"bobb" wrote in message ...
"Doug" wrote in message
...
Here is the trend of kinship foster care, expressed in percentage of
foster
care population, after the correction. As it turns out, the numbers for
1998 were the same as 1997.
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/p...99/ar0199a.htm

1997 29%
1998 29%
1999 26%
2000 25%
2001 24%



Kinship care has taken a beating because CPS fears it cannot control family
associations and has set unrealistic barriers to prevent licensing. Even a
marijuana bust 15 years ago will prevent and aunt or uncle, now with
children of their own, from caring for their neice or nephew.

I'm willng to be 99.9 percent of all foster kids try to reestablish
relationship with their families or relatives, prior to, and after
emancipation... however, depending on how long they've been wards of the
state.. they become strangers. Kinship care should not be viewed simply as
having a biological connection but I'd suggest friends of the family (or
child) should also be considered and sought out prior to foster care with a
stranger.

Many years ago.. I sought a foster kid who was known to me.. but because I
was known to the family I, too, was ineligible even thought I was licensed
and avaibable.

bobb


A few years ago, I saw that in one state, I think it was either
Washington or Oregon, had set up a special program to recruit friends
and family members of black children to step forward and provide homes
for black children when they were taken into the system. This was
apparently in response to heavy criticism from the black community
regarding the disproportionate number of black children in the foster
care system. Essentially, the black community asked CPS if they
thought that black parents were "three times as abusive" as white
parents, since black children were three times more likely to be in
foster care.

Anyway, they had a separate website set up extolling the virtues of
maintaining children's bonds to the community, and they were
specifically assuring people who had a long-term bond with black
children, whether they were actual relatives by birth or marriage or
not, to step forward, and promising them a streamlined approval
process. In the meantime, over at the main website, the "standard"
rule was clearly laid out -- preference for placement was only offered
to grandparents, aunts, uncles, and adult siblings.

I have heard that when young, adoptable children are involved, local
grandparents who ask to take the children are told that they are "too
close" and can't be counted on to keep the children away from the bio
parents, while out-of-state grandparents are "too far away," and can't
be given the children because that would interfere with the stated
goal of reunification. As far as background checks go, this seems to
be all over the place. "Rilya" was given to grifters who claimed to
be blood relatives of some sort or another, while, as you say, some
people asking to have young relatives placed with them are turned down
for "ancient history" which would NOT have prevented them from
becoming foster parents to children who were unknown to them.

Even in cases in which CPS knows that it will be forced to turn the
children over to the grandparents at some point, they will often drag
their feet for as long as possible.