One of my happiest days as social
worker in the District of Columbia's foster care system was the day I
was able to place an 18-year-old client with her older brother under
the District's emergency kinship licensing process, which allows a
foster child to be placed with kin through an expedited “emergency
licensing” process. My client's brother now had six months (which
could be extended to nine) to obtain his permanent foster parent
license. During that time, he had to complete extensive paperwork
and take a 30-hour foster parent training class –meaning six hours
per week for five weeks. And this turned out to be a big obstacle.
The class he was offered was from 6:00 to 9:00 at night. My client's
brother could not make it at that time because he was often needed to
pick up his own two children from school and supervise them until
their mother came home from work. As I frantically searched for a
foster parent class, I began to wonder why he needed 30 hours of
training in order to care for his 18-year-old sister.
This was not the first
case where foster parent training requirements posed a barrier to
placing clients with family. In another case, a ten-year-old who had
been mostly brought up by grandparents in Tennessee was unable to be
returned to them because they were unwilling to undergo 30 hours of
training. Of course one might question their commitment to the
children if they were unwilling to take the time to attend training,
but the fact remains that they brought her up for most of her life
and she wanted to be with them.
I had another client, aged
14, who had been in and out of the foster care system for ten years.
He had been ejected from one foster home and was in another where he
got no attention or emotional support. His older half-sister, with
whom he was very close, was willing to take him. But her application
was denied because she lived in Maryland, and Maryland required that
their be a separate bedroom for my client. He was not allowed to
sleep on a sofabed in the living room and I was told that the license
would not be granted even if he slept in the bedroom and his sister
slept on the sofabed. In this case, if the sister had lived in the
District, the license could have been granted. She was willing to
seek out a bigger apartment but was locked into her lease for 18
months. So my client remained in his grim, neglectful foster home.
Situations like
those described above would not occur in all states. The District of
Columbia and 19 states require relative caregivers to become licensed
as foster parents, according to the Child
Welfare Information Gateway.
The
other states do not require relative caregivers to be licensed,
although they may have to meet similar standards, as in California.
The District and other
states that require licensing for relative caregivers should consider
eliminating licensing for relatives or establishing a more liberal
set of requirements for relatives. There should be some standards,
whether for a license or for a parallel process as in California.
Relatives need to have their criminal and child abuse records checked
and need to be assessed for their ability to care for a child. Their
residences need to be assessed for safety. But additional
requirements that are not necessary for health, safety and good care
should be eliminated for relative caregivers.
All over the nation, there
is a big push to keep children out of foster care with strangers and
place them with relatives. This policy stems from the knowledge that
it is best for children to be with family and also from the
increasing shortage of qualified foster parents. Unnecessary
requirements should not interfere with the interest of the state in
placing children with their families.
This column was published at youthtoday.com on May 4, 2015.
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