From around the blogworld…
GirlSpeaks is a former foster child. While I obviously think it is awful how she was treated, I don’t think the answer is limiting or cutting out payments to foster parents. Foster care payments should help good foster parents take on more children and make more accomodations without ruining their financial status. The answer to the problems GirlSpeaks brings forth is more accountability. I don’t see how I could get away with the things she wrote about in her post. My kids see the social worker once a week at least, and they SWs are in the house twice a month. We don’t get reimbursed for presents or school supplies. Our monthly “payments” are expected to be used for everything the kids need. The one exception is clothing. Kids get about $200 a year for clothing (on average..teens are little more, little kids are little less.)
I will say that if foster parent payments were cut out, I would not be a foster parent. I could not. I don’t make nearly enough money and I wouldn’t be able to, with the kids I have. Snowbaby can’t go to daycare, and the number of appointments, meetings, court appearances are practically a full time job on its own. I don’t do it for the money, but the money allows me to do it. Five kids are expensive.
Process is a social worker. She specifically references my recent struggles with my lack of payments in her post.
Two responses to the post made by Process.
Unpopular View, Indeed by Yondalla
Most Certainly an Unpopular View by FosterAbba
October 7th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
I’m all for the state paying for daycare and providing transportation for the kids… (I remember my caseworkers providing transportation to court dates, appts, and etc). What I’m NOT for is those people who think they should not only get expenses reimbursed, but also 1/2 of their bills paid on top of everything else.
October 7th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
What I find ironic is that they are claiming we shouldn’t worry about giving $700/month per kid, but don’t recognize that only two states actually do this! And 5 of us are so low that we aren’t even half way to that. And WI (number 4 from the bottom) gives ONE clothing reimbursement–first time child is in foster care or if they’ve been home more than 4 months. Otherwise, it’s part of the paltry $300 or so payment.
And don’t forget, unless the child is in your home for more than 6 months, you can’t claim them on taxes either. Even then, only if you provide more than half of their support (which for most of us would certainly be true given the low state payments). So any family that does emergency care or has short term placements, doesn’t even get the tax deductions and credits. Even if they have multiple children in their home, equivalent to having a child an entire year…it doesn’t count.
October 7th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
If we didn’t receive any money, we wouldn’t be foster parents either. We couldn’t afford it.
October 7th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
You know, following Process’s logic, child support payments shouldn’t be legally enforced, either. I mean, we don’t want mothers raising children just for the money, right? Come on, let’s see a little suffering! When Mom can’t afford to go to the hospital when she’s sick or buy tampons, but the kids are fed, why, THAT’s when we know she’s a dedicated mother.
What the hell?
October 7th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Where we live there are mandatory child support payments, taken directly from parents paycheck. Isn’t this the same sort of deal? Can we get the parents to “pitch” in, even if they lose custody? Makes sense to me.
October 7th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
And in case it wasn’t clear…I meant bio parents!
October 7th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
I heard that the bio parents are supposed to pay something when their child is taken away by DSS… even if its only $1 a month. I think whatever they pay goes directly to DSS tho.
Which states reimburse expenses AND 1/2 of the bills on top of everything else? I want to do foster care there! lol. j/k…
Ann Marie - which two states? DC & CA?
I posted my thoughts on all this here: all this talk about money
October 8th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
This is what I think. I think the foster parents should be paid enough to adequately meet the child’s needs if that means special schools, compensation for needed appointments(gas and/or someone to handle the commute if the foster parent’s are not available), etc. If the foster parent cannot work as needed then how can they provide for the basic needs. I also think that there should be enough to help the family pay for utilities, etc. Everyone knows that the more people you have in the house the higher your utilities are so I don’t see a problem with this as well.
October 8th, 2007 at 11:33 pm
I was just going to bring up the issue of child support payments. Perhaps if the government won’t be responsible for supporting the parents we should charge the bio parents child support payments.
*obviously, this is not a serious suggestion. Just frustrated that one set of children is worthy of receiving financial support while another group is not.
October 9th, 2007 at 8:33 am
fostercare payments have never covered all of the costs of caring for our kids, which was difficult, because Lionmom had to stop working and stay at home to deal with all of the issues/dr appts/emotional trauma for three years. We’ve tried to give all of our kids great experiences - Disneyland, an Alaskan cruise, “stuff” that kept up with their friends’ stuff. Most of that came from our pockets, because the foster payments went to increased electric, water, phone, food and transportation. Life costs more than one would think.