- Thomas Dent writes that Mississippi desperately needs to increase its focus on retention to address the shortage of licensed homes.
Benjamin Franklin famously said, “In this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.” In Mississippi, you can add the need for more foster parents to the list.
We see the news stories and hear about the need for additional foster homes in our state. It’s a heartbreaking reality, and as time goes on, the problem persists. Being a foster parent is hard, but are we making it harder than it should be? As a former foster parent, I believe there needs to be more focus on retaining the foster parents we recruit. The questions we need to be asking are, “Who are the best recruiters?” and, “Are we using them to their full potential?”
I believe current and former foster parents are the best recruiters, and although they are used in some capacity, their potential impact is far greater. Using people with firsthand experience to recruit isn’t a new idea; the military and universities use their own, and recruiting foster parents can work the same way. This idea works because we value others’ personal experiences. We all want to dip our toes in the water before deciding whether to dive in.
One of the best ways the public gets educated about foster care is when someone in their circle is fostering. It could be a relative, neighbor, friend, or someone from church or school. It’s effective because it’s less overwhelming; it’s about one or two children instead of the thousands of children in the system. The connection through a personal relationship is stronger than a news story, even though it may reach fewer people. Through a personal relationship, questions can be answered, experiences shared, eyes opened, and hearts changed with little pressure.
For this to be effective, the foster parent has to feel supported by the child welfare agency to want to share and potentially recruit others. Being shown respect, consideration, trust, and value by the agency are the cornerstones of feeling supported. These have to be more than words on a page, and they must be felt by those serving in the trenches. I am talking about retention, and Mississippi desperately needs to increase its focus in this area to address the shortage of licensed homes.
The problem didn’t develop overnight and won’t be solved that quickly either. I believe foster parents aren’t encouraging other families to follow their lead due to their experience within the system. These negative experiences will have to change if we want to see an increase in safe and loving homes becoming licensed.
At its core, retention is a communication and customer service issue. Foster parents need to feel safe asking questions with the expectation that they will get a timely response. If calls, voicemails, and texts are regularly ignored, then their opinion of the agency will rightfully suffer. Most foster parents understand that agencies are understaffed and overworked and are willing to give caseworkers the benefit of the doubt as long as it doesn’t become a pattern. They also want to be heard.
They understand that the caseworkers and the judges have to make difficult decisions in a child’s case and that they won’t always agree with those decisions. From the foster parent’s perspective, frustration exists when those decisions are made without all the information available, as is sometimes the case. For a foster parent, agreeing isn’t the goal; being heard is. A part of being heard is addressing issues brought up by foster parents. That means listening, understanding, and resolving concerns promptly. The resolution doesn’t necessarily mean agreement. It is reasonable that the answer may not be what the foster parent was hoping for. However, the resolution should be communicated with a sensible explanation of how the decision was determined.
Are these ideas the norm inside the state’s child welfare system? I’d argue that the declining number of licensed homes gives reason to be concerned about how foster parents are treated and ultimately retained.
When a family gets licensed, no one, including the family, knows how long they will be fostering. Will it be for one or ten years? Will they accept one placement or twenty?
As their journey begins, each interaction and experience will shape how long they foster. Families need to be given support by the child welfare system as they open their homes to our most vulnerable. There are too many families that closed their homes early due to their experiences with the system, not the children. We can’t go back and change the past, but we can change the future by focusing on retention.
