At the first foster/adoptive parent information meeting of 2007 at the Saratoga County Children’s Services office, no one showed up.
The gatherings, which serve to inform, encourage and recruit new foster parents, are held monthly, and children’s services caseworkers are hoping word spreads that more people are needed to open their doors and hearts to kids in need, and in particular, teenagers.
In Saratoga County, more families want babies or toddlers, said Christine McNall, a caseworker at the Saratoga County Department of Social Services (DSS), children’s services division.
`We have just 60 foster families in the county, and 75 percent want young kids. We have a very difficult time placing older children.`
Kids in crisis
Children of all ages enter county foster care systems after being removed from their homes by authorities, typically following a call by police to a domestic violence or abuse situation. Caseworkers are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and calls come even in the middle of the night. Many children are taken from their homes immediately.
`If there is a danger to the child to remain in the home, a caseworker removes them that night,` said McNall. `They try to pack up at least a change of clothes and the kids’ schoolbooks, but often they arrive with only the clothing on their backs.`
Whether the children arrive in the night or by daytime, caseworkers must place them in a safe place before the end of the day. They then begin the arduous task of phoning every family on their list and asking them to take in the child, even on an emergency short-term basis. Siblings must be kept together.
At the Albany County Department of Children and Families, program coordinators rely on about six families willing to take in children on an emergency basis.
`We have a core group that will take in a child within an hour, but we are constantly recruiting,` said Barbara Lynch, Foster Homes and Adoption Supervisor for Albany County.
The emergency placements can last up to 90 days as the children are transitioned into a home where they can stay up to 12 months. If there isn’t a family willing to take in the child or children, caseworkers have no choice but to send them to a group home, such as Northeast Parent and Child facilities, or Parson’s Therapeutic Foster Care.
`We’re sometimes forced to send teenagers to institutional settings even if they don’t need that level of care,` said Lynch. `This is by far the greatest need.`
Unfortunately, most kids entering foster homes must change schools due to their change of address.
Lynch said caseworkers are seeing an upswing in `kinship` foster care, in which another family member takes in the child or siblings.
`We always look first to kids’ relatives, and if someone comes forward that would provide a good home for the child, we can expedite a speedy placement,` said Lynch. `We check everything ` fingerprints, references, and a new law passed in January requires us to do background checks on the New York state level and with the FBI.`
Providing foster care in hopes of adopting
The issue of foster parenting being a pre-adoptive stage continues to be a thorny one.
`We have a lot of young couples who are unable to have their own children, and want to adopt sometime in the future,` said McNall. `It’s important for people to know we’re not an adoption agency. We accept that couples may be looking for this, but we still encourage them to take in an older child. They learn they can parent this child; it’s not as hard as it seems.`
Lynch said she agrees.
`Foster family agencies are not a back door to adoption,` said Lynch. `People also need to remember adoption isn’t a ‘magic wand.’ Even if they are adopted, the children will still have the transition issues.`
However, foster parents are given first preference to legally adopt the child who has been in their home for 12 consecutive months. Under the New York State Family Court Act, the courts can file a termination of birth parents’ rights, but these cases are rare, and few adoptions actually result from foster care.
`Most foster children never become available for adoption, because the ultimate goal is to return them to their homes,` said McNall. `The birth parents receive parenting classes or rehabilitation such as drug or alcohol counseling. There are regular bi-weekly visits, supervised by the caseworker. In the past, children remained in the foster care system for years; that’s no longer the case.`
`We believe people can change,` said Lynch. `There is a court-ordered service plan for each child, and we must make what’s called ‘diligent efforts’ to birth families to give them all the services we have available for a minimum of 12 months. The cases also remain open for monitoring and preventative measures.`
Becoming a foster family
State laws require each home be certified before a child is placed.
Certification gives the number, age and gender of the children the foster family may receive, and must be updated annually. State and Social Services regulations require the following:
Each foster parent must be over the age of 21.
Each member of the household must be in good physical and mental health.
The family must be self-supporting apart from payment made for the room and board of the child. Foster moms may work outside the home, but child care and supervision must be suitable during the day.
Marital status is not a factor unless it affects the ability to provide adequate care for the foster child. Single foster parents are permitted.
References will be checked for fitness as parents.
Homes must be in good condition presenting no hazards to health or safety of the child, including working smoke detectors and a fire extinguisher in the home.
Each foster child must have a separate crib or bed. There are other specific rules for sleeping arrangements based on the child’s age and gender.
New foster parents must attend an orientation session, pre-certification training classes, and do home study. In Albany County, training is done for 10 weeks for a total of 30 hours.
Once certified, foster parents aren’t asked to shoulder all the needs of the child on their own. Caseworkers help the child with any intensive care needed, such as counseling and medical care, and also visit the family regularly to check in on everyone’s adjustment to the new addition.
Foster families are also asked to keep details about their new child confidential.
`On some occasions, we know little or nothing about a child placed in foster care in an emergency,` said McNall. `What we do know is that every child needs a safe, warm, loving environment.`
Costs of caring for a foster child
The reality is, expenses incurred with raising any child are enormous. Foster parents are given a stipend per child to cover room and board as well as incidentals, including school supplies and haircuts.
