This is a continuing series on Foster Care as I complete my training to become a certified therapeutic foster parent. For more information on foster care or to read more about my journey, please stop by my blog on foster care and parenting My Chosen Children.

One of the considerations in deciding to do foster care is economic, just as it should be when considering whether or not to have your own children.  The economics of foster care can be drastically different than raising your own children though.  There are many different things to take under consideration.

Unfortunately, even though there is a  stipend paid for taking in foster children, it is not enough to make traditional foster care in most states a career or even a good part time income.  According to CASA,  the National average foster care stipend is $329 and the average family spends $574 per month to maintain a 2 yr old child.  Stipends vary by states from $161 to $588 with the difference being made up by the foster family.  Therapeutic Foster Care stipends are usually higher to cover the additional time and expense involved with caring for these children.

I found it interesting that most foster homes fall into the low and low middle income levels.  I have read the statistic in a number of places but no one really explains why it is that people in those income brackets are more willing to take on the financial responsibility of a foster child.

I personally believe that it is a combination of things.  People in those income brackets are used to raising children on a budget.  They have found that the emotional benefits of being in a family environment do not depend on having the latest fashion or fad toy.  They have learned to live within a budget that is often smaller than the national average.

Frankly, I am torn between thinking that foster parents should be compensated for the time and expense of caring for a child and not wanting to see people drawn into it solely for the financial benefit.  Thankfully, there are laws in place now that make the old image of people taking on countless foster children with little care given to them obsolete.  There are limits on the number of foster children a family can take and there is ongoing training involved in most states.  There are also ongoing inspections from DSS as well as  homestudies to make sure that the environment is a safe and loving one.

I think there is a delicate balance between being adequate compensation and being a financial windfall.   People who are committed to caring for a foster child should not be forced to stop because of the cost involved.  When a child arrives with only the clothes on their backs and health issues from neglect or abuse, the decision to take that child in should not depend on whether the foster family can afford to make up the difference.

There are several ways that you can help.  You can become informed about current legislation and lend support by writing letters to legislators.  Most states have a state foster care association which will provide both the information and sample letters.

You can donate to those same associations which usually also provide support to foster children and families.  You can donate to the National Foster Parent Association which supports foster families and also lobbies for foster care improvements on both a national and state level.

You can call your local Department of Social Services and donate goods to foster children and their families especially during the holidays when foster families are faced with providing not only day to day living expenses but also gifts.

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May is National Foster Care month.  I have been doing some research on different ways that people can help foster kids if they can’t or don’t want to become a foster parent.   I found a great little resource for financial education.   The Annie E Casey Foundation publishes several workbooks to teach foster children about personal finance.

What is the way that most of us learned about personal finance?  Our earliest education was from our parents and watching how they handled money.  In many cases, foster children have not had this opportunity or if they did, it was not necessarily a good example.  Foster families may not share their own finances with foster kids; many families don’t share theirs with their biological children.

The workbooks that the Foundation offers are written for kids aged 8 -15. and they do a great job of introducing GOOD personal finance to children.  Teaching by example, each concept has a story that introduces it and the exercises expand on that concept.

Some of the chapters and subtitles in the workbook for 11-15 year olds are

• What’s the Latitude of My Money Attitude
• I Thought My Wants Were Needs
• I Never Knew I Leaked Money
• Why Not Just Use a Check Cashing Store?

As you can see, the topics are presented with a sense of humor and it covers topics that might be particular to young adults who do not have a family to turn to for advice once they reach independence. The workbooks are one of the best tools for teaching personal finance to youth that I have run across.

Now to the unfortunate part of the story, although these books are offered free to foster families, many do not take advantage of it, do not know about them  or do not have the financial aptitude to really guide their foster children.  There are also many foster children who are not in a foster home and may not have an opportunity to learn either by example or from the books.

National Foster Care month is about showing people that they can help to Change A Lifetime even if they don’t become a foster parent.  There are many ways to help but I’d like to throw out a challenge.  Do you have an extra hour or two in your life to help to change a lifetime?  Why not call your local Department of Social Services and volunteer to give a workshop on personal finance for foster teens?

