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Common Questions about Foster Parenting
Most people do not know a lot about foster care or what it takes to be a foster parent. These questions and answers are intended to help you learn more about it and assess whether being a St. Vincent’s foster parent is right for you. Who needs your help? St. Vincent’s serves children whose own families have chronic, severe problems making it unsafe for them to remain at home. The children have been emotionally, physically or sexually abused. Most have suffered neglect and lived very disrupted, unstable lives. Requests for foster homes come to St. Vincent’s from twelve different County Social Service Departments and many different child treatment facilities throughout the Bay Area. Foster children referred to St. Vincent’s are ages 0 to 18, with most being older, school-age youngsters or adolescents. Sometimes we place sibling groups of brothers and sisters who need to stay together and which may include younger children. For most children under the age of twelve, counties are usually looking for an adoptive home. For all foster children, a permanent home, i.e., living with relatives or in an adoptive, guardianship or foster home is the goal. Why are they troubled? Coming from troubled homes, all of our children have emotional or learning problems. Some “act out” their problems in school and the community. Others are withdrawn and “shut down.” Many have poor hygiene or social skills. All have experienced significant rejection and failure in their young lives.How are they helped? Experienced professional staff, working hand in hand with foster parents, help boys and girls understand their problems and options for the future. Working as a “treatment team,” they guide children and help them to experience success in their goals of achieving academically and being able to live in a family and community setting. Through St. Vincent’s, children tend to have stable placements, lasting for years. Most children and youth respond to our program because they know our staff and foster parents really care about them. We will do what it takes to help a child mend their life. Most youth leave the agency to become contributing members of their communities. All youth are helped to graduate from our program with at least one permanent connection; at least one adult upon whom they can rely for guidance-forever. Are there other benefits to being a St. Vincent’s foster parent? YES! Social Workers have small caseloads (eleven children maximum), which allows them to respond quickly to foster parents’ concerns. We practice careful matching of children and foster families to ensure stable placements. Professional assistance is given with each child’s school program and case plan. Problem-solving meetings are held on a frequent basis. Foster parents have 24-hour emergency access to staff and crisis intervention counseling. St.Vincent’s provides “on the job” training and support. Should I treat a foster child differently from a child of my own? Yes and no. Foster children need the same things as any other child: love, the gift of time, a place to belong. However, state law requires more of foster parents. Foster children must have 24-hour adult supervision. However, recent laws allow for qualified babysitters to help provide foster parents with breaks. Long-term childcare providers must be fingerprinted. Regulations forbid the use of spanking, physical punishment, threats of discipline, withholding food or medication, threats to cancel biological family visits or threats to have the child removed from the foster home. Foster parents must also maintain a professional level of confidentiality regarding their foster children’s history and problems. Must we have contact with the child’s birth family? The primary goal of foster care is to provide a temporary home until such time that a child can be safely reunited with her/his birth parents or another relative. If that is not possible, a guardianship or an adoptive home is sought. Older children who have a positive relationship with birth family members and do not wish to be adopted but cannot return home enjoy being placed with St. Vincent’s foster parents who work collaboratively with their family members. As a team, the birth family and the foster family, whenever possible, are “all in the bleachers together” to celebrate the successes of the child. For most children, contact with their birth family is part of the healing process. The type, frequency, and duration, depending on the situation and the child, is usually determined by the Court. St. Vincent’s clinicians may schedule and monitor such contacts and always serve to protect the interests of foster children and foster parents alike, while honoring the special place birth parents have in the life of a child. Sadly, there are also teens who have no birth family to return to after graduation for whom we seek permanent adult connections and long-term foster families. Every year, our agency seeks permanent homes for six to eight of our St. Vincent’s School for Boys graduates, several of whom have no other family members to support them. How long does it take before I get a child? It is difficult to predict how long it will take for a good “match” to happen between a child and foster family. It can take several months for a foster family to complete their application paperwork and pre-service training. After that, it is a matter of finding the right child. Information on available foster homes is regularly shared with multiple agencies having children to refer for placement. Who pays for the foster child’s care? How are foster parents compensated? Counties that place children pay St. Vincent’s a rate established by the state. Based on the child’s age, foster parents receive between $658 and $811 per month, per child. These payments are not counted as income on your taxes, but are a reimbursement for the child’s care. Medi-Cal cards are issued to each