The number of foster children in need of homes in Montgomery County far outnumbers the number of foster families with rooms available between the same county lines, officials said.
During the month of January, there were 172 children in need of homes in the Montgomery County foster care system, according to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. The lack of available placements has foster care officials in Montgomery County reflecting on ways to improve the system; education and awareness are two of the top priorities.
“In Montgomery County and across the state, we are in a capacity crisis, meaning more children are entering care than there are foster homes for,” said Scott Batson, state director of development for Pathways Youth and Family Services, an organization headquartered in Kerrville. “In 2015, more than 18,000 children entered care in Texas—that’s an average of 1,200 children per month.”
Capacity crisis
Of the 172 children in need of homes in Montgomery County in January, 26 children were placed in homes within county lines and 123 were placed in other counties within Region 6—which encompasses 13 counties in southeast Texas. The remaining 23 children had to be placed in foster homes outside of the region due to a lack of internal resources, according to DFPS data.
When foster children are unable to be placed within their respective counties, the side effects can be detrimental to that child’s future and overall well-being, officials said.
“It’s one thing to have your whole life uprooted, but it wouldn’t be so catastrophic if some continuity remained,” said Cindy Mericle, executive director of the nonprofit Love Fosters Hope. “Not only are these kids losing the people who were responsible for them but also their neighbors, school friends and teachers, and they’re placed in a house full of strangers and enrolled in a new school. Everything in their life is turned completely upside down.”
With 163 foster homes in the county and only 119 accepting children, Montgomery County is still at a deficit when it comes to foster home availability, despite its robust network of foster organizations.
Batson said one of the biggest contributing factors to this statewide crisis is a surplus of foster-to-adopt families, or people whose motivation is to adopt and not foster. Because of this trend, Batson said there are hundreds of licensed families across Texas unwilling to accept an emergency placement into their homes.
“Most of these families only want to foster/adopt one child—maybe two—who are between the ages of 0 to 6 years old and usually of Caucasian or Hispanic race,” Batson said. “Because of this, there are few placements for sibling groups of more than two children, teens, children with developmental disabilities or children with medical needs.”
When families become licensed to foster, they are licensed for specific age groups, genders and ethnicities based on that family’s preferences. Andrea Requenes, regional director for Austin-based organization Arrow Child & Family Ministries, said she thinks the narrowness of preferences is also a contributing factor to this statewide deficit.
“We do have foster families in Montgomery County, however, I think the disparity comes from the referrals we get of kids that need homes and the foster family openings we have available,” Requenes said. “A foster family might be licensed to take two children ages 0-10 and if we need to place a sibling group of three kids ages 12-17, there’s just not a match there.”
When children are unable to be placed in foster homes within their own counties, they are placed in homes within that child’s respective region. When those resources are exhausted, the child can then be placed anywhere in the state. If a home cannot be located, a child can be placed in a shelter for up to 30 days, or if their behaviors are too extreme, they can be placed in a residential care center.
In addition to driving a wedge between familial relationships, relocating a child outside his or her county also hinders the normalcy of a child’s life, which is a top priority for foster care agencies, said Leishia Fisher, Child Protective Services regional director for the Department of Family Protective Services.
“When children are not placed in their home areas, it impacts them in a multitude of ways—they are suffering losses in family connection, lost friendships, losses in educational outcomes, and most importantly, the negative impact it has on their overall emotional stability,” Fisher said.
Room for improvement
Leaders in Montgomery County’s foster care community have several ideas regarding what their organizations and the community can do to improve the local system.
“Education is crucial,” Batson said. “We have to educate the community on the need for foster families within the county. I’ve been working in this field for 20 years, and during that time Montgomery County has really stepped up and set a standard for foster care across the state.”
Since April is Child Abuse Awareness Month, Mericle said she thinks a large-scale child abuse awareness campaign could be the key to raising awareness in Montgomery County.
“We see foster children coming from two different types of homes—those that are being loved and cared for and those that are just being managed; we can tell the difference,” Mericle said. “We don’t want to just increase the number of foster homes; we want to increase the number of good foster homes. I think that if we had more people applying, then the foster agencies could be more selective.”
Although officials agreed fostering is not for everyone, there are several other ways Montgomery County residents can help: getting approved as a babysitter for foster children, preparing toiletry bags for children entering care and volunteering with foster care organizations in the county.
“We simply need more foster parents to help support the children who are removed from the county,” Fisher said. “Everyone has to realize this is a problem that affects all of us, and as such, we will need to have a community response.”