I would also like to take a moment to introduce my new website.  I have found that getting involved in foster care again has stirred more questions and opportunities for writing than I want to include here so I have started My Chosen Children which will explore some of the issues and questions about Foster Care. I hope you will stop by and take a look.

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by tenshi_cr

This is an ongoing weekly series as I complete the training and approval process for therapeutic foster care. I am by no means an expert and laws differ by state. The series is written in response to the questions that I am asking myself as I go through the process and I hope it might be helpful to others who are considering foster care.

Most of the people who are in my class are answering an ad in the newspaper. These ads are usually run by private foster care agencies that focus primarily on therapeutic foster care or foster to adoption programs. If you are considering becoming a foster parent, it is important that you understand the different types of foster care along with the different challenges they each present and take some time to consider which might be right for your family.

These are presented in the approximate order that a child would be going through them. Keep in mind that depending on the individual situation, any of these steps might be skipped, rearranged or happen multiple times.

• Emergency Foster care is usually the initial step in a child’s journey. This would be a temporary placement for a shorter period of time while the child’s situation is being evaluated by the court system and a more permanent placement is found. Some foster parents choose to only do emergency placements and some work them in with other types of placements. Children entering foster care need a place where they can feel safe and cared for when they are scared, hurt and homesick. To find out more about emergency foster care, contact your local department of social services (DSS).

• Kinship Foster care is the preferred placement for most children. This is where the foster child is placed with a relative. This is preferred because it maintains the family ties and keeps the child within their own heritage and culture. Sometimes this is the first placement if there is family member who is close enough and stable enough to take on the child. If a child in your extended family is being placed into foster care, you may be asked to foster them or you may want to volunteer.

• Traditional Foster care is where most children end up if their goal is reunification with their parents or family and their behavior is such that they fit somewhat easily into a family environment. Traditional foster care is meant to be a temporary situation, however, temporary can still mean years. Children in traditional foster care usually do not require extensive treatment or therapy and finding a stable and caring foster home can help prevent those challenges from ever occurring. If you are considering foster care, you will want to check the rates that your state pays as well as the requirements for a foster home. Be prepared to have a home study, background investigation and finger print check depending on your state and local requirements. Training can vary from none to the full 40 – 50 hour training class. Contact your local DSS for more information.

• Foster to Adoption placements happen when the parents rights are being terminated or given up. This can happen anywhere along the timeline and the best case for the child is to go as quickly as possible into a permanent home. Families who are looking to adopt often take children who are currently in the foster system but are likely to be available for adoption. This type of placement limits the number of transitions that a child will have to go through before finding a forever family. The home study for a foster to adoption placement is usually more intense than for fostering. In my state you have to go through orientation, training, credit checks, background investigation, health evaluations, etc. Foster to Adoption placements can happen either through a private agency or through your local DSS.

• Residential care or a group home can be chosen for many reasons. Often there is no traditional foster home available and children are placed into residential or group homes until a traditional placement can be found for them. They may also be placed in residential care if they have emotional, mental or developmental challenges that require more intensive therapy to overcome. The goal is almost always to move these children on to a traditional or therapeutic foster home or to adoption.

• Therapeutic or Treatment Foster parents are families who have gone through extensive training on dealing with the emotional, developmental and physical challenges of some foster children. Foster children who are in therapeutic care are usually older preteen children, teenage children and children with some type of challenge. Therapeutic foster parents in my state have to undergo training, background investigation, health evaluation, fingerprint checks for any adults living in the household. The stipend is roughly twice as much as for traditional fostering, however, there is much more time invested in traveling to different appointments, working through issues with schools, therapists, doctors appointments, ongoing training, etc. Again, this can be done through a private agency or through your local DSS.

While I am going through training for therapeutic foster care, I am still considering which type of care might be the best choice for me. I find that my prior experience as well as the excellent training I am going through is causing me to question where I will be the most successful and taking a more realistic look at what my challenges will be. Next week’s post will be on questions to ask yourself when considering whether becoming a foster parent is right for you.

