The foster care situation in Burke County is at a crisis level due to a lack of families or individuals to house children currently in the custody of social services, said Burke County Manager Brian Epley,
Foster children in Burke
About 200 children are in the care of the Burke County Department of Social Services, but there are only 14 licensed foster homes in the county, said Korey Fisher-Wellman, director of the Burke County Department of Social Services.
He said the department has a lot of children placed in homes outside of the county and there are a lot of children in unlicensed kinship placements, meaning the child is living with a relative.
County Manager Epley is proposing the social services department, along with the health department, be brought under the management of the county. He said he is concerned about having 200 children in care but so few foster families.
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Epley said he has had conversations with Fisher-Wellman about the situation. He said DSS has one employee working on recruiting foster families.
Epley said he knows that if a child is placed in a foster home, that’s a much better environment for them than being put in congregate care. The ultimate goal is a permanent home for the child, he said.
“So, it’s better for the child if we have local foster parents,†Epley said.
It also makes the taxpayer money that funds the program go further. Epley said the county pays 25% of the bill for roughly half of the foster children it has in care and around 50% for the other half. Depending on the funding the child qualifies for, the state or federal government picks up the remainder of the cost, he said.
He said placing a child with a local foster family costs about $600 a month. At 25% funding, that would mean the county would pay about $150 per month. If that child has to be placed in a congregate foster home, the bill is around $5,000 a month, he said. The county’s portion of that bill, at 25%, would be about $1,250.
Being a foster parent
Cindy Broach Charlet, a PE teacher at Valdese Elementary School, said she was a therapeutic foster parent for 13 years.
“I think it’s just providing that safe place for children, and just knowing that that’s one small way that you can help somebody,†Charlet said. “And just kind of having that impression and teaching kids what a healthy home should look like and kind of exposing them to healthy relationships.â€
Charlet said the role is challenging but rewarding.
“Now, there were times when it was hard,†Charlet said. “It was hard to see them leave and then, you know, you had some behaviors that you had to overcome and learn to work with. But I think the majority of the time, the reward at the end was worth it.â€
Charlet said she never tried to replace a child’s parents. She said some of the children asked why she cared, and she explained to them that she cared because they are a child, and she wanted to provide a safe place for them and be a positive role model.
She said it was rewarding to see some of her foster children go back to their birth parents and have successful relationships with their family.
She’s also had others who ended up being adopted, grew up and later reached out to thank her for her role in their life.
She fostered mostly girls, and several are now in their 20s and moms themselves. “They thank you for kind of what you’ve done for them and showing them that there was hope,†Charlet said.
Charlet is no longer a foster parent because she recently got married. There are four children in the home, which is the limit for therapeutic foster families, Charlet said.
Charlet said she isn’t ruling out being a foster parent in the future.
Recruiting foster parents
“There’s good people in this community that will help,†Epley said. “They need to be asked. They need to be motivated.â€
A few of Epley’s ideas for trying to recruit foster families in Burke include visiting churches, school basketball and football games during halftime and PTA meetings and then making announcements about the need in the county.
When Epley was manager of Cleveland County, the social services department had a standing spot during halftime at every Gardner Webb University home football game to let people know about the desperate need for foster parents, he said. He said at the time, Cleveland County had well over 100 foster families.
“There are people that are in (a) position in life that are willing to do it,†Epley said. “They don’t know how desperate we are.â€
Epley said being a foster parent isn’t something people have to commit to long term. “You don’t have to do it forever,†he said. “Do it for six months.â€