Are foster homes really as bad as it sounds?

Question

I've heard and read alot of negative stuff about foster homes. Are they true? What's your experience if you had any or give me some facts about it or something.

Answer 1

My husband & I are foster parents. We have been foster parents for 5 years. We have had during those 5 years 16 foster children in our home. We love them each & every one!!! We have gone on to adopt 4 of those children. We currently have 2 foster children that if they become eligible for adoption we will adopt as well. Then we are DONE! LOL We certainly don't make a lot of money doing this so we must love it!!! 2 of the 3 that we adopted when their adoptions were final we get no $$ monthly at all!!! Before we adopted them we got a whopping $15 a day to support them. They have been on family vacations with us to Disney & everywhere else our family goes they go too. When they are with us they ARE a member of our family and they do just as we do. You truly do only hear the horror stories about foster care - unfortunately there are terrible ones out there but there are a lot of great ones too!

Answer 2

I was in foster care for ten years and my placements were all over the spectrum. I had some really bad foster parents who probably should have never had a foster care license and then some really good ones who treated me like their own child and took good care of me. I would say the majority of foster homes are good and even sometimes when it does not work out for a child to stay with a foster family, that does not mean anyone in the situation is bad necessarily, it may just be a poor fit between that particular family and that specific child. Overall, the foster care system is a good thing and it helps many families get their act together so they can get their kids back, or kids whose parents cannot get their lives together to get a permanent family that can love and support them.

Answer 3

It's different across the board. I grew up in upper middle class suburbia and had three foster brothers. Now that we're adults we all still talk and they are still close with my parents. They all agree that living with my family was a good thing and made them what they are today. It was much better for them then the alternative of staying in an abusive home with their mother or living in a facility.

But, not all foster homes are happy places. Being a therapeutic foster parent can pay up to $100 a day (or more) per child, so some people do get in to it just for the money. That money is suppose to go to the care of the children and training and support for the parent, but that's not always the case. Foster care caseworkers are spread pretty thin so they can not always catch everything.

But, for every person that takes foster children in to their home for the money, there are hundreds who become foster parents for the right reasons. They love children and want to protect and nurture our nations most needy and vulnerable.

Answer 4

I used to work for a child protection services unit in my state. I found ALL of the homes that my cases were in to be good. Some were even excellent. However, I didn't work there very long and do know of some homes that I would have never placed the kids. Most are good, it's only the bad ones that make the news. There are thousands of kids in this country who are placed in homes each year. Of those, only 2 or 3 make the news. Some people say that foster parents do it for the money, but in my state, it is so little money, and so much work, that there is no way that they do it just for the money. Some people think that they are able to care for more kids than they can handle. I think this is the main issue. If you are in a home that has 3 extra bedrooms, but you keep taking in kids, you soon run out of room, food, and attention for the kids.

Answer 5

Most foster homes are good and loving homes for kids who are in need. There are of course some that give them all a bad name. Most foster parents are people who love kids and want the best for them but the system is flawed. The system moves the children here and there creating no stability for them.

Answer 6

It all depends on the family your placed with.
My husband and his 2 younger siblings were in and out of foster homes growing up and they had some really good ones, and then they had really crappy ones. My niece was in foster care for 6mths and she had a wonderful family. She got a 2nd family that now treats her poorly because they are only in foster care for the money. It just varies, not all of its bad...in fact just a small percentage is bad.

Answer 7

No, you only hear about the bad ones. There are many, many good ones.

My parents were foster parents when I was a kid. They treated each child just as they did me. (no, they weren't abusive to me)

We have two couples in our church who are foster parents and they are genuinely concerned with the kids that come into their homes. It is a hard job, caring for kids who have been taken from their parents for various reasons.

Of course, it is hard for any child to be taken from a home he/she knows and put into a different family. But sometimes it is simply necessary.

Answer 8

sometimes they are other times they 're not.It depends on the couple that become the foster parents.It really depends on how much they love having a child and how much they are willing and capable to offer to the child.Some people really are not suitable of being parents.I've heard some stories about bad foster parents.But shouldn't be prejudiced because they really do something to help the communities of mthe world to be more healthy

Answer 9

Why can't you think positively and ask instead 'Are foster homes really as good as it sounds'? They should indeed be pretty good though exceptions are not ruled out!