Continued............

A sixteen year old white foster girl was placed in a foster family in an Hispanic area. She kept telling her caseworker that she could not live there and needed to be moved. This young girl was not even use to visiting the area she was now living in. She told her caseworker she would run away if she was not moved. They decided not to move her. Yes, she did run away. She has been gone for months and no one has heard from her. Now, this sixteen year old child is most likely living on the streets, she still has to deal with her abuse and abandonment issues not just from the bio family but now the system that was suppose to protect her. I do understand... more

In the beginning I believed that if the foster parent could deal with the racial differences, it should not matter. Over time I see things a little differently. I am not saying that there should be racial lines in foster care. I believe that a large number of foster parents can parenting children with a different racial make up.

A older white boy was the only white foster child in an African American family with other African American foster children. In the beginning I did not see any problem but over time I saw this boy have great crisis with his identity, uncontrolled anger with being so different, to the point he was getting into physical fights with the other boys in his placements.... more

Facing the racial diversity in foster care can be challenging. You and your family may not care of the racial make up of a child that comes into your home, which is great. Also understand that the child that is placed with you is also around all of your family members and friends.

We were asked if we would foster or willing to adopted a child with racial differences. We explained that we both had older parents with a number of old relatives that were not racists, but we were unclear how they would react to us raising children of different racial make up. Please, understand that we did not think our families were, or are racists. They were raised in a very different time when... more