foster child to provide for their health care needs. Foster parents are expected to provide food, clothing, a weekly allowance, toys, personal items, school supplies and transportation-just as you would for a child of your own. Foster parents must be financially stable; they cannot rely on the foster care stipend as a source of income. Foster parents with professional backgrounds in psychology or nursing and/or with several years of experience working with severely emotionally disturbed children can apply to be Intensive Treatment Foster Care (ITFC) parents. Do St. Vincent’s foster parents get any time off? Yes. Included in the monthly payment for each foster child is $50, which is intended to be used for paid “time off”, called respite care. St. Vincent’s strongly encourages foster parents to take care of themselves with this special provision for “time off.” St. Vincent’s parents are encouraged to develop professional relationships with our other foster parents and “trade” respite time. What is the job of a foster parent? Mainly the responsibilities are the same as for your own children. Foster parents give daily guidance and supervision to their foster children. They make sure the child attends school, does homework, gets to appointments, does chores and participates in recreational activities. Foster children are kept safe and healthy, receiving what they need, including quality time from adults.St. Vincent’s foster parents are part of the child’s treatment team, working closely with social workers, teachers, therapists and others. It requires open communication, regular meetings and follow-through on plans to help the child. Foster parents must be able to pass a criminal record clearance, have reliable transportation, and be financially stable without depending upon the reimbursement for their expenses, which follows 30 days after they provide services. Is there training for foster parents? St. Vincent’s, in conjunction with the College of Marin, holds four Saturday Seminars a year where foster parents receive training on relevant topics and enjoy brunch together. These trainings are often held in cooperation with the College of Marin Foster and Kinship Education department. Each St. Vincent’s Foster Family Agency foster home receives $75 per seminar, for a total training stipend of $300 per year. $25 of each stipend is intended to cover the costs of child care so parents can attend trainings. The College of Marin and other local community colleges offer special classes and workshops for foster parents, free of charge. How many children can we have and how long do they stay? Because our children need extra attention, St. Vincent’s policy is to place no more than two foster children in a home. Also, St. Vincent’s cares about the functioning of the entire family. Typically more than two foster children causes too much stress on a family system. Exceptions may be made for siblings to stay together. Children placed through St. Vincent’s tend to remain in their foster homes for several years. How are children assigned to foster homes? Do foster parents have any say? St. Vincent’s makes every effort to have a good match between the needs of a child and the strengths or skills of a foster family. This is the reason why so many of our placements work out well and children can stay a long time. We practice full disclosure, telling foster parents everything we know about the child and explaining what it means. Foster parents can then make an informed decision about the suitability of a child for their home. PHILOSOPHY St. Vincent's Foster Family Agency is committed to supporting the foster parents in "re-parenting" the youth in their care. We work hard to match a child to a family and once placed, work even harder to ensure this is the final placement for this child and to ensure that the youth graduates from high school. Over the last 14 years, 100% of the youth who were in our program through their senior year have graduated from high school. We require all teenage youth in our program to participate in the county-offered Independent Living Skills Program. We respect the foster parents as treatment team members and treat them as we would like to be treated. We recognize that no healing can be done unless a child's placement is stable. We strive to help parents understand the meaning behind their child's challenging behaviors. We strive to provide relevant, state-of-the-art trainings by experienced foster parents or other related experts.At St. Vincent's Foster Family Agency we believe in the family as a healing unit. We view the major task of facilitating healthy change in the foster youth as being related to the job of "re-parenting." Essentially, the foster parents are helping the child to meet developmental needs that should have been met when they were infants and toddlers. The primary task is to develop trust. The greatest factor in helping a child change is the ability of the foster parents to “hang-in-there” over time. Also, decreasing the amount of changes the child experiences is extremely helpful. We have a team of social workers who understand the importance of attachment and continuity and the very damaging effect on children of frequent changes in placements, social workers, therapists and schools. Therefore, as a team we work closely and do everything in our power to support and stabilize a child's placement.We ask you to trust us, just as you are asking the child to trust you. Our experiences have shown that if we work together as a team, don't take the child's acting-out personally, keep our expectations realistic, and strive to understand rather than control these children's behaviors, the children flourish and succeed. Chances are, we adults have learned and grown in the process as well. Thank you for considering making a difference in a child's life. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you would like more information at 415.507.4294
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