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…”
Tag: Out-of-family placements
Foster Care System
- New report highlights deficiency in state foster care systems, By Lauren Sausser, May 19, 2015, Post and Courier: “Foster children in South Carolina are too often sent to live in group homes instead of with foster families, a new report shows. About one in four foster children in the state are placed in group settings, compared with one in seven in the United States, the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation found. The report’s authors believe children thrive in family settings and that group homes can’t offer the ‘individualized nurturing’ that many of them need…”
- N.J. one of top states in placing foster children with families, report says, By Brent Johnson, May 19, 2015, Star-Ledger: “A new report shows New Jersey ranks ninth in the nation in the percentage of foster children living with families instead of in group homes or institutions — a setting experts say is more beneficial to their health and well-being. The ‘Kids Count’ report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation shows 91 percent of New Jersey’s foster children live with families…”