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Foster Care Shouldn't Be a Profit Center for Families
newsmax ^ | Nov 25, 2017 | Michael Reagan

Posted on 11/25/2017 1:19:47 PM PST by Oshkalaboomboom

It’s ironic or tragic or outrageous that in a nation where parents are allowed to keep their children on the family health insurance policy until they’re 26-years-old, many foster children are told to hit the streets when they turn 18. Why is that you ask? Foster parents receive a monthly stipend for foster children in their care. The check is based on the age of the child, extenuating circumstances, and if the child has any disabilities. Amounts can vary depending of the state administering the program.

One thing all the checks have in common is that when the child turns 18 the money from the state stops. Call me naïve, but I would have thought that if a family truly cared about the individual it was fostering the absence of a check would not make any difference.

It shows you how much I know. For some revenue-minded foster "parents" when opening the door no longer provides a check, the foster child is shown the door.

In South Carolina the non-profit Carolina Youth Development Center is working to change this unpleasant reality for at least a few that have aged out of foster care.

CYDC is partnering with Cummins International — the manufacturer of the diesel engines that power the big rigs — to produce independent living transitional housing for those former foster kids. CYDC CEO Beverly Hardin told the Moultrie News, “Children don’t just become independent when they turn 18. They still need guidance and a safe and stable environment in order for them to grow into responsible adults capable of caring for themselves.”

(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: fostercare
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To: manc
Please do not feel ever sorry as it made me a better person, and a better husband, and father. I hope .

No doubt it has. I love your attitude.

When we adopted, our only goal was to raise a healthy, happy, well adjusted, resilient person.

So far, she is succeeding beyond our wildest expectations!

61 posted on 11/25/2017 7:52:34 PM PST by papertyger
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To: cherry
A person can make more money, less stress, better hours, at Mickey D than as a foster parent. A large percentage now are kinship foster parents who take in their own family. Once the state takes a child into custody they are in the foster care system. Even if it is your own offspring's children in custody you must become a state certified FP to get them. It can take up to a year before an check is seen and the checks are about enough to cover cost. Cost??? Yeah. Food, clothes, driving to places to get them help.

The certification is an ongoing task. You have to attend classes listening to Liberal B.S. for hours on end and "Village" propaganda. You have to open your home to the state. You have to pass a FBI check. You have to give them a biography of your entire life and your beliefs. You'll likely get to know the cops because many times parents call in so as to try and get the kids moved. The Foster Care Program puts the welfare of the kids last and the kids mother first.

A couple decades ago if a child was taken out of the parents home into protective custody they often tried to locate stable family members to take them in and more often than not adopt them. Now their goal is reunification for any offenses short of killing a child. The state, the parents, and the courts in cases of kinship FP's will dangle the kids over them. The kids need stability and most of all love. This system as it stands doesn't allow it.

62 posted on 11/25/2017 8:06:50 PM PST by cva66snipe ((Two Choices left for U.S. One Nation Under GOD or One Nation Under Judgment? Which one say ye?))
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To: papertyger
Thank you. We had ties to the girls' parents, divorced and troubled in other ways too they walked away from the kids. We picked them up in their teens and they had already seen plenty of instability. They took a lot of energy and it was also financially tough but we did everything we could for them, they are off with their own families now and they struggle like young families do.

We are a lot older now and I don't know if we would do it again, if certain situations arose I think we probably would.

63 posted on 11/25/2017 8:08:31 PM PST by Clinging Bitterly (I will not comply.)
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To: Clinging Bitterly

No. Thank YOU.

Keeping those kids out of “the system” is probably the ONLY thing that gives them a chance at a life not filled with sorrow.

The things I’ve learned about the literal brain physiology of children depending on how they are raised should TERRIFY “hobbyist” parents.


64 posted on 11/25/2017 8:27:49 PM PST by papertyger
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To: DouglasKC

Yeah, it was, but someone had to do it. I just couldn’t let those girls go unloved.


65 posted on 11/25/2017 8:42:05 PM PST by Beagle8U (Wake up and smell the Covfef)
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To: Governor Dinwiddie

Happy/lucky?


66 posted on 11/25/2017 8:49:25 PM PST by Beagle8U (Wake up and smell the Covfef)
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To: manc

Very good. These days people’s bad behavior is sympathized and sometimes justified because of their negative experiences. You are a perfect example of why that is not an excuse.


