All too often, there are reports on children in the foster care system are abused, or worse. But there are success stories as well, many of them thanks to non-profit agencies that find good homes for kids.
But those agencies are facing a crisis that could force them to shut down.
There are nearly 45,000 children in the California foster care system, the vast majority have been separated from their parents due to neglect or abuse. Roughly 9,700 of those kids are placed in resource family homes supported by nonprofit foster family agencies (FFAs) like Five Acres in Altadena.
"FFAs are a critical component in the continuum of care in the child welfare system. They do the work that the counties are simply not set up to do," explained Jodi Kurata, the CEO of the Association of Community Human Service Agencies .
Working with foster children exposes FFAs to liability risks that requires insurance coverage.
Currently, a single insurer provides coverage in California for 90% of ALL FFAs - 26 in just L.A. County. But in spite of pending legislation in Sacramento intended to resolve liability concerns, that insurer recently announced it will no longer provide coverage to FFAs.
Kurata says the impact could be devastating,
"Foster family agencies cannot operate without insurance and today we understand the problem to be an availability problem not a cost problem."
Chanel Boutakidis is the CEO of Five Acres, and like other FAAs, can only wait to see what happens in Sacramento.
"It's heartbreaking for us to think that our programs would be in jeopardy alongside all the others in California who operate foster care agencies, but without us you're gonna see a lot of families who really never find their way to a child," said Boutakidis.
Families such as Erich Schneider and Alana Gentry, who found their daughter with the help of Five Acres.
"There's something in me that knew, 'oh, you're going to find your daughter here'," Alana said as she held back tears of joy.
Gentry and Schneider came to Five Acres when they wanted to learn about adoption and were inspired through the Five Acres orientation program.
"It was like, full body chills when they were talking. It just felt like this is where we we're meant to be," Gentry said.
"We also didn't know about the need for it... just in L.A. County alone how many children needed homes," Schneider added.
Initially, they were a foster family before adopting their now 3-year-old daughter.
In L.A. County, 1,700 children are being cared for by FFA resource families - who are trained and supported by an FFA social worker, who can visit families every week because the case load is roughly half that of a county social worker.
Laura De La Cruz, who is a program supervisor for Foster Care and Adoption, explained why that matters.
"The child fell and scraped their knee, they call us. The child got suspended from school today, they call us. We answer the phone. We know what's happening at all times. Oversight is very important to keep kids safe and that's what a foster family agency can offer."
Without a solution, FFAs will begin losing insurance as early as October and it will likely cascade across the industry through the fiscal year of 24-25.The risk to the foster care system is hard to imagine.
"If 90% of FFAs were to go away in the coming year, counties would face severe crises in finding safe family settings for children and so there would be a number of children without anywhere to go," said Kurata.
Boutakidis echoed that sentiment.
"I would say I'm very concerned that, should agencies like us not exist, you're gonna get children who never find permanency and end up just rotating from family to family and emancipating out, and then who knows what system the enter and I think that's one of the greatest worries I have with this."
Schneider says he hopes something will be done to keep foster family agencies protected.
"The road was rough getting to this point, but at this point it feels meant to be... like, she was always our daughter and Five Acres is a huge part of that," Schneider said.
Most Popular
Comments / 0