After being a foster parent for a while I have had the pleasure (and pain) of being educated in our judicial system with respect to family law. I am no expert by far but after sitting through a number of court sessions for my kids, I at least have a better understanding than your average person. To say that I am completely unimpressed with it, is an understatement. The system is broken at best and isn't protecting the children it is designed to look out for.
The truth of the matter is that children go in and out of care. They are tossed between parents that haven't adequately gotten their issues worked out and rotating foster families. They are put into situations that may not truly be safe for them. They are moved around causing even more emotional trauma. They are at the mercy of court decisions that to outsiders would seem not to be in the best interest of a child. Children die in care and at the hands of their parents every year. These children are silent sufferers and most of our average citizens have no idea what is going on in their own back yards until a headline hits the papers. With the exception of the Marcus Fisel case that raised some awareness, people don't educate themselves with the plight of our youngest and most venerable citizens. I would venture to guess that the average person know more about homelessness than about children in foster care.
The problem is multifaceted. Not only are the children not being helped because the foster system is broken but there are also fewer resources being pumped into the system and no one trying to fix it. There are fewer social workers, there are fewer lawyers and there are fewer resources to put toward foster care. In a time of great economic crisis where the need in the community has become greater, more and more money is being pulled from the budget. Our own county now has to rely on private agencies to administer foster care. Social workers to handle these cases are being laid off, while the number of children coming into the system is doubling. More kids are being sent back to parents who aren't ready to receive them in order to relieve the economic stress. Also, the current laws still don't favor children's rights, they favor parental rights. Bottom-line, you have a lot going on with little being done about it.
If it were up to me there would be a complete overhall and this is what I would do. We would put more money into the system rather than continue to take money out. We would use programs that assist social workers and help retain the good ones. It would allow us to get rid of the bad social workers because the need wouldn't be so great. I also would want more programs that aim to find more and better foster parents. Finally, we would generate more awareness in the community that foster care and foster kids are important and are worthy of our support.
Most importantly, I would also look at the current laws. Though it is true that you can stop a parent from being a bad parent. Everyone deserves the right to mess up their kids so to speak. We do howeveer, seem to err on the side of the parents rights rather than children's rights. No one wants to take away children for no apparent reason or because we believe that some people make better parents than others. We still shouldn't be able to allow children to go home to doubious situations. The line of what makes a parent a bad parent enough to have their child taken away is so thin and so extreme that only those who may actually kill their children lose them. If they are just a little banged up and we don't have copious amounts of prove of exactly the parent that did it, children stay put. Also, we have no problem giving children to relatives who may not be able to keep them safe either. I was in once case where the background check on a girlfriend hadn't even been complete yet when they were handing a child to his biological son. It begs the question, why take a child away at all?
One of our biggest flaw is that we rarely, truly rehabilitate and educate parents. We need to work more with biological parents. Additionally, Parents should truly have to prove that they recognize the issues in their home and prove they have plans in place so that the same issues will not re-occur. However, we need to be sure we are giving the parents the resourcse and training to do this. Even though parents get a service plan. Often they are flawed and get little appropriate follow up.
Also, we need to look at and encourage the law to not always err on the side of the easiest thing to do. Often judges and prosecuters will send children home to environments they know probably won't be safe because they live in fear of law suits and appeals. If they don't have a rock-solid black and white case they find themselves just sending kids back whether parents are ready to take on that responsibility or not.
There also needs to be better monitoring of foster homes. There also needs to be marketing and support for getting and retaining more good foster parents. There seems to be a huge difference between the good and the bad foster homes; what makes the difference is the motivation. Some are doing this because they want to make money by taking in as many children as possible. Then there are others like ourselves who want to potentially adopt so we take very good care of the children we get in because eventually they may be our own. There are some good christian folks that do this because they feel called to do it. Also there are grandparents whose children have all grown up that do this. We need to encourage the folks that want to do this because they want to help the children and discourage the people who do this for money.
The first thing would be to cap the number of children a home can take to discourage those who do this for the money. Better to have more homes but with fewer children in them. They would need a special license if they take more than the cap and it's only for the purpose of keeping an entire large family together. They couldn't have more than that family and would also have to be at a certain income so the money they get for it is a nice bonus but not needed to support the family.
The real kicker for me is that every week when I drive past our Job and Family Services building I see right next door the new casino that is going up. It is good to know where our money is being spent. *said in a sarcastic tone of voice*. Honestly, I don't blame JFS. I have had the priviledge of working with some of the better socialworkers and GAL's I know they are working with the very limited amount of resources they have. I just really wish that in the city I live in, they got far more support because if they got support our children would get support. Let's serve the children!
Monday, July 30, 2012
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
