Study: Big gaps in foster vs. traditional homes

[flashl]

Children in foster care live in poorer, more crowded and less educated homes than kids in other families, often taking them from one disadvantaged environment into another, new research shows.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation study is the first to analyze 2006 Census Bureau data, the most recent available, for a detailed look at foster parents.

"The gaps were so pervasive," says demographer William O'Hare.

...

Half of foster households have three or more children compared with 21% of all other households with that many. The study also finds foster parents are more likely than others to be unemployed and lack a high school diploma.

...

About 510,000 children were in U.S. foster care in September 2006, the most recent count provided by the Department of Health and Human Services. Of those, 40% were white, 32% black and 19% Hispanic.

O'Hare's study adds a "unique" national perspective to other research showing foster parents are, "in some instances, lower working class," says Fred Wulczyn, research fellow at the University of Chicago's Chapin Hall Center for Children.

USA Today

[wellstone dem]

1. I will be back to post further

but need to run out and don't want to lose the tread on my return. Thanks for posting.

[Old Codger]

2. foster parent here

We have 2 foster children here , I guess we are not typical, we make decent money and both of us have college educations (wife has masters). More foster homes are needed , never enough , that is main reason for the 3 per house hold average . The agency we work with only allow 2 per household.

[flashl]

3. Opening ones home these days seem to be atypical. Thank you. nt

[bobbolink]

4. Thank you, George. Of course there are good foster parents... I know some, also.

But, nevertheless, the overall picture is bleak, and very, very sad.

As people keep telling me about the harsh treatment I receive because I'm homeless, Don't Take It Personally. That article wasn't about you. It's about the kids who are in sorry situations.

[wellstone dem]

5. My daughter was in foster care

before I adopted her.

In addition to having 4 birth children and 2-4 foster kids, the foster mom ran a day care.

When someone once asked her what foster care was like, my daughter said, "It wasn't bad, I just stayed in my room a lot." It was the only place she could find quiet. On the good side, my daughter ended up being a voracious reader as a result.

Early on after we became a family, my daughter started getting up earlier and earlier to watch cartoons. One morning at 4:55 I said, in a voice moderated by lack of sleep, "You can't leave your room before 6:30. My daughter then started to wet the bed. It took several days for me to realize that she thought she couldn't leave the bedroom to go to the bathroom. Apparently that was the rule in the fosterhome which put a pot in her room. But I don't know which foster home instilled this in her.

I called the last foster home once, before she had finally moved in and the answering machine picked up and listed mom and dad and the birth kids, but none of the foster children, although my daughter was at an age where a message could have been left by a friend. (9) She was also referred to as "the foster kid" in school by kids from the day care in the foster home.

On the other hand, this foster family did work hard to support the adoption and continues to have contact with me and my daughter some 10 years later. This is the only continuity my daughter has with her early life. Foster parents kept my daughter safe, while her biological parents did not. It is a flawed system, but one that saves kids lives.

Foster parents can be heroes as they try to provide care and love to kids who have had to develop survival skills including stealing and lying. They support kids who may have mental illness, and related challenging behaviors, resulting from actions of their birth parents. And sometimes hardest of all, foster parents must sometimes watch kids they've loved and supported be returned to birth parents who revert to abusive, neglective behavior.

Also on the other hand, my cousin was a foster mom. I used to get christmas cards with every member of the family listed, parents, permanent kids, foster kids--couldn't tell which was which by how they signed the card. She ended up adopting 4 of the kids.

[flashl]

6. Thank you for opening your home and heart. My hat is off to foster parents.

Today, my greatest concern is a growing McFranchise-like environment with foster children as the commodity. This movement may be a genuine effort to entice interest in foster care, I am jaded enough to see a potential for abuse.

[TexasBushwhacker]

7. Well, this just seems bizarre to me

"Half of foster households have three or more children compared with 21% of all other households with that many."

No shit! Most foster families have kids already. Is that a problem? Do you want MORE foster families that are inexperienced parents or fewer?

"The study also finds foster parents are more likely than others to be unemployed and lack a high school diploma."

Are they being counted as "unemployed" if one parent is a stay-at-home mom/dad? If a family decides to foster children who aren't yet in elementary school and/or children with disabilities, a stay-at-home parent may be what's best for the children?

Also from the article:

"O'Hare finds foster households have a lower average income, $56,364, than do all households with children, $74,301, even though they care for more kids."

Does that $56K include reimbursement from the state for the foster children's care? Because if it doesn't, shouldn't it? In Texas I believe it's around $20 a day, more if they child has special needs. Foster families have to go through training, home visits, etc. to be deemed qualified as foster parents. With the need for foster families being much higher than the number of foster homes available, do we really want to discourage families from fostering children because they don't make "enough" money, according to some arbitrary definition? Yeah, it would be great if families in the highest 20% of American households (making more than $92K per year in 2004) were lining up to be foster parents, but the fact is, THEY AREN'T. So then you have the families in the second 20%, those making $58K to $92K, because according this article, $56K is just too damn low! Bullshit! While I agree that foster families should be financially stable and have a reasonable standard of living, that doesn't mean they have to be upper middle class or higher. The median household income in 2005 was $46K; half the families in the US make higher, half make lower.

I'll assume that the statistics cited in this article are valid, but the fact that 21% of foster families have A parent that doesn't have a high school diploma vs. only 14% of non-foster families is insignificant to me.

In short, I SMELL BULLSHIT!