America’s Foster Care Crisis: The Shortage of Foster Parents for Children in Crisis
The nation’s foster care system faces a crisis in regards to lack of foster homes and foster families.
“Right now we have more children than we do foster parents. It’s definitely at a level where I would consider it an actual crisis.”
Braley and Thompson Foster Care and Adoption Center program manager Tina Gray- Russell is concerned about the foster care system in West Virginia. In this state, alone, there are thousands of children in need of homes than there are foster families. The state is struggling in both recruiting and retaining foster parents.
Yet, West Virginia is not alone. The nation’s foster care system faces a crisis in regards to lack of foster homes and foster families. In Idaho, some children in foster care are staying in hotel rooms due to a lack of available foster homes, according to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. (IDHW). “There is a decrease of available services in our community to help meet the needs of children and help support parents,” said IDHW’s Julie Sevcik.
Texas has been struggling for years with finding foster care homes. In 2021, more than 100 children in the state’s foster care system were sent out of the state, many to Michigan, due to lack of foster care families. North Carolina also struggles with a lack of homes. “There’s so many kids that are going through these conflicts, and sometimes they can’t be taken out of the toxic household because we just don’t have the space,” stated Perla Canela, who works with the non profit group Unete. In California, the shortage is so severe that some children have been sleeping on top of conference room tables, desks pulled together, and on mats on the floor. Ohio also is facing a lack of homes. Jamie Horey, a supervisor for the Stark County Job and Family Services’ Division of Children Services stated that “a lot of kids (are) needing a place to sleep and a place to stay, and the homes we do have are getting full.”
Thousands of children are placed into foster care due to reasons of poverty and neglect.
The shortage of foster homes across the nation can in part be attributed to the increase of children being placed into care. In some parts of the nation, there has been a sudden and large increase of children placed into care due much in part of an increase in parental drug usage and substance abuse, with Heroin use being the chief drug increasing among parents. Other substance abuse among parents include meth, cocaine and prescription medication abuse. In addition, thousands of children are placed into foster care due to reasons of poverty and neglect.
Other areas of the nation face the challenge of both recruiting foster parents and of retention, or of keeping strong foster parents. Indeed, the turnover rate of foster parents ranges from 30% to 50%. Thus, 30% to 50% of foster parents make the decision to no longer be a foster parent home for children in need. As a result, with the increase in children in foster care paired with the decrease in number of foster parents, the end result is simply that there are not enough homes for children in need to be placed in, or a child is moved from one home to another, and so on and so forth.
Foster care agencies recognize the difficulties that foster families are facing during this time of Covid, and are working hard in finding solutions to help both the foster families and the children placed in the homes.“We are very concerned about our families who don’t have natural supports in place; who perhaps are struggling with substance abuse challenges, domestic violence, mental health issues; who are financially struggling,” said Boston Department of Children and Families employee Adriana Zwick,. “There’s so many things that are coming together at this time that make it difficult.
Recruitment of foster parents continues to be a challenge for many agencies across the nation. Arnold Eby, Executive Director of the National Foster Parent Association (NFPA) states that the “as Covid stretches out, recruitment efforts remain challenging. As a result, retention of existing experienced resource homes become more critical.”
A study by The Foster Care Institute found that foster parent retention suffers from several different factors. To begin with, the majority foster parents taking part in the survey indicated that they were currently or had suffered from feelings of grief and loss. Of this number, half expressed they did not feel supported by their case worker or agency during this time, with only 36 stating that they did feel supported. A minority of foster parents surveyed stated that they felt that they were included in the decision making of the child placed in their home. A percentage of foster parents felt that they did not receive the training they needed each year to be an effective foster parent. Training and resources for foster parent burnout and grief also was lacking, as only 33% felt that they had adequate training in this regard. Furthermore, more than half felt that they wanted to quit being a foster parent at some point, with 19% of these stating that they felt like quitting more than once.
The look of foster care and adoption. The author, Dr. DeGarmo, with his family.
“Recruiting foster parents has become more and more challenging over the years,” said Kim Phagan-Hansel, editor of Fostering Families Today. “Today it’s so much more than taking a child into your home and providing food, shelter and love. There are hefty requirements for foster parents from on-going training to doctor, court and parental visitation appointments, in addition to the day-to-day demands of caring for the child.”
Of the roughly 465,000 children placed into foster care, many children are available for adoption each year. Indeed, 57,881 children and teens were adopted from, according to the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) from 2020. According to Lynn Johnson, former Assistant Secretary, Administration for Children and Families for the United States Department of Health and Human Services, many families that adopt children from the foster care system are no longer available to care for children coming into the system. “In a time when the child welfare system has enhanced efforts for permanency for children who have had their parents’ rights terminated, foster parents are stepping up and becoming the forever, adopted parents. This leaves a continual shortage of foster parents in a system where foster parents are needed to keep a child safe and nurtured.”
America’s foster care system is at a crisis level, as there are not enough foster parents to care for these children in need. If you are interested in becoming a foster parent, contact your local foster care agency or child welfare program where you live.
Dr. John DeGarmo is an international expert in parenting and foster care, and a TEDx Talk presenter. Dr. John and his wife have been foster parents and have had over 60 children come through their home. He is an international consultant to legal firms and foster care agencies, as well as an empowerment and transformational speaker and trainer on many topics about the foster care system. He is the author of several books, includingThe Foster Care Survival Guide, and writes for several publications. Dr. John has appeared on CNN HLN, Good Morning, America, ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, and elsewhere, He and his wife have received many awards, including the Good Morning America Ultimate Hero Award. He can be contacted at drjohndegarmo@gmail, through his Facebook page, Dr. John DeGarmo, or at The Foster Care Institute.
