The U.S. House is considering a bill that could impact the Foster Care system in Alabama and around the nation. It has to do with recruiting families to take in children who need a place to call home. APR Student intern Sarah Murph has more on what this legislation could mean here in Alabama.
“At a ground level, Alabama foster care system is strained and under resourced,” said Dr. Courtney Chapman Thomas, a social worker and professor at the University of Alabama. She's not on the outside looking in when it comes to the state's foster care system. Thomas is a foster parent. She says she's talking about a problem she's also seen nationally.
“One is the lack of available licensed foster care homes, and this is true in the state of Alabama. The second number they're usually talking about is turnover and low retention rates of caseworkers,” she added.
A lot of the news coverage on Alabama foster care focuses on two numbers. The state says it has just under 6,000 children in the system and just over 2,000 homes to take them in. The disagreement is over whether that constitutes a problem.
“Yeah, but that accounts for more than 3,600 -- I hate to say, I'm just trying to help for your understanding – beds,” said Daniel Sparkman. He’s with the Alabama Department of Human Resources. That's the agency that runs the state foster care system.
“You know, because each home could have multiple children, and so that that number they sound so different: 6,000 children, 2,000 homes. But that's not the full picture,” he added.
Those numbers come from the Alabama Department of Human Resources, where Sparkman works. The agency handles the state's foster care system. There does appear to be agreement on the impact of having a bigger number of foster children compared to the number of foster homes.
“That leads to children going into group homes. That leads to siblings being separated. That leads to permanency being put off, and every time that a child moves a placement, and that then perpetuates their belief in not trusting adults,” she said.
“Siblings being separated, yes,” said Daniel Sparkman at Alabama DHR.
“A shortage of placements in specific homes could possibly lead to siblings being separated, and the same for group homes. It is very hard to place some children in traditional foster care homes. Some of them have multiple needs. Some of them have behavioral issues, and some of them need, like, around-the-clock care,” he said.
One solution to the lack of foster families appears to be recruiting, and Alabama is not alone in facing that issue.
“So many of the families that come into foster care have exited within three years,” said Arnold Eby, the executive director of the National Foster Parent Association.
“So you come into care, I mean, you become a foster family, and because of whatever reason, multiple reasons, you exit within three years,” he said.
Eby had just returned from a trip to Washington, D.C. He was there to lobby in favor of a measure in the U.S. Senate called S. 162. Eby says the legislation is meant to address a key problem when it comes to keeping foster families in the system.
“So we're also looking for tracking feedback loops as to why families are leaving so quickly because there isn't a consistent methodology or reporting mechanism that gives us information on why they're leaving so quickly,” he added.
Eby points to the Alabama Foster Adoptive Parent Association. It's an affiliate of his national group that works to make connections to the foster adoptive parent community. The state is working on it as well.
“Our counties are constantly doing a lot of recruitment efforts to get into the communities and get in and work with these local organizations,” said Kathryn Shoupe, with the Alabama Department of Human Resources.
“You know, we're definitely working to try to increase those numbers for foster parent availability. But you know, it's definitely tough, and especially when you're in a county where there's a you know of less population of people and those that are able to and willing to open up their homes too,” she said.
Senate Bill 162 would, in theory, do more to bring in new foster families. Another concern is keeping the families who sign up.
“We talk about, and when I when we started this conversation, I talked about core supports,” said Arnold Eby, with the National Association of Foster Parents.
“And that's something that we started championing a couple years ago, and and is something that will bubble to the surface again now that Recruiting Families Using Data Act has at least gotten through both chambers. But core supports are things like making sure families have access to daycare or childcare,” he said.
The Senate bill SB 162 that would provide more resources to recruit and keep foster parents in Alabama and around the nation is now before the U.S. House for consideration.
Editor's Note— This is a reworking of a news story Sarah Murph produced for APR back in June. Sarah quoted the Department of Human Resources website, but did not pursue an interview with the agency. APR pulled the original story. Sarah conducted the interview, and we present the revised version here. We regret the error in procedure.
Sarah's original story also mentioned coverage by WKRG-TV in Mobile about foster children sleeping on the floor of DHR headquarters. The agency disputes that account.
