One of my dear friends asked me what I would change about the foster care system if I had a magic wand. That is a very good question, and a hard one to answer in a blog that may be read by my agency!
If I could *actually* have a magic wand, I would waive it so that no system would be needed at all. Kids could grow up with their parents in safe neighborhoods, with food on the table, a feeling of security, and feeling loved. No racism, no poverty, no hunger, no neglect, no abuse. However, I don’t have that magic of a wand so I’ll tone down my wishing.
The first thing I would change about the foster care system is I would funnel a lot more money into the system and – here’s the key – distribute it carefully. I would raise the rate of pay for ordinary caseworkers, and make it so that the jobs are competitive, and therefore the best of the best can be hired. Right now, those positions are so low paying that they have a hard time filling them and keeping them filled. Public positions tend to pay better than the private agencies around here, but none of them pay really well because they can’t afford to. And we need MORE case workers in our county so desperately it’s crazy.
Being a caseworker is a thankless job. It means signing up for having bio parents mad at you an awful lot because they blame you for their kids being in the system. It means having to deliver a whole lot of hard news to parents who want their kids back. It means having an ability to say it like it is, and take the flack. It means having way more of a caseload than is reasonable, and having to juggle a million pressing responsibilities at one time.
Being a caseworker in my county also currently means working with very outdated technology, which is inexcusable in my book. Caseworkers in my county are still provided with flip phones. Flip phones! In a time when text messages are a good way to communicate with people and keep a recording of transactions, they are stuck pressing a key three times to find the letter that they are looking for. It’s not reasonable or fair to the caseworkers. Money spent on tech could make their jobs easier and more efficient. But there’s no money to be had, especially right now when local governments are drowning because of Covid and lack of federal funds to bail them out.
Being a caseworker also means going into dangerous neighborhoods and seeing heartbreaking things. It means dealing with drug and alcohol addicted parents. It means occasionally feeling like you are not safe. And it means frustration with bureaucracy.
We are with a public agency, and some of these things are different at private agencies. But for our kids, they are stuck with a hierarchy at the agency that is political, and doesn’t always seem to be motivated by the kids’ best interests which is what it should be all about. It’s government, which means that the top people at the agency are political appointees and may not have experience in this field. We’ve gone through several commissioners in the 5 years we’ve been foster parents and at least one of them had no prior experience in the field whatsoever. The rumor is that he was appointed to cut costs in the system. I’m not sure if that’s true or not but if it is, it’s pretty sad.
The rest of the folks at the agency are civil servants, and promotions are often based on performance on civil service exams rather than job performance. That presents its own issues.
I want to be clear, though, that there are some amazing folks at the agency. There are some caseworkers who spend every single day going above and beyond. There are people in management positions who really care about kids and who are in the business for the right reasons. It’s just not universal enough. We have also had a colossally shitty caseworker who had no repercussions for being so spectacularly bad at his job, and that was hard as hell. We’ve had a caseworker who we really liked but who was obviously burned out, and that’s not good either. Getting rid of civil servants is hard and should be easier when they aren’t getting the work done in a quality fashion.
And then there are the foster parents. Oof. I want better foster parents in the system.
There are some amazing ones but there are some who don’t care and are in it for the money. A friend’s sister is a teacher who works with high school special education kids (ones with behavioral issues) and who spends a lot of her salary on food and sneakers for her kids who are in foster care because they are simply not getting what they need at home. That’s inexcusable.
There are people in the system so they can have access to kids to prey on them sexually. That’s horrific. I know those folks exist because I have some friends who grew up in foster care and were sexually abused in one home after another, sometimes by parents, sometimes by other kids. It’s apparently rife in the system. But what to do about it?? How do you figure out which homes are a problem? I also know some kids lie about sexual abuse because they know that’s a hell of a weapon. That happened to a friend of mine – one of her teens lied about sexual abuse occurring in her home as a way to disrupt her placement. How does one get to the truth every time when allegations of sexual abuse arise?
I suspect the caseworkers have a pretty good feeling for which foster homes are good and which ones are not. But there is such a desperate need for foster homes, especially for older kids, that the crappy homes are allowed to continue existing and functioning as always. Those beds are, quite simply, needed.
So how can we change the need for beds that drives bad foster homes staying in existence? PREVENTION. We need more and better programs for education of inexperienced and especially young moms. We need way better mental health services especially in the Syracuse area. We need way more and better drug treatment options especially now with the opioid crisis. Better schools, better vocational training, better poverty prevention programs. Payment of a living wage.
Sigh. We need to fix All The Problems. All at once. Immediately. The kids need us to do far, far better as a society.
sprinklesonachaoscupcake.com 