Children in foster care are regular kids—but life has been especially hard on them. They have endured maltreatment and they are in foster care to be protected from further harm. Children remain in foster care while their parents access resources that help them provide safe, stable, nurturing home environments.

Too often, being removed home means that children must live apart from siblings, and away from their friends, & neighbors & schools.  For children, this change is happens by surprise, without notice or opportunity to prepare.

Within 72 hours of a child’s removal from home, there is a Shelter Care Hearing to determine whether the child’s home environment meets minimally sufficient standards for child safety and well-being. Often, parents need a great deal of time and support before they are able to provide safe, stable home environments. This can keep a child waiting a year, or even longer for a forever family.

That is when a child becomes a Dependent of We the People of WA State That is when it becomes our collective responsibility to protect them and to tend their well-being. (RCW.26.44).

That is also when Resource Families step up. Resource Families are foster parents, grandparents & relatives, and others (fictive kin) who have established a healthy, emotionally significant.  relationship with a child, and who can provide a safe, stable, loving (temporary) home environment for children.

It is a Myth that Foster Parents are ‘in it for the money.’  It is a Fact that Foster Parents are reimbursed at (approximately 60%) for costs they incur while caring for a child. (WA State Children’s Administration).

Children enter foster care through o fault of their own. They need some help if they are going to be able to access opportunities that many children enjoy as part of a normal childhood.

Quick Facts
In Island County, physical neglect is the primary cause for a child’s removal from home.
Source:
WA State Children’s Administration – Region 3. FamLink (2009)