Foster Parents Provide Valuable Service

Kids need a safe place to live. Unfortunately, not all homes are safe nor are all parents responsible. There are more and more children with unmet needs. When parents aren’t willing or are unable to meet these needs, foster care is an important facet of care to meet those needs. The need for emergency and treatment foster care is far outstripping the available homes.

Children need foster care for many reasons, including various forms of abuse, neglect and deprivation. These children are innocent victims of circumstances over which they have no control.

One of the emerging forces behind the need for foster homes is methamphetamine abuse. In North Dakota, the percentage of children entering foster care due to meth abuse has risen to almost 25 percent. The current pool of foster homes are not sufficient to meet the need. More volunteers are needed to give this valuable service to children while their parents go through treatment, find jobs, secure housing and straighten out their lives. With daycare services, school, and after school programs, both parents can maintain jobs and still do foster care.

An average stay in treatment foster care is about 10 months. An emergency placement could be for a night, a weekend or it could stretch into several months. All placements go through the court and to homes which are appropriately licensed. Children who are placed have their, medical and dental expenses and possibly daycare covered.

Becoming a foster parent. Foster homes are licensed after appropriate screening, checking with references and background investigations.

A typical training program might consist of nine evening sessions or two weekends. Parents who go through training quickly find out whether they are suited to becoming foster parents. Additional education expectations may include CPR, first aid, crisis intervention, fire safety and medication monitoring.

In addition all foster parents are provided with a counselor who acts as a liaison and advocate with the courts, schools, parents, and healthcare. The counselor also visits regularly with the foster parents and children about the placement.

Foster parents also have ongoing monthly support and educational experiences with other foster parents. There are requirements for ongoing continuing education. Foster parents provide respite care for each other. Effort is made to get children used to a particular respite home.

Current foster parents make the best recruiters. They are also good mentors to the newcomers. Great effort is also targeted to retain existing foster homes.

Matching children and foster parents. In treatment foster care, there are several factors in matching homes and children. This often includes gender, ages of children, blending with biological children, background, preferences, skills and interests of the parents, and the needs of children. Siblings may be placed together. Parents are encouraged to have a narrow focus on what kind of match will work for them.

Parents learn as they go. With time they become more confident and expand their perspective and comfort zone on who they are best able to help.

Being a foster parent is doable. Foster parents talk about flexibility, patience, a willingness to build relationships, and adapting to children as much as they adapt to homes they are placed in. Parents learn what the children need. There is a steep learning curve within the first days of days of placement. Everyone is different.

For the younger ones, it may be as simple as feeding them, playing with them and hugging them. It may include diapers, sleep deprivation, lots of running for appointments and after school activities, plus getting them used to meals and the routine of the home.

For older children, they are dealing with the unknown. Their trust level in adults to meet their needs may be low. They can be set in their ways. They may be grieving the loss of connection with their parents. Forming a new relationship bond with foster parents is unpredictable. Some children arrive with a hard shell around their inner feelings.

A few basic ground rules are established and more are added as time passes. Foster parents and children meet in the middle and adapt to each other. Siblings are placed together and have their own dynamics.

Rewards are plentiful. One foster parent I interviewed stated, "This is the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done." The idea of giving children a positive experience, a bond of connection however short term or long lasting it might be, a few baby steps toward a better life, or a 180 degree turnaround is indeed rewarding.

Connections may also be made with the parents, many of whom are in their late teens and early twenties. In some cases, these bonds formed with children and their parents extend for months and years beyond the foster care experience. They become a part of the family. Adoption is not uncommon, though never an expectation.

Some partings are not easy. There is heartache in watching children go back to an environment that is filled with struggle and pain. Loving and serving children also means grief and loss when they are gone. Foster parents experience this but also move on and are busy and involved with the next children in their lives.

Thanks goes to Chris Martin MSSW, LICSW of PATH, North Dakota for allowing me to interview some special foster parents and to learn more about foster parenting. For more information, contact your local foster parent association.