Foster care is a network of public and private agencies that removes children from their families due to allegations of neglect and/or abuse. The stated purpose of foster care is to give children a safe home for a temporary amount of time until a permanent safe home can be provided.
Foster care has a long history of being used by the government to break up families in Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities, to force agendas of assimilation, retaliate for utilizing government resources, and perpetuate systemic racism. To this day BIPOC families are over-represented in the foster care system.
Foster agencies operate on the city or county level. The requirements for becoming a foster parent will depend on where you live. Typically you can become certified through a public agency run by your city or county or through a foster care agency. Foster care agencies typically have more training and requirements as well as more support than a city or county agency.
Overall, becoming a foster parent requires initial training, background checks, fingerprinting, home study, home inspection, and an application that will include a physical, financial information, as well as information and background checks on everyone who lives in the household, including children. Every year you will have to recertify your home, which typically includes additional educational requirements as well as background, health, and home checks.
The purpose of foster care is to provide a temporary home for children while the agency and court determine an appropriate permanency plan. The first choice is always for children to be reunified with their biological parents. The next choice is for children to be placed with other biological family members (sometimes referred to as kinship care), and then adoption. If none of these options are available children may be placed in a group home, institutions, or stay in foster care until they turn 18 and “age out.”
It will be challenging to be a foster parent, and support the primary goal of reunification, if your goal is adoption. For some children, reunification is not an option, and they will need an adoptive home. In these cases you may be asked to adopt your foster children if you are an appropriate fit. It is important to think critically about your motivations for fostering and if you would be able to support reunification.
Yes! People who are not partnered are able to become foster parents.
Foster parents are not compensated for their time or labor. Foster parents are provided a monthly stipend which is to be spent on the care of their children. The monthly stipend amount will depend on the state you live in as well as the level of needs of the children in your care. Some agencies may also provide funds for clothing or childcare. All children in care receive medicaid at no cost, which often limits which medical providers you are able to access. Children in foster care have a family income of $0 which makes them eligible for many income-based services such as WIC and Head Start.
There are lots of ways to support kids in care, families at risk of being separated, and current foster parents without being a foster parent. Check out some ideas on the Get Involved page.