By DELANIA TRIGG, Register Staff Writer
When Child Protective Service (CPS) workers determine that a Cooke County child is living in a home in which there is abuse or neglect, the child will be removed and placed with a nearby foster family, right?
Not neccesarily. Cooke is one of several Texas counties that is facing a shortage of foster homes for children in need of protection and care.
Marissa Gonzalez, Region 3 public information officer for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) said it is always the goal of CPS workers to keep children near familiar surroundings and in their own schools.
But sometimes such placements are not possible.
“If — for some reason — there isn’t a home that is available (in the county) we may have to place children in other counties,” Gonzalez admitted.
Gonzalez said in addition to foster homes monitored by the DFPS, the state also contracts with private child placement agencies.
“These groups have contracts to train, license and monitor their foster homes, and we as an agency, monitor the agencies that (oversee) these homes,” she explained.
Cooke County is experiencing a lack of foster homes, according to Gonzalez.
“Currently there is only one DFPS foster home in Cooke County,” she said, adding that DFPS foster homes are recruited and licensed directly by the DFPS.
Gonzalez said finding foster parents for children who have been removed from the homes of their parents or caregivers is always a challenge.
“The biggest need that we face is the need for more foster parents. If a child has to come into foster care you want to keep them as close (to their homes) as possible,” she said.
In some areas, the number of children who require foster care is greater than the number of available homes for the children.
“That puts a strain on the foster home systems,” she said.
Gonzalez said there are about 30 children placed in Cooke County in private, contracted foster homes.
“That means that there are obviously several private contracted homes in the county,” she said.
Gonzalez said there are a number of myths associated with foster care.
Foster home providers do not have to be married. Nor do they have to earn high incomes, she said.
In addition to the basic age and citizenship requirements, individuals or families who are interested in becoming foster parents must be financially stable, mature adults.
Prospective foster parents must first complete an application and agree to share information about their backgrounds and lifestyles. They must provide both relative and non-relative references, provide proof of marriage or divorce, submit to home studies including visits with household members and background checks and attend free training on issues of abuse or neglect.
Children placed with foster homes must have an adequate place to sleep.
No more than six children are allowed in any home. This includes the foster families own children and any children for whom the family provides day care.
Foster families must agree to not employ physical discipline, to allow fire, health and safety inspections of the home, to vaccinate their pets, to maintain CPR and First Aid certification, to obtain TB testing through their local Health Departments and to attend 20 or more hours of training each year.
Della Foster is a former Cooke County foster home provider.
During a brief telephone interview, Foster spoke about her experiences with the foster parent system.
She said she got into caring for foster children with the intention of “making a difference in the life of one child” back in 1989.
State-imposed rules and regulations, she said, are not the reason she stopped her work as a foster parent. But she admitted that red tape did, at times, cause her heartache.
“The main reason I don’t do it anymore is because I’m getting too old and I have five adopted children,” she explained.
Foster said she wasn’t in foster parenting for compensation other than the feeling that she was doing something inherently good for the children she took in.
But the process was, at times, “heartbreaking,” she said. Among her concerns were the sharing of information between foster families and the state.
“It’s so hard to communicate,” she said of her foster parent meetings and dealings with officials. “But that didn’t stop me from being a foster parent.”
