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For the DHS employee:

There may be abuses.  It is YOUR responsibility to police them.  Fix it.  

Children do not come into the foster care system because they came from lives full of happiness, light, lollipops and gumdrops.  They have emotional and behavioral issues borne of the very circumstances that brought them into the system.  It is horrendously callous of you to fail to recognize that fact.  As foster parents, we scrape and claw and fight for every single benefit we can get for the children in our care -- we expend no less effort than we did for our own children.   They deserve that.


The DHS complains that they cannot get enough people to do foster care and those that start often quit after fewer than two years.  I can tell you a few of the many reasons why:

1.  Unanswered voicemails & emails.

2.  Caseworkers who don't ever show up to our home to check on the children.

3.  Information that is incomplete, that comes too late or does not come at all.

4.  Paperwork that needs to be signed before the children go to medical appointments but is not, so the appointment is canceled or delayed.

5.  Having to fight with DHS to get any and everything done.

For the person that brought up the fact that the rates are tax free:  That might have some bearing if the money were income.  It is not.  It is for the children, not for us.  It is not income.  If it were income, we would stop doing this and I  would go back to regular employment where I could make a lot more money working 8 instead of 24 hours a day.   We are LOSING money in the absence of that second income.  It's not "free money" for us.  It is not even enough to really raise children in a manner we think they deserve. 

We hear so much news about the horrible foster parents who abuse and neglect the children in their care that the public has the perception that all foster parents are the same.  We do not hear about the 99.9% of foster parents who sacrifice so much to provide safe, sane and healthy homes for children whose lives have been wrecked by the actions of adults around them.

posted 3 years, 7 months ago
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Isn't there something that can be done to foster parents who are not using the money to care for the children properly?  Can't a foster parent be fired?

posted 3 years, 7 months ago
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As a new foster parent of two siblings that have behavior issues I am  not happy with the rate that I get for my guys.  I have to pay for preschool out of the 640 per child.  I have to get their clothes, food, travel to many doctors appointment, not to mention the raise in my utilities.  I love the boys and will do what I have to do right by them.  I am frustrated that I can't afford to pay someone to do respite care so that I can get a break. 

I asked my certifier and caseworker for help with behavior and safety issues.  No one has helped me with this. I was told I couldn't get a CANS assesment until after January. 

I am very disappointed in the process of the DHS system.  I don't know if I will be able to continue to be a foster parent.

posted 3 years, 7 months ago
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