Foster Parenting: The Ugly Truth

There are a million statistics out there that claim that the demand for foster parenting has increased greatly in the past few years. I do believe that is true.

There are many reasons why children end up in foster care. The parent is arrested, drug abuse, sexual and/or physical abuse, and homelessness are just to name a few.

These children need a stable home where they can begin to mend from the trauma they have seen and grow up strong and educated and foster homes can provide that.

But what if the foster home is worse than the original home from which the children were taken? What happens then? Well the answer might shock and surprise you.

First, let's look at how families become foster families. I'm in the state of Ohio so I'll use it as an example. Each state has it's own laws and rules but they are similar to each other. A family wishes to become a foster parent so they apply through the Department of Jobs and Family Services. This includes a background check, a home inspection and some minimal training. Once they are approved, then the agency will place children with them that have been rescued from bad situations.

In Ohio, The Department of Job and Family Services in some counties is overwhelmed so they contract the work out. This means a non-profit organization comes along and begins to govern their own foster families and accept DJFS children. These non-profit organizations earn their monies to operate through placement and largely through donations from organizations like the United Way and private donations. In essence, if these non-profit organizations do not have enough children, then they do not earn enough money. So children become a cash source.

If you are involved in the system, you will find that it is quite possibly easier to travel to the moon than it is to get through to anyone within these departments. They will reroute your call so many times that by the time you reach someone's secretary, you have forgotten why you were calling.

So now you have a system within a system within a state. These children are literally left with these agencies with little supervision from the parent department which is state ran.

For example, my grandchildren have been placed through an organization called the Buckeye Ranch. They are located in Columbus, Ohio. They work directly through a placement company called New Leaf which is located in Circleville, Ohio. The Department of Jobs and Family Services makes a call to New Leaf. New Leaf then contacts the Buckeye Ranch to see if they have any available foster parents. If they do, then the children are turned over to the Buckeye Ranch for placement.

My grandchildren went to a foster home located in a really bad neighborhood. The foster parent makes my oldest grandson, (he is 6) walk to the bus, crossing a major street, by himself. She has also had children in her care at the same time my grandchildren have been there, that were expelled for taking guns to schools.

This foster parent has a kennel in her house. Yes, she raises dogs right inside the house. She has cats, gerbils and hamsters in there too. The children at times sleep three deep in a bed. She also has a ward in her house that is a mentally handicapped young woman. This woman is the primary care giver to all of the children. She and her husband both smoke like freight trains inside the house.

This same foster parent who is responsible for dropping the children off to be with their mother for visitation, last week, left the children in the middle of the street and drove off. She didn't check to see if the parent was home, she didn't call and she didn't knock on the door. These children are ages 6, 5 and 2.

She then left the children not asking if they had food or diapers. She sent the middle child with a pair of shoes that were about six sizes too small. She never sends them any clothing.

The children will tell you that they are forced to clean the woman's house and pick up after her biological daughter who is five and cannot talk. They are locked in their bedrooms which are fitted with alarms. She doesn't allow them to come out in the morning until 10:30 or 11:00 a.m. on non school days. She insists they call her mom.

When the children are dropped off to the mother, they are all unbathed, hair unbrushed, and fingernails long with dirt under them. Their ears are not cleaned.

As you're reading this, you might be thinking, why doesn't someone do something? Well we've tried. I have petitioned to take the children to no avail. I have reported this foster mother and have pressed child endangerment charges on her. Nothing has happened as of yet.

This is a real life view of foster parents in the bigger cities. This is Franklin County, Ohio. Columbus, Ohio is part of this county.

So if I want to file a complaint, I have to set aside at least eight hours. This allows them time to shuffle me from one person to the next and whomever I finally end up with isn't at their desk and I'm forced to leave a voicemail that is never returned.

I have petitioned my county to become a foster parent in hopes that I could get them transferred.

Ironically, the same state that says it's child welfare system is overwhelmed, also doesn't recognize the rights of grandparents. We have visitation rights and that's about all.

I'm likely going to be denied however, because I'm single and I work. I work a job that requires I work swing shift hours (a different shift each week). The caseworker for the children asked me if I could quit my job to care for them. I asked and live on what? They didn't respond.

This is just one more way the system as a whole is broken. We are failing our children on so many levels and it's all political, red tape, mumbo jumbo. You could probably fix the broken economy more easily than fix our children welfare system. The sad thing is, at least the President is working on fixing the economy.