Seeking angels for foster children
By Cathy Richman
It only took a moment or two, so perhaps you missed it. In the midst of stories about rising gas and food prices, slipping hillsides and presidential elections, you might not have heard about two tragic cases that made their way to local courts recently.
One was the case of Malachi McBride-Roberts, who died days before his second birthday of blunt force trauma to the head. The other was Angelina Espalin, a 4-year-old girl who also died of that same type of trauma, according to medical experts. Malachi lived in San Diego, Angeline lived in Vista. They had little in common, except that they both ended their short lives at Rady Children's Hospital – and both were foster children. Their foster mothers have pleaded not guilty, but on April 23 both women were in court and two judges ruled that they had to stand trial on murder and assault charges.
Could those deaths have been prevented? What needs to happen in the future that these heartbreaking incidents don't happen again? The California Blue Ribbon Commission on Children in Foster Care tells us that nearly 80,000 children in the state live in foster care, and that half of the children entering foster care are 5 years old or younger. It's latest report finds that the dependency court system is woefully overtaxed, as are the social workers and the attorneys who serve the children and their families, hardly new information.
The Children's Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego School of Law issued its own report on the state of foster care in May 2007, calling for several reforms, including increasing the rates paid to foster families; establishing a new office in the Department of Social Services to recruit and retain foster parents; and elevating the professional stature of foster parents by creating a community college certification program to train potential foster parents to care for children with a wide range of needs. I applaud all of these efforts to serve children, but I think even more is needed – a fundamental change in the way the foster system functions.
After volunteering as a CASA, a court-appointed special advocate, for foster children, I was so frustrated with the system that in 1998 I founded Angels Foster Family Network, based on an entirely different model. Actually, it's based on the model of most homes – one that starts with providing a child with the love and attention necessary to begin a young life with the best possible chance to grow and thrive. Potential Angels foster families are carefully screened, evaluated and trained to meet the needs of the infants and toddlers that the county refers to us for placement. Families – and this is a program that everyone in the household must participate in – agree that they will accept a single child or a single sibling group, and the child or children must remain in the home until the courts make the final placement to either reunite the child with their birth family or relinquish parental rights and develop an adoption plan to prevent the multiple placements so common for so many foster children.
An Angels social worker is assigned to the family and is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for consultation and support. This is truly a labor of love for our foster families. These are not picture-perfect infants; many have been born with illegal drugs in their systems or have been severely abused or neglected. But who more than these most vulnerable among us need the special care we can lavish on them? Yes, I want to see the commissions and panels do their jobs, but I also want them to take a look at the very structure in which these services are provided. We desperately need substantial change at the very heart of this overtaxed system. In the meantime, I'll keep an eye out for what happens to the cases of Malachi's and Angelina's foster mothers. Both are due back in court this month – National Foster Care Month.