Foster Homes

In the case of adult foster care, the homes serve to provide care for special needs individuals whose families are unable to provide the type of extended care necessary for them. Foster homes were designed to be nurturing, warm and conducive to making a resident feel at home. Set up under state guidelines, care givers are required to take courses which qualify them to operate these facilities.

In some states there are licensed and unlicensed homes. Licensed homes can provide 24 hour care to its residents. Unlicensed homes may care for residents who do not need 24 hour care. In all cases, there are limits as to the number of clients each home can serve at any given time.

The question comes whether or not foster homes have always been the most ideal placement for abused or neglected children or youth? When a grandmother tells you her infant grandson was killed in a foster home, when stories of rape, near starvation, and inhumane punishments surface to destroy your confidence in foster homes, it makes one wonder if the checks and balances on these homes are effective, or even being done.

We all know of foster homes which actually do a top notch job. This is probably the case in most instances. The residents are happy and well cared for. I maintain, however, in the case of children and youth, and especially youth, there is always that ever pressing concern for their biological parents, no matter how poorly they previously performed their parental duties. The desire to know and be with those parents is intense. There is within each person a desire to know who their parents are, and to have a relationship with those parents no matter what. In many cases, this intense tug in the hearts of the residents make it difficult for foster parents to fully fill the gap that resides in the children and youth.

More detrimental is the shifting of foster children from home to home. One of my friends said he lived in sixteen such homes. I could see that he was alive, but I always wondered about the emotional damage that was done. Later, as I watched his conduct, I could see that indeed damage had been done, although he attained a certain normalcy in his way of living. I have known of others, too, who have come out of the foster home setting impaired. There are secrets they never share with others. There are peculiar behaviors which can be picked up as you see these individuals functioning in life. There is, in some cases, evidence of a lack of stability, suppressed anger, spontaneous decision making, and sometimes an embedded naivety, or on the other hand, a complete lack of trust, stealing, hoarding, or promiscuity.

As time moves on, it is apparent that state and national budgetary restraints will be inevitable. Many states will cut back on foster care facilities and homes. Some foresee the future with the reinvention of orphanages. These facilities will actually be institutions where the abused, neglected and disabled will live. Personally, I hope we never arrive at that point. I do, however, trust that the present system will receive more monitoring, so that all foster children will grow up and be able to function in a normal way, unimpaired, without hate, and knowing that they are loved and capable of loving.