Change of placement for foster children affects everyone in the foster home including the child herself, other foster children, foster parents and yes, the biological or adopted children. Without a doubt that moving foster children can and does in most cases causes long term damage. I think most people including foster parents realize that foster children are moved around way too much.

Then on the other hand some people go to the extreme on judging foster parents on the reasoning of foster children needing to be moved as below that was part of a comment on a post here. I am going to address this because other people do not understand why some placements do not work out. Understand that I an referring to some cases not lumping them all together.

My heart breaks every time these kids are moved from one foster home to the next. I just want to shake the foster parents and tell them to STOP bringing kids through their home. If a child in my care left my home to go to an institution, or another foster home….I would absolutely question my ability to effectively parent a foster child And if multiple children left my home to be placed somewhere else in the system…well…I would hope that I would understand that I was doing more harm than good…

The idea that changing placements are due to bad parenting, lack of commitment, or other faults of the foster parents for the most part are completely ridiculous and unfound. To go so far as to say that if a foster child had to be placed into an institutional setting falls squarely on the shoulders of the foster parents. That somehow if they had been better foster parents then that child would not land in that situation.

This is complete biased judgment without the knowledge of the facts. Plain and simple it sounds like more of a witch hunt. It is easier to blame the foster parents that are trying to help the foster children than to be honest about the overall responsibility of everyone including the public, of the circumstances.

The child welfare system is completely falling apart and foster children are paying the price. This did not happen overnight, it has something that was allowed to happen. It was easier to ignore the issue and problems than for the public to demand change. Now, it has to be the fault of someone else like the foster parent, rather than the real issue needing to be addressed.

Maybe a more productive dinner party conversation would be about a community of two physicians, one chief of staff, an educator and a stay-at-home mom coming together with ways to change the system and help the situation. Surely someone at the table have contacts or knew someone that could contact a local government representative that they could talk with about implementing changes in child welfare by possible reorganization or possibly starting a panel of community leaders to seek to implement change to the system.

More reading:

Multiple Foster Placements When Coming Into Care

Is Fostering Right For My Family?

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