foster parents must cover the cost of a required health exam. The next training orientation is scheduled for Feb. 17. For more information, call Caskey at 654-3450.