A Broken System
The foster care system is broken, and I can illustrate why using a restaurant-based metaphor. (I’ve been binge-watching “The Bear,” so bear with me.) I just purchased a fancy restaurant. It came fully staffed, including fancy chefs and a passionate front of house staff. There are dozens of rules and practices in place to ensure we are in good standing with the state and to ensure the safety of our customers.
In the last few years, our customer base has grown significantly, but our staff and budget have not. We’ve tried desperately to upkeep our usual practices, but things are starting to slip through the cracks. Executive chefs were overburdened and underpaid, resulting in several of them moving on to different restaurants. The kitchen manager is fed up with the inexperienced and undriven line cooks who took their place. The sous chef is also acting as a waiter because the latest hire didn’t show up for work. Unable to pay our high-end vendors, we were forced to purchase cheaper, questionable ingredients. The restaurant, to put it bluntly, is failing, and the customers are suffering the consequences.
The rules that our government created were designed to ensure the safety of the children within the foster system. No one is arguing that certain practices should be upheld to guarantee a thriving system. The issue comes down to availability and cost. In a perfect world, each employee within the foster care system would play key role in the safety, timely, and permanent placement of all fostered children. Sadly, there are not enough people to upkeep the practices, so everyone is reaping the consequences, especially the children.
The Different Roles
We’re the foster parents! Our role is to provide a safe and temporary home for a child who’s been removed from their home. Most of the children have experienced trauma consisting of abuse and/or neglect. Our goal is to support the child’s reunification with their biological parents, or whatever the plan the court and permanency planning social worker established.
A permanency planning social worker readies our foster children for long term placement while they’re outside of their home. They assess the needs of our children and their biological families, develop a permanency plan, and implement strategies to support this reunification. They visit us monthly to check on the child. They’re also in communication with the biological family and act as a liaison.
Licensing social workers (LCSW) educate, license, and support us (the foster parents). Our licensing social workers are located at the HOPE Resource Center. They visit monthly to check on us. The HOPE Resource Center supervisor visits us bimonthly to conduct parental exercises that benefit our long-term health.
An investigation, assessment, and treatment (IA&T) social worker ensures the safety of each foster child in compliance with the state and federal statues regarding CPS/DSS. They conduct assessments based on reports of actual or suspected neglect, abuse, and dependency. This includes a thorough investigation of the biological family’s home.
A guardian ad litem (GAL) is a volunteer advocate who is appointed by the court to represent the best interest of each foster child. They visit us monthly to check on the wellbeing of each child and take notes for the upcoming court case.
There’s the in-home social worker. Only one of our foster children had an in-home social worker assigned to him, and no, she didn’t actually live in our home. I’m still not sure what her job entailed, but she encouraged us to be very hands-off. She seemed to have the same responsibilities as any permanency planning social worker, but she micromanaged every parental decision. For example, she would not allow us to sign any school or doctor form. We were not free to practice any form of prudent parenting, a term that means “free to make educated decisions as the child’s guardian.” According to her, she was essentially the end-all-be-all, and we were just a place for the child to stay. I still can’t decide if that was her job or just her personality.
Other roles you might encounter: Healthcare Manager/ Community Health Worker, Links professional, DSS lawyer, and Judge.
Final Thoughts
In a perfect world, foster children would immediately be matched with an ideal parent, someone whose experience and interests align with their own. Sadly, even our local DSS (Craven County) has over 150 foster children in the system, but we are one of only 16 foster couples. This leads to parental overwhelm, disruptions, behaviors, and more.
Social workers are supposed to be capped at 15 cases per person. However, many of our social workers are juggling 20+ cases. Our needs are sometimes left unmet. We are forced to “figure it out” or “make it work” because social workers are burdened by other responsibilities.
Most lawyers cannot paint a full or accurate picture of a foster child’s circumstances to the judge. The pitch is always rushed due to the number of cases that must be painted. This leaves the children, the biological parents, and the foster parents in a never-ending world of limbo. How is anyone supposed to create a feeling of permanence, normalcy, consistency, or trust?
My role (the foster parent role) is seemingly the most important, but the system does not give us much validity. Some employers within the foster care system consider us “glorified babysitters.”
Instead of being helpful, the foster care system is flawed, full of barriers and burdens, and harmful.
Help the children. Support the system. ↓
Become a Foster Parent
Learn more about foster care and the unique roles you can play in the foster care system.
National: National Foster Parent Association
North Carolina: Foster Care | NCDHHS
Craven County/ New Bern: HOPE Family Resource Center | 252-636-6472