What changes would you make to the Foster Care System? ?

wifeandmom

1) make it harder to be a foster parent- to many still get through that should never get to
2) if a child is abused we need to do a better job of helping the family. many things can increased the chance of abuse. We need to help families to decrease those
3) have places like we have here in my area where children can be dropped off if the family is getting overwhlelmed and needing a break.
4) pay the workers better so they will stay
5) have their cases be lower so they don't loss children or get burnt out.
6)If a parent is not going to get their life together in 6 months that child needs to be put up for adoption. Children should not have to sit in foster care for years waiting for their family to get their life put together
7) the family needs someone on their side and helps them to keep up with everything they need to do to get their children back
8) The children needs to have a good relationship with their family. Visits in the agency office are jokes. Who wants to be in a cracker box with broken toys. Then add on the stress of the family to be perfect. We need to have visits at parks, skating rinks, McDonalds, baseball games, and things parents do in real life with their children. Parents need a chance to relax and talk with their children. No writing on paper while the parent is trying their best to do a good job.
9)Make the waiting rooms feel welcoming and not like you are trash. No one in this world wants to sit somewhere and feel like they are dirt on someones feet
10) mostly think of the parents as humans who made a mistake or two. Not everyone is perfect but does that mean that the parent cannot love their child. Drugs and alcohol are hard to break.
11) Give foster parents credit for doing something most of the workers would never do. They get mad because we ask for resources but they are not the ones with the little devil in their house. HAHa
12) Everyone needs to know that they are there to make a child's life better. Everyone focuses on the parents so much but the child is who they are working for. Give them credit for making it this far and respect that they hate everyone of us. I would if I was them.

Pirate Girls Kick Butt!

Don't even get me started.....
.... but one thing to add about yours ideas, the case loads would be 15-20; even 30 is too many to meet with each month and do all the other things they are responsible for.

<-Social worker... without enough time to answer this Q with a dignified and honest answer. Gotta get back to the paper work...Ugh!

Looney Tunes

1) Ensure that children are not moved from home to home. Every move puts a child ~6 months behind in school and crushes their self-esteem.

2) Provide the services the children need, especially mental health. Don't just drug them, but provide therapy to deal with the pain and trauma of past abuse and neglect.

3) Provide better training and education to foster parents, so they know how to handle issues that arise from children who were abused and neglected. If the foster parents are better prepared, the children won't be moved around as much.

4) Provide services to older foster kids, so that when they age-out, they are prepared to goto college, or trade school, or get a job. Provide them a monthly stipend and healthcare until they get on their feet if they are going to school or working. Don't just kick them out at age 18.

5) Ensure that each child has a worker that is going to stick around for awhile. The workers need more pay and there needs to be more of them so their caseloads are less.

6) GET every foster kid a MENTOR. In some cases, mentors have really changed the lives of kids. Something like a Big Brother/Big Sister program for foster kids.

Mom to Foster Children

Better wages for Case Workers
Less case loads
Mandatory meetings with GAL's
Reunification not lasting 5 years
More services for the children (before and after) if necessary
More screening for adoptive parents
More funding spent on finding more adoptive parents
Better training for foster parents / adoptive parents

Lost in Space

Here is the problem with foster care. The foster parents providing the care, are sometimes no better than the home they took the child from in the first place. So, as I agree with all of those things you have mentioned, I believe that the child advocate, should be a third party, neither biological parent, foster parent, nor case worker. Here is what I would add.

1) Weekly visits with the foster child, privately, so that they can be open and honest about the care they are receiving in foster care.

2) Monthly home visits, where the case worker monitors foster child, foster parent interaction.

3) Training for the case worker, to be able to see things, that aren't being displayed openly, i.e., tension between caregiver and child etc.

4) I think all children should be interviewed in each home, somewhere they can feel safe to tell the truth about what happens in the house when no one is watching, and if there is any evidence of abuse (mental, physical, emotional), an investigation should be started.

rosieposiepocket

Yeah...how about making sure these case workers actually SEE the children! Most dont. Do you know how many deaths and serious injuries have happenned because the caseworker didn't bother to keep her appointment....over and over agian. Or how about qualified foster homes....... I was in over 8 foster homes before I was even 8. Guess how many of those were just as abusive and neglectful as my mother??? Try 6 of them! 6 out of 8!!! Sometimes I wonder which did me more harm...being shuffled from home to home where nobody loved me and severley abused me...or staying with my mother who made very bad decisions due to mental and drug reasons., who at least loved me.

Natalie with two more on the way

This is about the social care system in Britain not america by the way, but I used to be a social worker with children. We might get a call from the RSPCA, the animal rescuers, telling us they were removing an animal from a household with children. Six months later in most cases we would be removing the children. What gets me there is that the system is so inefficient, so complicated that it almost seems like the government care more for the dogs than they do children- and I agree it's because of the case load. I've left now- the attitude of people and the things I saw over four years was enough- but the fact is there are children being abused in housings that care workers go into, they see the abuse- like the little boy recently murdered who was seen 60 times by care workers- 60 times.

That actually makes me feel angry.

Jennifer L

I think they need to increase the pay of the Case Workers. Right now, they barely make a livable wage, let alone compensation for the enormity and responsibility of their job. I also think that case workers should be required to hold a higher degree. This goes part and parcel with the increased pay rate.

The Foster Care system needs more people with the education and experience to do the job properly, not just warm bodies that are doing their time until they can find something better. The rate of compensation needs to be high enough to attract these people and keep them.

prettyeyez0724

i would change the qualifications for people being able to adopt or open a home for children . i don't think they do an extensive enough background checks on their children. and i also think once the children are placed their they should be see every month . i personally was in foster care and my case manger only came to see me like every 3 months and at that i sometimes had a new case worker and i dint know it . its really rough in the foster care system however it had its perks once i turned 18 i had a free college education . but i went through a lot to receive that .

Miss Park â™¥ 13/01/09 â™¥

I really like your rules. My mom adopted my best friend when i was younger, and all the time she lived with us ( 3/4 years ) she saw her case worker about 2/3 times and did absolutely nothing for her. My mom didn't even get any money for her, not that she cared it just would of made it a bit easier x

mom of 4

I agree with the changes you would make but I would add more, I am a relative placement care giver that is in the process of adopting. My biggest complaint about the system is they don't consider the child or adoptive parent schedule when they plan visits and so forth. I have 3 bio children that are school age and they have the 16 month old attending visits with natural parents at 6:30 to 7:30 at night. The visits are 45 mins away from my house and the baby goes to bed at 8. I personally think they should take in consideration the baby schedule. I just feel like they cater to the natural parents even with the likelihood of adoption. I also think if there is a court order they should comply all the time even if it means rearranging their work schedule to do so.

Lilac (6 weeks to go!)

Make a caseworker stay with the case. We have been in foster care for 2 years and I can't even tell you how many different workers we have had. Thank God that my foster dads keep up with it all, because I can't!

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