Month in Review: March 2025

March was a busy month for us, with 69 children referred and 3 placed into our homes. Here are some quick stats of the children placed with us:

Age:

• 0-2: 8 children
• 3-5: 11 children
• 6-8: 10 children
• 9-11: 9 children
• 12-14: 15 children
• 15-17: 15 children
• 18+: 1 child

Sibling Groups:

• 29 single children
• 8 sibling groups of 2
• 3 sibling groups of 3
• 2 sibling groups of 4
• 1 sibling group of 6
• 1 mother/baby placement (a teen being placed into foster care herself while her baby remains in her own care and custody)

Anecdotally, our long-time foster care staff shares that March is always a very busy month, even earning itself the ominous nickname of "March madness" in the child welfare world. However, this year's number of referrals was relatively low compared to 114 in March of 2024, 87 in March of 2023, and 93 in March of 2022. In fact, nationwide the number of children in foster care is dropping. The president of the Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO), Jedd Medefind, recently published an extraordinarily thought-provoking article on the state of child welfare in our country. In this article, he reports that, "In 2022, fewer than 187,000 children entered foster care - a 10% drop from the prior year and the lowest number ever recorded. We should certainly celebrate every instance when a child does not need to enter foster care because he is able to remain safely at home. However, there is scant evidence that fewer children are in foster care because they are safer or their families are healthier - indeed, virtually every frontline worker in the field with whom I interact says quite the opposite. In reality...the number of licensed foster homes has dropped every year since 2019, falling below 200,000 for the first time in 2023. Congregate care options - including group homes, residential care, and shelters - have also fallen dramatically...It might be tempting to celebrate this atrophying of the foster-care system, hoping it will tilt the balance further toward keeping children at home. But in practice, it often means forcing foster youth to sleep in motels, emergency rooms, and juvenile detention centers. Instead of being able to choose an ideal placement for each child among multiple options, social workers must settle for any option, no matter how flawed or far from a child's community it happens to be."

When we speak of the current foster care crisis, this is very much what we are describing. I would highly recommend reading Jedd Medefind's entire article to get a fuller perspective of the problems at hand, and some hope-filled suggestions for how we can all do our part to help.

In the meantime, one confusing reality for many foster parents remains: while everyone is talking about the crisis, lack of available homes, and desperation within the system, many foster families who are eager to help remain open without placements for days, weeks, and even months after being licensed. Although we placed 4 children last month, we alsosaid no to 65 other children, even though we still have open families who are available for placements. This is a topic that comes up frequently in many online foster parent support groups, and something we address in our Family Preparation Training for new foster parents using this sobering graphic:

The house icons in the orange triangle on the left represent all of the open foster homes. The person icons in the pink triangle on the right represent all of the children needing care. As you can see, there are far less homes than there are children - which is why we have a crisis. However, the deeper reality is that of the homes that we do have, the vast majority (all of the orange homes) are open to a demographic of children that represents only a small percentage of children needing care (the orange person). Sadly, the vast majority of the children in care (the pink people) belong to demographics that only a tiny percentage of foster homes - if any at all - are willing to consider. These include older children, larger sibling groups, children with special needs or developmental delays, LGBTQ+ youth, children with significant trauma that leads to behavioral challenges, children with a history of mental health treatment and hospitalization, and children with significant medical needs, to name a few.

Case in point: of the 4 children we were able to place last month, 2 of them were newborns and one was a young child with no identified special needs. While we celebrate these children finding safe and loving homes, we also yearn to be able to provide equally amazing and wonderful homes to the many children who do not seem as "attractive" on paper. We never want to pressure a foster family to take a child whose needs they do not feel comfortable managing, but we are constantly looking for new and better ways to recruit, support, and empower families who are able to provide loving homes for the children who need them most. 

If you belong to a church, community group, or even have a group of friends who would like to learn more about the current needs for foster homes, we are always happy to give a presentation or host a "foster share party." If you are open to learning more about opening your home to children in need, please contact us - we would love to speak with you!

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