A Foster Care Solution

Should the US government put more funding into the foster care system or is a reallocation of funds a better solution?

The foster care system is an important system for children with unfit family lives.  There are a variety of reasons that make children need foster care.  There is never a typical foster care case, but as adoption history researcher Professor Ellen Herman said, “kids don’t end up in foster care because they are well cared for.”   According, to the Casey Family Program, “there are over 500,000 children on any given day in America.” With so many children in care, the number of foster homes is too low, and too many existing foster homes are inadequate.  It is indisputable that the foster care system is struggling, which is why it is an issue on the whitehouse.gov website.   The foster care problem is a national problem, but it originates in local communities.  The problem is more concentrated in certain communities and states.  Should the US government put more funding into the foster care system?  Yes, but considering the current economic state of the country, more money isn’t the most viable solution.  There needs to be more local control of the foster care system.

Currently, many laws regarding foster care are the same nation wide, but every foster care situation is different, so this doesn’t make sense.  When dealing with foster care, it would be hard enough making suitable laws for every county, let alone the entire country.  In the fiscal year of 2006, there were an estimated 10,661 children in foster care in Oregon, while Mississippi had an estimated 3,126 children in care.  It is not possible that Oregon and Mississippi would handle such different numbers of children in the same way.  The answer to the issue of sheer numbers is giving states more control of the funds allotted to them. There are countless organizations dedicated to community building within the foster care system.  Some are national organizations, but almost all have local branches dedicated to helping foster families in need.  Some are parent organizations, and some work on the behalf of children.  The overwhelming amount of foster care organizations demonstrates the growing need for local control.

Local control of funds would help the system succeed because the local county headquarters would decide where their community is struggling the most. The major issues in the system are a lack of funding, a lack of foster homes, and a lack of information in communication and training.  However limited the funding may be, it would go a lot further in different communities.  If every county could spend the money how it was most needed, children would benefit.  For example, if foster children in one county were experiencing low graduation rates, an investment in education might be the best way to go about it.  If a different county was experiencing an overcrowding in foster homes, an investment in community outreach might be the best way for the money to be spent.  Since nearly every community across the nation is facing this problem that deals with children (America’s future generation) the national government does need to step up and help find the funds, but communities need to be the ultimate decision makers on where those funds are spent.

Local control is important because it creates a community of people with a common interest, and community is especially important in foster care. Children are placed in foster care because they don’t have anywhere else to go.  Having someone to turn to is important for children in foster care, and a community provides this to foster children.  It could come in the form of a foster home, a consistent caseworker, or CASA advocate.  It is a common complaint that foster children experience too much change once they enter the foster system.  For instance, Jessica Sanders, now 22 and living in Oregon, lived in the foster system for one year in Mississippi.  Before she entered the foster care system, she and her four siblings moved homes nearly every year.  When Jessica was 14 years old she entered the foster care system, and she and her siblings were all split up into different foster homes.  Keep in mind, all five of them experienced neglect and abuse in the overcrowded foster homes they were living in.  The siblings were reunited with their mother once, but this change came too soon.  Within just one month, the children were back in the foster system, all entering new homes yet again. With more caseworkers, volunteers, and foster parents in the county, the Sanders siblings could’ve all been kept together, with one worker who checked up on the mother more often.  In this community, outreach was a major issue.  There weren’t enough people working locally.  At the very least, more local organizations should have been there for the children, acting as an advocate and sense of community for them.

Many foster parents would agree that localizing the control and funds of the foster care system would improve the lives of foster children. One particular foster family, the Iretons, advocate for local control, and they have even lobbied the government for it.  They said that if more local control existed, their family situation could have been much different than it is today.  They had six medically fragile children since the children were infants, but when the kids turned 18, all the laws changed.  They had to choose one of their children to send to live somewhere else because a family can only have five medically fragile adults in one household, regardless of their situation.  If the system was localized and more flexible, the Iretons could have kept all six children in their home, since they had the space in their home and had been living that way for 18 years.  Instead, the Iretons had to send one of their medically fragile children away to a family friend’s home, due to a law created to prevent overcrowding in elderly foster care homes.  Luckily, their daughter doesn’t have to live far from home and comes to visit frequently, but the situation could have turned out better.

The system needs to change.  There are occasional success stories, but these stories usually defy the odds and require extremely dedicated parents.  The government needs to relinquish control of the foster care system and hand it over to the states, and the states to the county.  Every situation is different and every situation has a different solution.  Those solutions would be better assessed in local control. It’s not a matter of money but a matter of who is making the decisions.

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