Monthly payments range from $12 per day for kids up to age 5, to $34 per day for children with exceptional needs. Foster kids are given Medicaid coverage for dental and doctor visits, and clothing needs are provided by the agency at the time a child enters the foster home.
Once they have a basic wardrobe, a clothing allowance is sent three times a year to replace worn or outgrown clothes and shoes.
Far above and beyond providing the basic essentials needed to survive, foster families can be the first step in helping a child thrive.
`What could be more important than having an impact on a child that will last a lifetime?` said Lynch.
`The biggest requirement for foster families is that they can take a child into their home and treat them as their own,` said McNall. `Each foster family or set of foster parents have their own reasons for welcoming a child in need of shelter. We’re just so thankful they do.`
For information about foster parenting in Saratoga County, call the Children’s Services office at 884-4157. In Albany County, contact the Adoption and Foster Home Unit at 447-7515.
SIDEBAR: Eight is not enough
Saratoga woman opens her heart and home to adopted and foster children
By WILLIAM R. DEVOE, Spotlight Staff
Maureen Smith-Boxley is never out of diapers.
For nearly two decades, the Saratoga woman has been a foster parent to dozens of children.
Smith-Boxley became a foster parent 18 years ago, when the former pediatric nurse was caring for an infant boy at Albany Medical Center.
`I cared for him for over a year, and I fell in love with him,` she said. Knowing that the boy was not returning to his birth parents after he was released from the hospital, she decided to become his foster parent.
The boy, Jordan, now 18, became the first of many. Smith-Boxley has been a foster parent to many children over the past 20 years, and has adopted eight of them, Jordan included. Her adopted children range in age from 4 to 18, but she continues to provide a foster home for newborns.
Presently, she has a five-week-old girl in her home, waiting for her adoptive parents to finalize their paperwork.
`I always have an infant in the house,` she said. `I’m never without diapers.`
In a house that already has eight kids in it, the coming and going of foster children can create some problems, but not in the way you’d think.
`They want to keep all of them,` she said. `Everyone is sad when it comes time for one my foster care infants to go. Luckily, we have the gift of having the space and the time,` said the now stay-at-home mother. `We’ve been very fortunate.`
When it comes time for a foster child to leave her care, Smith-Boxley said she eases the emotional separation with this simple rationale: `We have eight, they have none. It’s their time to have a family.`
As for her own family, Smith-Boxley maintains an honest, positive approach to who her children are and where they came from.
`They’ve always known that they were adopted,` she said. `We read books about adoption, we discuss it. I believe that the children can only accept the truth.`
Smith-Boxley adopted all eight children before marrying her husband four years ago.
`It shows what kind of person I am,` she joked. `I mean, I’m such a good person, he took the kids, too.`
She said she will encourage her own children to reunite with their birth parents.
`For me, honestly, one of my goals is to bring the whole system full circle.`
The foster care system faces serious challenges in the 21st century, Smith-Boxley said. Major social problems such as high rates of child and family poverty, homelessness, unemployment, and substance abuse have a harmful effect on families and can have a direct impact on child well-being and the child welfare system.
Many children Smith-Boxley has come into contact with as a foster parent have had some sort of learning disability as a result of a drug- or alcohol- abusing birth parent.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services document, Rethinking Child Welfare Practice Under the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997: A Resource Guide,
`These factors have contributed to the development of large caseloads of families that have multiple and complex needs. The child welfare system must respond to these needs, while protecting the rights of children and families and ensuring the safety of children.`
Smith-Boxley isn’t waiting for the child welfare system.
`You have to find your own support,` she said. `And you have to have outside support.`
For Smith-Boxley, that support is in the form of her sister, who although she is a foster parent herself, can put Smith-Boxley’s problems in perspective because she’s outside of her foster family.
To help cope with some of the complexities that come with having eight adopted children and a foster child ` all from various backgrounds ` Smith-Boxley said she keeps her attitude positive at all times, especially when it comes to discussing the children’s birth parents.
`I don’t bring the negative into the situation at all,` she said. `We never say anything negative about their birth parents, even with an infant.`
Sometimes that’s difficult, she said, because birth parents usually have a hostile and apprehensive attitude toward having their child in foster care.
`When there is a child in foster care,` Smith-Boxley said, `the birth parents sometimes just feel like you have what they want.`
This can lead to confrontations or the questioning of the foster parent’s ability to raise a child. `But you have to put it in perspective. But does it hurt your feelings? You put so much into this, of course it does,` said Smith-Boxley.
But then there are those birth parents that get help as a result of their children going into foster care. Smith-Boxley recalls a story of a woman who lost her infant daughter as a result of a drug problem.
The daughter wound up in Smith-Boxley’s care, and the woman, during one of her weekly visits, told Smith-Boxley that she would do whatever it took to get her daughter back. Smith-Boxley and the woman kept in touch as she went through rehabilitation, and after several months, the daughter went from Smith-Boxley’s home to the care of her birth mother.
`There are a lot of positives in this business,` she said. `It’s those stories that keep you going.`
And for how long will Smith-Boxley keep going? `For a while,` said the 48-year-old. `As long as we’re able to.`
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