There are many myths and misconceptions about foster care, way too many! I was trying to think of all the myths I have personally heard, but for the life of me I can’t think of them.
In our latest "Foster Roster", our foster care news letter, there was an article and I'll share part of it. One big misconception is "foster parents do it for the money". Ha ha ha, yeah right! With Isaac and Madison we might of broke even! A few fun facts from the article, "You can earn more money running a daycare from your home then doing foster care. The kids go home at night and you get weekends off!" "The Utah legislature cut the reimbursement rate for foster parents by a dollar a day last year."
Recently I read this, “we would like to foster adopt children who don’t have families anymore” Uh, they’re foster kids, NOT orphans! I can tell you from experience; these children still do and always will have biological family who love them! Just with my experience with Emma, I am currently in contact with 9 of Emma’s biological family members! That includes, Sam (her birth mom), her grandparents and her aunts and uncles. I have yet to know of a case that the child is an orphan, no parents and no extended family.
I know some people who think all foster kids are “drug babies”. Now, I can’t really bust that myth personally because each of my foster kids parents have done drugs. When we got Emma she however was not removed on drug related charges. My friend’s foster son was because of alcohol, it’s not always about drugs.
I’m trying to think of ways foster care is portrayed on TV… Usually it’s that foster parents do it for the money and don’t care about the child. I’ve also seen it where the foster parents have TONS of foster kids in their home at once. All I know is our state laws, but our law is a limit to 4 and only 2 under the age of 2 (either foster, adopted or biological). I’ve also seen where foster parents are abusive, which obviously they can be but that’s why DCFS and UFCF has so many rules and laws to attempt to prevent that from happening.
“State agencies may withhold information about a child’s past in order to get that child placed with a family.” I’ve heard this one. Our agency is awesome, the only problems I had with no getting info was a direct problem with a caseworker (the one we had with our first 3, not Emma). Our CPS worker bent over backwards to get us every little thing we asked for or needed (info and document wise). Then when our case went to adoption- (again I just know our state laws) you can look at the child file and all their records at DCFS within 60 days of finalization. Even though I was in contact with Sam and had unlimited information from Samantha, I still wanted to look at Emma’s file to make sure I did have all the info.
‘Isn’t it expensive to adopt, even though foster care?” Nope, not at all. Emma’s adoption was about $850, which we were reimbursed for by DCFS, and then we were reimbursed the full amount again with our taxes!!!! Yep, we banked $850 for adopting Emma!
(more info here and here)
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2 comments:
I think foster parenting is wonderful! I have thought about fostering some older kids in the next few years. Only 2 of my 4 children are at home and the youngest is 12. Pretty soon they'll be all gone, but I still am pretty energetic! I've heard there is something like over 100,000 children eligible for adoption in the foster care system, and I know there are a lot of couples out there wanting to adopt. I love it when they can get together!
You and your husband are very special parents!
I have several brothers and sisters who do not have children although already married several years, one of two raised children and now they are happy!
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