One of the most frustrating things
about working as a social worker in the District of Columbia's foster
care system was being unable to ensure that my clients were able to
do the normal things that other young people get to do—like
visiting friends and participating in extracurricular activities.
When a foster parent asked if a child could visit a friend, I had to
say this was not allowed unless all the adults in the friend's family
took time off from work to get fingerprinted, paid for the
fingerprints, and filled out a long child abuse clearance form. The
whole process cost them up to $60 (depending on where they lived) and
it would be at least a month before the clearances were approved.
More frustration ensued when foster
children wanted to participate in extracurricular activities. Federal
law requires that children in foster care be kept in the same school
when they are placed in foster care or change foster homes, except if
it is not in their best interests. As a result, many of my clients
were not attending local schools and had to use private
transportation services. This made it hard for my clients to engage
in extracurricular activities because these providers usually require
that the child be picked up at the same time every day and drivers
are often not available for pickups that occur after school dismissal
time.
Another problem was the refusal of many
foster parents to transport their foster children to and from
friends, activities and games. Most of my clients, like more than
half of DC foster care youth, live in the Maryland suburbs, since
there are not enough foster homes in the District of Columbia. While
suburban parents know that transporting children to activities is
part of their job, the same is not often true of foster parents,
especially when the child attends school in the District or across
the county. The foster parent of one of my clients had never been to
her school the year that the child lived with her. My client was
never able to participate in an evening performance or go to a school
dance because her foster parent would not bring her. And of course,
even if another parent had offered to bring her, that would not have
been allowed unless that parent received police and child abuse
clearances.
A new movement over the past two years
has called for “normalcy” for foster children. Basically, the
concept means that foster children should be able to engage in the
same normal activities as their peers. Following the lead of several
states, Congress recently passed a law
that requires states to develop a standard for what is reasonable and
prudent in allowing foster care children to engage in
“extracurricular, enrichment, cultural and social activities.”
As a former foster care social worker,
I wholly support the effort to bring normalcy to foster children.
Being in foster care is abnormal enough. Denying foster youth the
activities that will help them build relationships and skills and
relieve stress is truly adding insult to injury. Unfortunately,
implementing the law is less simple than it appears to people who are
unfamiliar with the nuts and bolts of foster care.
In order to make sure that children in
foster care can have normal social lives, states will have to address
the valid concern about who is liable in the unlikely event that a
foster child is exposed to some type of maltreatment at a friend's
home. Florida's normalcy law, which was the model for the new federal
law, provides that a foster parent is not liable for harm caused to a
foster child during an activity deemed reasonable in accordance with
the “reasonable and prudent” standard. Without such a provision,
many foster parents will not be willing to allow visits and
sleepovers.
In terms of extracurricular activities,
the fix is more difficult. More emphasis may have to be placed on
keeping a child in the same school district when he or she moves to a
different foster home. Children's attorneys who have aggressively
pushed for their clients to stay in the same school may have to
consider whether this is truly in the child's best interest when it
prevents them from participating in extracurricular activities.
States and local jurisdictions have to be willing to say goodbye to
foster parents who are not willing to inconvenience themselves to
enrich the lives of their charges.
This column was published in Youth Today on April 22, 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment