There are about 14,000 children in foster care in Michigan right now. 14,000 kids!!!! How many is that really? The high school football stadium in my town appears to hold about 1000 people. It would take 14 small town football fields to hold all the foster kids in Michigan. If every child represented a day, 14,000 days is 38 years and 130 days. Michigan 's foster care system is the 6th largest in the country according to a website called Data Center. What a horrible number. This number bothers me because I use it all the time in my job. When I am talking to people about becoming foster parents I tell them there are 14,000 children in foster care in Michigan right now, this very minute. There is a huge need for foster parents to help these children.
One very smart person said to me, "If you don't have enough foster homes where do these children go?" That is an excellent question. I know a lot of things about foster care but I had to do some research to answer this question accurately. The first part of the answer is that when a child is removed from the home, every effort is made to find a family member willing to take care of the child. Kinship fostering is an important aspect of what social services does. If there is no available family (either nonexistent or unwilling), the case worker begins the search for a foster home. The Department of Human Services (DHS) works with agencies all over Michigan to find available foster homes like Hands Across the Water. Phone calls and emails go out daily describing children and their needs in search of an available foster home. The age of the child determines ease of placement. A baby will probably find a home quickly, but a 14 year old with siblings will be much more difficult to place. Where does the 14 year old go? It is the caseworkers job to find a spot for this child who is no longer a cute cuddly baby and probably has behavior issues of some kind.
The caseworker is the key to answering the original question. It is his or her job to use every resource available to find a suitable home. The more foster parents the State of Michigan has, the easier placement becomes. Some people believe the answer lies in not removing children from their birth homes in the first place. The latest idea is to target problem families and provide services and assistance to keep the family together. It is a nice idea in theory but does not address the issue of a child's safety in the home. Some people believe that the DHS is in the business of removing children for the smallest of reasons. The reality is that these children are in danger. Danger from physical abuse, danger from lack of food, and in danger from neglect. I have yet to have a child enter my foster home who was not in immediate danger. My youngest son, Dylan was removed from his birth home at three months old because his twin sister died of neglect. His birth family was on food stamps, welfare, and medicare. A home nurse came once a week to monitor the twins health issues. She reported the family to Child Protective Services two weeks before the death of Dylan's sister. It seems to me that every effort was made to keep this family together and a child paid the price. When Dylan was placed in my home, he was hungry. Not just hungry, he was starving. No one was feeding the babies in the birth home. One twin died, the other was saved in a foster home. I believe the foster care system can and does help children in need. I believe in the abilities of caseworkers and their agencies to recruit new foster parents and find home for the 14,000 children in the State of Michigan. In my opinion, it is not an option to not have enough foster homes for all the children in need. A child's life is at stake and that is reason enough for me.
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