If I had a million dollars (and a talent for navigating international paperwork), I would move to England, buy a big house, and run an orphanage/boarding school. This is a pipe dream born of too much exposure to Victorian novels, I admit. But unfortunately, the need for excellent foster homes in Britain is rising. In January of 2012, Britain hit an all-time high of 903 kids referred to care (their term for foster care). You can read more about it here.
The theory explaining this increase points to a growing awareness in England of the harm caused by parental neglect. Child welfare agencies are therefore expanding their investigative criteria to include neglect as well as abuse. Dr. Karyn Purvis taught us that the message of abuse is "I don't like you," while the message of neglect is "You don't exist." Surprisingly, neglect tends to be far more destructive to brain chemistry and development than abuse. As one band flippantly puts it, "A kiss with a fist is better than none."
903 is a big number. If they continue through the year at that rate, Britain will have 10,836 new children in care in 2012. The scary thing is, though, that Texas took 17,108 new children into foster care in 2011. And the total number of children in foster care in Texas in 2011 was 31,092. That is five times the number of students who attended my university while I was there. I can't really picture how many kids that is. But I know this--it is 31,092 too many.
To break it down even more, there are about 3,000 kids in foster care in the Austin region. There are almost 500 CPS caseworkers for those 3,000 kids. That seems somewhat manageable--each caseworker has six kids to handle. That would be a lot, but doable. Except for the fact that the Austin region had 20,857 investigations in 2011. And that's not even counting the number of complaints they received that didn't result in investigations. Bottom line? Those folks are overwhelmingly overworked. And therefore kids needing families and families needing kids wait for weeks, months, and even years, staring across a broad ocean of paperwork that just seems to sit on desks and never gets anywhere.
I don't have a solution. I wish I did. All I know is to pray pray pray.
Sing to God, sing in praise of his name,
extol him who rides on the clouds;
rejoice before him—his name is the LORD.
A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
is God in his holy dwelling.
God sets the lonely in families...
--Psalm 68:4-6
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