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There is a growing need for individuals who can commit to serve as foster caregivers to children and adolescents in the United States. This demand has particularly increased in the midst of the opioid crisis, resulting in a greater emphasis on placing children and adolescents with foster families.
Furthermore, as communities across the U.S. experience both crisis and uncertainty related to a global pandemic and the impact of racial inequality and systemic oppression, child welfare systems must provide a safe and emotionally supportive home environment where foster care youth can thrive. According to North Carolina Health News, the number of youth in foster care has increased by 10% within the last five years, which further exacerbates an already overextended child welfare system.
Regina Williams
Although 2019 research by The Chronicle of Social Change indicated the national total of youth in foster care has declined by 3% since 2017, some states continue to be impacted by a surge in the number of youth entering foster care. One can see the total amount of licensed foster homes is growing, yet many states are still experiencing a decline in available foster homes, with 20 states having seen some decline, and 11 states seeing a more than 10% decline.
This foster family shortage is particularly pertinent in states located within the South and Southwest. From 2018 to 2019, three out of five of the states that experienced the biggest decrease in licensed foster homes are located in the South, with homes in Arkansas decreasing from 1,816 to 1,559, Mississippi decreasing from 3,083 to 2,578 and licensed foster homes in Washington, D.C., decreasing from 429 to 218.
Although several states in the South and Southwest have attempted to meet the growing foster family need by increasing the number of available nonrelative foster homes, many of these states are still unable to meet the increasing demands of placing youth with foster families. For instance, New Mexico experienced an increase in nonrelative foster homes from 2012 to 2019, with a total of 876 foster homes. However, the state’s count for all children in foster care climbed from 1,1914 in 2012 to 2,435 in 2019.
Additionally, the number of licensed foster homes in New Mexico decreased by 11% and nonrelative foster homes by 1.6% between 2018-19. This information is especially pertinent given that New Mexico’s foster care system is scheduled to undergo a reform due to a legal settlement and an effort to improve the wellbeing of youth in state care. Another example is Florida, which experienced an increase of 1,195 nonrelative foster homes between years 2012 to 2017, with a total of 10,362 foster homes. Additionally, their number of licensed foster homes increased by 1.9% between 2018-19. However, Florida’s count for all children in foster care grew from 19,536 in 2012 to 23,633 in 2019.
Some Southern/Southwestern states experienced a decrease in nonrelative and licensed foster homes, although youth in foster care remain large in number. For instance, Arizona experienced a 10.6% decrease in nonrelative foster homes and a 9.7% decrease in licensed foster homes between 2018-19. Louisiana experienced a 6.8% decrease in nonrelative foster homes and a 12.6% decrease in licensed foster homes between 2018-19. Mississippi experienced a 16.4% decrease in licensed foster homes between 2018-19. These are just a few depictions of the foster caregiver shortage that is occurring in the South and Southwest. This leaves a significant percentage of foster youth being placed in congregate care, particularly in Arizona, New Mexico, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Alabama, to name a few.
The questions then become: How can child welfare systems throughout the South and Southwest meet the need for more nonrelative and licensed foster caregivers? And just as important, how can child welfare systems in the South and Southwest effectively support foster caregivers who are already on the front lines caring for the growing number of foster youth entering the system?
In other words, how can child welfare systems in the South and Southwest effectively recruit, train and retain foster caregivers who oftentimes experience burnout, secondary traumatic stress and compassion fatigue in their caregiver roles? Particularly when child welfare systems have high expectations for foster caregivers to effectively cultivate the well-being of foster care youth. Best practices and strategies are offered.
Best recruitment practices, strategies
When considering potential foster caregivers, it is essential for child welfare agencies to not only provide enough foster homes, but to also find the best foster home for a child. One that not only meets the youths’ physical safety needs, but takes other characteristics, such as their behavioral and mental health needs, into consideration as well. In this regard, it is important for agencies to be transparent regarding their expectations for foster caregivers and what the specific needs of foster youth are, thus taking a child-centered approach.
A child welfare agency’s messaging and branding must be clear, engaging and motivating to make an individual respond, consider and act. Agencies must first understand characteristics and motivations of foster caregivers who will provide high-quality care in order to launch an effective recruitment campaign for what is considered the new foster parent “brand.” High-quality care is described as foster caregivers who were loving, members of a team, teachable, flexible, desiring to strengthen a family and willing to be up for a challenge.