67 posted on 11/26/2017 12:12:04 AM PST by Rusty0604
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

Yep - and many have “issues” so I have no problem for someone to make a few bucks taking care of them - gives the kids a much better shot compared to being in communal shelters.


68 posted on 11/26/2017 3:19:31 AM PST by trebb (Where in the the hell has my country gone?)
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To: George from New England

And don’t forget the federal funds attached to child support recovery. Child support interest, is another big payday for the state.


69 posted on 11/26/2017 4:15:23 AM PST by momincombatboots (White Stetsons up.. let's save our country!)
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To: papertyger

My suggestion is to stop demanding obeisance to family; if it is a positive one, affirm it, if not, let people make their own lives. In America, we have a sick allegiance to family that harms many in the long run. Molested daughters visiting their molesters in jail, letting their children visit their “grandfather” because, after all, he is their “grandfather”, covering up crimes of the parents because of biology, it makes me shudder.


70 posted on 11/26/2017 4:21:45 AM PST by yldstrk (My heroes have always been cowboys)
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To: papertyger

nuns beat kids, pinch kids, priests hit kids with fists, molest them, so yes, religious orphanages should be good places, but aren’t


71 posted on 11/26/2017 4:24:48 AM PST by yldstrk (My heroes have always been cowboys)
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To: Clinging Bitterly

You took in three children who were not state funded or wards. On your own dime. that is the grace of charity. My comment was about state kids who need homes and would have been in orphanages and training schools in the past and now are parceled out to professionally trained people who raise them in their homes, as an option to having the children in the streets.


72 posted on 11/26/2017 5:17:16 AM PST by Chickensoup (Leftists today are speaking as if they plan to commence to commit genocide against conservatives.)
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To: manc

That stipend might have been the thing that allowed them to keep you.


73 posted on 11/26/2017 5:20:58 AM PST by Chickensoup (Leftists today are speaking as if they plan to commence to commit genocide against conservatives.)
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To: BwanaNdege; cherry
I think as long as kids know they are loved, things will turn out okay

Drug addiction... sex trafficking... plenty of horrible things can and do happen to kids from loving homes.

74 posted on 11/26/2017 5:37:28 AM PST by Teacher317 (We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom
Growing up, I knew a foster kid. His 'owner' had a nice bedroom for show when the social worker visit, but his room was in the basement with one small window. He couldn't eat with the family...

Unfortunately, the children's services people are spread thin. Hope it will change, that is why we are foster parents...

75 posted on 11/26/2017 5:57:39 AM PST by Deplorable American1776 (Proud to be a DeplorableAmerican with a Deplorable Family...even the dog is, too. :-))
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To: yldstrk

How deliciously ironic.

You refer to a “sick allegence” to “family” as if the demand for “obeisance to family” causes otherwise wholesome people to return victimized children to a pit of despair!

Talk about “straw man!”

What’s “sick” is your antipathy, and failure to recognize an inherently meritorious societal icon, because it is practiced by both the righteous and the wicked.

The failure here is with your understanding of “cart” and “horse.”


76 posted on 11/26/2017 6:07:14 AM PST by papertyger
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To: yldstrk
nuns beat kids, pinch kids, priests hit kids with fists, molest them, so yes, religious orphanages should be good places, but aren’t

And the people who do such things that aren’t members of an easily categorized community are somehow superior?

77 posted on 11/26/2017 6:11:20 AM PST by papertyger
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To: papertyger

are they?


78 posted on 11/26/2017 6:22:05 AM PST by yldstrk (My heroes have always been cowboys)
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To: papertyger

the take away is: not all families should be reunified.


79 posted on 11/26/2017 6:23:42 AM PST by yldstrk (My heroes have always been cowboys)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

I had a friend who fostered. She had one girl who’s grandparents adopted her younger sibling who was a cute toddler but nobody in the family wanted the 12 year old. That poor kid was a liar,aggressive, angry and sexually provocative. My friend had her for years but refused to adopt her because that would have stopped the money from coming in and created a financial burden. My friend would have been on the hook for the girl’s
pyschatric visits and her vocational training. Eventually they sent her to a group home because she kept coming on to the husband and the neighbor men. She also tried to get my friend’s child to pick up a rattle snake.


80 posted on 11/26/2017 6:27:45 AM PST by stellaluna
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