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If you watch NBC, you will have seen the Wednesday’s Child segments they do on children in foster care who are available to be adopted. Most of these children are preteens and teens who have been in ‘the system’ for years. In a lot of cases these children have been in multiple foster homes. It’s not unusual for a child who goes into foster care at an early age to have been in more than 10 different homes by the time they are 12 or 13.

Love Hurts

Imagine for a moment that you were taken away from everything and everyone you knew and plunked down into a strange place with strange people. No matter how bad it was at home, you want your mother and father. You think it is your fault that your parents abused or neglected you; they must have done it because you were naughty or demanding or ugly. The new people try to help you but for one reason or another it doesn’t work out and you are moved to another home or maybe you get to go back to your family for awhile but then things go south and you are back in foster care again.

Just as you start to care about your new foster family and get adjusted to new schedules, schools, rules and family, you are moved someplace else. It is hard not to blame yourself as children often take on the blame for the adult’s issues. Your self esteem drops a little bit more and you are a bit more hesitant to let anyone close to you.

These children go through more trauma in their short lives than most of us do in a lifetime. They are battered and bruised emotionally and mentally even by those with the best of intentions. By the time they end up in therapeutic foster care, they are afraid to trust and love because they have learned the hard way that love hurts.

Treatment or Therapeutic Foster Care

I am going into foster care with a private agency that transitions emotionally disturbed or physically handicapped children from a group home to therapeutic foster care and then to either adoption or possibly back to their families if they don’t age out of foster care first. These are usually kids who are from 12 to 18 years of age.

To become a therapeutic or treatment foster parent, you have to go through extensive training to be certified plus a home study. By the time I am done with the initial training, it will be about 43 hours of classroom study. They spend a lot of time going over things from the child’s point of view and what these kids go through.

Attachment

Last week our class centered on attachment disorders and what causes them. Picture for a moment a newborn baby. The baby cries and Mom or Dad rush to pick it up. They cuddle it, change it or feed it. They smile while they feed it and the baby spends hours staring into it’s parents eyes. The baby learns to trust that it’s needs will be met. It’s called bonding and it’s very important to a baby’s development.

In a home where there is trouble, the baby cries and the parents may not come right away. For whatever reason, they don’t meet the babies’ needs. They prop a bottle on a pillow instead of holding it and bonding. The baby never learns to trust that someone is going to take care of them. Instead of trust they feel rage and that they need to take care of themselves. As they get older they learn that sometimes the world is a hurtful place and they might learn not to venture out to quickly.

Even those of us who have had a good and loving home and had parents who met every need, may have had a bad relationship in our adult lives that made us cautious about opening our hearts to another person. Breakups hurt. It’s hard to let someone get close again for awhile because you are afraid of getting hurt again.

Children in the foster care system have often had break up after break up after break up. They want to love and to be loved but they are afraid to try. As they feel themselves getting closer to you, they start to push away or test you. They don’t know how to deal with the fear or the feelings and it’s up to the foster parent to teach them how to cope.

The following excerpt is from Multiple Transitions: A Young Child’s Point of View on Foster Care and Adoption.

“I want to talk to you about what it feels like getting ready to be adopted, when you are a little kid who has already had about a hundred mothers. When you can barely remember what your first mother smelled like. When everyone spoke a different language in the place where you were born than in the place you are now. When some of the people who took care of you were called “foster parents” and you didn’t know what that meant except something about they weren’t going to stick around.

When, in the process of being moved all over the place, you lost some of your brothers and your sisters and a particular pair of shoes that felt just right and your absolutely most favorite cuddly, and a certain place on the inside of your last crib where you used to scratch with your fingernail to help yourself go to sleep.”

If you are feeling brave, read the entire presentation. Our class listened to it being read by small children. It is heart breaking to think what these kids go through.

I will be doing a weekly article on Foster Care as I go through training. If you would like to learn more about foster to adoption, therapeutic foster care or even traditional foster care, I invite you to check out these links:

Child Welfare/Foster Care Statistics

Foster Care and Adoption Blogs

Foster Parenting

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