The new foster parent brand focuses on the behaviors and characteristics of the adults residing in a community, thus sparking their interest toward becoming a potential foster caregiver. Thus, targeted recruitment must incorporate various strategies. Examples include child welfare agencies continuously developing their cultural competency skills to effectively work with individuals from diverse groups that reflect the racial, ethnic and social groups of the youth in care.
This also emphasizes the need to make sure agency recruitment efforts are data-driven, keeping the characteristics of the children in care at the forefront and finding foster families that can reflect these characteristics. For instance, from 2011 to 2017, there were sharp increases in the number of Black youth and Native American youth in foster care in some states in the South and Southwest such as in Georgia (51% increase of Black youth in foster care) and in Arizona (148% increase of Black youth in foster care and 52% of Native youth in foster care).
Other fundamental elements of effective recruitment include utilizing community-based approaches that may allow a child in care to stay closely connected to their ecological systems of support, and working with community partners to tap into the resources located within their neighborhoods. Agencies might also poll their current foster caregivers to discover where they may best spend time within their communities, focusing on areas where potential foster caregivers may frequent.
Child welfare agencies and child placing partners must also create and maintain a foster caregiver recruitment and retention plan, one that can be evaluated on an annual basis. For example, North Carolina strengthened and reframed their statewide foster and adoptive parent Diligent Recruitment and Retention Plan to aid in the recruitment of families who can facilitate the needs of youth in care, and families that also reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of the youth in foster care.
This plan includes a county/agency recruitment and retention plan template, a data profile and a diligent recruitment and retention resource guide complete with examples of recruitment activities, a sample recruitment letter and a sample new caller intake form, to name a few resources. Providing plans such as these across child welfare agencies in the South and Southwest may help to provide structured planning aimed at recruiting high-quality foster caregivers, one where expectations of agencies are explicit, culturally competent and keeping the needs of youth represented in their communities at the forefront.
Training and Retention
In an effort to retain high-quality foster caregivers in states located in the South and Southwest, foster caregivers should be given opportunities to engage in training, support and provided resources that encompass child-centered practices. Examples of trainings include supporting birth family and foster family relationships, caring for teens in foster care, youth mental health first aid within an emphasis on foster care, developing cultural competency and caring for youth who have experienced trauma. It is important to assess the needs of the foster caregivers within your agency in order to provide specific training opportunities they feel may best help them to improve the outcomes of the youth in their care.
Given the high levels of stress and burnout foster caregivers may experience in trying to meet the behavioral and emotional needs of the youth in their care, it is critical for child welfare agencies to provide free or affordable access to counseling services to address foster caregivers’ mental health needs. These mental health counseling services can be offered on both an ongoing or emergency basis, and provided within the office, the home or via telehealth services. This recommendation calls for a strong community partnership between local counseling agencies and child welfare agencies.
By providing counseling to foster caregivers, this can in turn strengthen their ability to positively connect with their youth and help them to better understand their child’s needs. Moreover, foster caregivers report receiving limited caseworker support. Caseworkers often experience increasing workloads and there is high turnover, making it difficult for foster caregivers to gain access to them.
To get high-quality foster caregivers, they must have the continuous support of caseworkers to ensure their voices are heard and the needs of the youth in their care are met. Examples of this include states providing more fiscal resources related to child care and respite services and increased access to dental, medical and mental health services for foster care youth.
It is conceivable that many of the strategies presented can be utilized in child welfare agencies or child-placing partner agencies across the United States. By understanding the specific issues in providing homes for youth in care in the South and Southwest, and sharing best practices that can help to both recruit and retain high-quality foster caregivers, the hope is to increase the number of high-quality foster caregivers that can facilitate the needs and reflect the characteristics of foster care youth within these states.
Regina Gavin Williams, Ph.D., NCC, LCMHC, is a clinical assistant professor of counselor education and program coordinator of higher education administration at North Carolina Central University. Her research focuses on the career and college readiness and adult self-sufficiency of adolescents aging out of the foster care system.
