There are approximately 800,000 children within the American foster care system, and that number continues to grow. While the system is able to provide the basics - it typically is less successful in enabling youngsters to overcome the effects of their chaotic beginnings and grow into productive adulthood. Less than twenty percent complete high school. It is estimated that one-half of the prison population and one-third of the chronically homeless population were once foster children.

Increasingly, foster children have more complicated and multiple problems arising from increased drug usage by parents, especially prenatal use. Agencies report a growth in the numbers of children suffering from medical and neurological problems such as learning disabilities, vision and dental problems, and developmental lags. There is also a higher incidence of physical and sexual abuse, along with the more typical problems of emotional bonding and behavioral disturbances that arise from living in chaotic and unpredictable circumstances - all of which makes caring for these children a greater challenge.

Funding at both the federal and state levels, on a per child basis, has been steadily declining. More importantly, the states, who are often the legal guardian of the child, are not able to provide for the children’s safety and security. The incidence of child abuse, while in the foster care system, is unacceptably high in many states. National data indicates that children are twice as likely to die in the foster care system as in the general population.

Recently, placement policy among foster care agencies has encouraged placement within geographical proximity to the biological family, as well as a similar socioeconomic level and ethnicity. Contact between the foster parents and the biological family has been encouraged in the hope of increasing the probability of the restoration of the child to his/her family of origin. This, however, has introduced an additional complexity for foster parents, in that it requires working with the biological parent and dealing with the dynamics of what can easily become an adversarial relationship.

The impact of these issues, e.g. the increase in numbers of children available for placement, the complexity of problems encountered with many of the children, the funding issues, and the policy constraints on placement, has strained the ability of agencies to recruit foster parents.

As the demand for foster parents has increased, there has also been a concomitant decrease in foster parents available over the same time period. In addition to the scarcity of qualified foster parents, some foster care agencies lose 30-50% of family foster homes each year. A foster parent of 15 years says “The kids aren’t the same as they used to be. It’s draining for foster parents. People don’t want to deal alone with the destructive screaming and yelling.” The task of parenting one or more foster children can entail extraordinary demands rarely experienced by parents raising their own biological children.

The mismatch between need and availability of good foster homes, as well as the high turnover of homes has, in turn, resulted in compromised standards of care. For example, certified foster homes may accept more than the number of children approved for the home; children with special needs may be placed before their foster parents receive specified training; and sibling groups who rely on each other as their family fragments, often get placed apart. Because of the backlog of need, many children, as young as 3 or 4 years, go into institutional homes until a foster family setting is found. In many states children are being sent to foster homes with little oversight, and the states cannot guarantee their safety.

Despite these systemic failures, most foster parents are competent and committed. They manage to “hang in there” despite the difficult challenges, and remain committed to providing a safe, nurturing, predictable environment for children who need it. As one foster care mother notes, “Just as with all kids; they need to know they’re wanted.”

Clearly, maintaining and dramatically increasing the pool of well-intentioned, qualified foster parents is basic to any improvement in foster care.