Personally I can not even count how may times I have been asked this questions.

My family does foster care because it is our way to give back and we enjoy the children. You will occasionally get the child that does not mix with your family in any way. Which can make it very difficult, stressful and can be miserable at times. I do this because I was adopted and I wanted to help and give other children a chance at a life.

People choose to do foster care because they also enjoy working with and helping children. Some choose to do” foster to adopt”, which they do foster care and are open or looking to adopting. This opens the door to more possible adoption placements. When children come into foster care sometimes it is not their first time in the system. It could be that the children have returned to bio parents and they go back to their old habits. A number of children are placed with family members with a safety plan to protect the children from the bio parents and for whatever reasons the family members does not follow the safety plan. I know of family members calling CPS to remove the children from their home because they’re no longer want to deal with the bio parents. In cases such as these, CPS can be looking for a foster to adopt home. CPS would rather place the child only once and then allow the foster family to adopt the child if it comes to that. Placements like these can be called legal risk because it may appear that the bio parents will not likely get the child back. But with this there are no guarantees, anything is possible, the bio parents make work their plan, or another relative comes forward. I do know that “foster to adopt” has worked for a number of families hoping to adopt. My family has been blessed with two little ones going this route. With a lot of us once you get fostering in your life you do not want to give it up, so you continue after you have adopted.

Sadly, to say there are a few people that do it for the money. Instead for providing for the child with their daily needs, as you would with your own child. They make the choice to victimize the children by not having birthday parties, placing the child in respite during the holidays, not allowing to enroll to school activities and extracurricular activities, etc...

We all have different reasons for taking this path in life.


So much of what we learn of love we learn at home.