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Children's homes are still needed in our state
In response to an article last month titled “Some children spending less time in foster care,” I want to concur as president of Connie Maxwell Children’s Home with the remarks attributed to my colleague John Holler from Epworth Children’s Home. Those of us who have chosen to minister in children’s homes do it because of our heartfelt desire to help children cope with the difficulties of dysfunctional or problem-plagued families.
Of course, we want all children to be able to grow up in a loving, caring home with nurturing parents, but that unfortunately is not the case for many boys and girls. Some children have to be removed from their homes because of abuse, abandonment or neglect. Others are placed with us because their parents or custodians love them enough to know they would be better off with us than they are with them. Most children’s homes today provide family settings where children are well taken care of and learn what a loving home can and should be.
My concern about setting numerical goals that link success to the numbers of kids no longer in the foster care system is that the best interest of the child is often not served. Every child is different. The traumas they have faced in their lives are diverse, and there is no cookie cutter system that automatically works for every child.
Some children are of the age and temperament that they do extremely well with adoptive families when they cannot be with their biological parents. When that is possible and it is right for the child and the adoptive family, we applaud and encourage adoption. Other children, however, have been hurt so much by their biological family, they are not able to be responsive to and are not ready for a new one. These children often flourish and thrive at a group home or residential campus where they are with boys and girls who have had similar circumstances in their lives and who can help each other through their periods of hurting.
Plus, unlike the depictions of long-ago orphanages, children’s homes such as ours today have more amenities and positive learning experiences than many children other than the very affluent could ever expect. Most of all, though, they have trained, loving houseparents who treat the children with respect and positive care. For every survey one can refer to stating the downfalls of group care, there are others that show children who live in dysfunctional, non-caring homes are at great risk now and in the future.
When children are left in dysfunctional homes longer than they should be or sent back to them before the family has truly changed, the numbers look better but often the results are not good. When children are sent to a kinship home where a third cousin or some other distant relative is not known by the children and that family cannot be fully vetted to see if the children will be better off, it may help numbers but does not always help the children.
When children who are happy and doing well, who are making better grades and who have a better feeling about themselves, who are safe and secure, who are being loved in a proper way by their new group home family are suddenly jerked out of that setting because they have been “in the system too long,” it can help the numbers look better but may be detrimental to the child.
I ask that we don’t consider success in child care by setting arbitrary numbers, but we look at what is best for each individual child and use every tool in the toolbox to help. Some children will do well being returned home at the proper time, others do great in the right adoptive situation, some adapt to foster families, and some do well in group homes and residential campuses.
Children are different and need various options of care. They should not all be treated the same with the goal to cut numbers and reduce the population, so the federal government can be satisfied with what we do on the state level. Let’s base all we do on how it helps children and not on reducing numbers to meet a goal.
Ben Davis
2 November
