Thank you for sharing this. If only it were this easy. I’ve served Foster youth for over 30 years. The reality is that fit and wiling relatives are explored prior to placing children in foster care. Permanency hearings are in place to make continual efforts to find alternatives outside of foster care. Parents are working a case plan when children enter care to work toward reducing the risk and having the necessary skills to parent the child in the home again. The reality is that foster parents are rarely equipped to manage children with high level behaviors and mental health issues. The need to provide services to this population has been in existence since the 1800’s. Institutions in those days were more often informal and without oversight resulting in many practices that were not safe, practical, or evidence based. The formation of licensing facilities and requiring national accreditation ensures that children are getting quality services while in care. The reality is that if children could be maintained safely at home or with extended families, they would not be entering care today. Sadly, family trauma is often multigenerational and leaves few options other than removing the child from the home. We can agree that foster care is not the preferred solution, however it is a system that has been around since the beginning of time. Ensuring that providers have the tools they need to manage these complex issues is money well spent. We miss you here in Georgia. ❤️
Thanks for this. Here is a paper I wrote on the same. It's not published yet but this is almost final. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3436080#:~:text=A%20child's%20enforceable%20constitutional%20right,on%20the%20basis%20of%20an
Thank you for sharing this. If only it were this easy. I’ve served Foster youth for over 30 years. The reality is that fit and wiling relatives are explored prior to placing children in foster care. Permanency hearings are in place to make continual efforts to find alternatives outside of foster care. Parents are working a case plan when children enter care to work toward reducing the risk and having the necessary skills to parent the child in the home again. The reality is that foster parents are rarely equipped to manage children with high level behaviors and mental health issues. The need to provide services to this population has been in existence since the 1800’s. Institutions in those days were more often informal and without oversight resulting in many practices that were not safe, practical, or evidence based. The formation of licensing facilities and requiring national accreditation ensures that children are getting quality services while in care. The reality is that if children could be maintained safely at home or with extended families, they would not be entering care today. Sadly, family trauma is often multigenerational and leaves few options other than removing the child from the home. We can agree that foster care is not the preferred solution, however it is a system that has been around since the beginning of time. Ensuring that providers have the tools they need to manage these complex issues is money well spent. We miss you here in Georgia. ❤️