Righting a wrong State foster parents close to getting rights ensured
02/19/04
Foster parents are not baby sitters. They are, clearly, among the most
important components in Alabama's effort to ensure the welfare of
abused and neglected children.
Foster families are so vital, the state Department of Human Resources
must aggressively recruit new families to keep up with the demand.
Yet, the way state government has treated foster families in the past
is shameful.
That finally may be changing, and let's hope so. A change is long
overdue.
The Alabama Senate this week passed the Foster Parents Bill of Rights
Act, a bill that compels the state Department of Human Resources to
make sure that foster parents have 23 specific rights. Foster parents
have been lobbying for three years for legal protections and
consideration; the 32-0 vote in the Senate may signal that the time
has come.
The bill ensures that foster parents have the right to quality
training; the right to complete information on the children taken into
their homes; the right to attend and participate in meetings where the
foster child's future care plan is discussed, reviewed and decided;
and the right to have necessary information relevant to the care of
the child.
Many of these rights already are part of DHR policy, but that policy
can change depending on who's in charge of DHR.
DHR Commissioner Page Walley already is experienced with foster
parents having specific rights under the law. Tennessee, where Walley
was director of children's services, was among the first states to
pass a foster parents' bill of rights. Indeed, Alabama's bill is
modeled after Tennessee's.
Some of the specific rights sound like common sense. The first right,
for example, states that foster parents have "the right to be treated
with dignity, respect, trust, value and consideration as a primary
provider of foster care and a member of the professional team caring
for foster children." Well, of course, foster parents deserve such
consideration. Problem is, DHR often made decisions about foster
children with no consideration whatsoever of the foster parent.
No longer.
One vitally important right is that DHR will be required to have a
staff person on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, "for the
purpose of aiding the foster parent in receiving departmental
assistance." Foster children often must get authorization from DHR
before they can receive medical care or other services, but sometimes
that authorization is difficult to obtain late at night, early in the
morning or over weekends and holidays.
The role foster parents play in caring for hurting children is as
important to child welfare as DHR itself. Therefore, foster parents
deserve respect and consideration in line with that crucial role.
The Senate strongly endorsed these rights for foster parents, and the
House should do the same as quickly as possible.
It's wrong for foster parents to be treated in any way other than as
equal partners in the state's efforts to care for abused and neglected
children.
http://www.al.com/opinion/birmingham...8586258020.xml
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