Foster care families are better and cost less than group homes, so why the shortage in Western Mass.?, By Michelle Williams, June 10, 2015, MassLive: “For most children in Massachusetts placed in emergency foster care, the process starts with a phone call. The reasons vary: a parent goes into the hospital and are unable to care for a child; a child is found to be a victim of sexual or physical violence and taken from a home. From there, the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families works with partner organizations to place the child in a new residence as soon as possible. Ideally, a child is placed in a single-family home with one other foster child, but the lack of foster parents have made this goal challenging…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty