Bureaucratic Rules Deter Prospective Foster Parents

One of the biggest frustrations in being a foster parent is having to deal with rules that seem to make no sense. Bureaucracies create many rules that the agencies claim are designed to keep kids safe, but in actuality are designed to keep the agency safe.

One example is the rule that foster children cannot spend nights with unlicensed families. Although the federal “reasonable and prudent parenting” standard has loosed some of those rules, most agencies still limit the number of nights that a child can spend in an unlicensed home. The effect is that foster kids cannot go on vacation with friends unless the friend’s parents have gone through the onerous licensing process. In some states, they cannot even spend a long weekend with a friend’s family.  For foster kids, it’s simply one way way in which the system reminds them again (and again) that they don’t have a normal family.

Agencies claim that these rules are designed to keep the kids safe from pedophiles. It’s true that the rules protect the kids in the same way that never letting them on an airplane keeps them safe from plane crashes. But, of course, the cost to the kids doesn’t factor into either situation. And the rule isn’t designed to protect the child from abusers so much as it is designed to keep the agencies safe from lawsuits.  

After all, statistically, the vast majority of kids will be perfectly safe with with their friends’ families. It’s the sort of risk analysis that normal families make every day, and no one accuses parents of neglect because they let their child go to Disney World or a lake house with a friend. Agencies, however, deal with hundreds of kids. While staying overnight with an unlicensed family poses little risk to an individual child, the risk is higher for the entire group of foster kids. Some child somewhere will be injured or abused while with a friend’s family, and that single lawsuit can seriously harm the agency. So the simplest solution is to simply prohibit the activity for every child in the system. You’ll find the same principle in rules against mouthwash with alcohol, spray cans of deodorant, and other obscure products.

These sort of calculations are inevitable when you task specific agencies with caring for multiple children. The agencies, and the states that regulate them, have to create all sorts of wide-ranging rules for all children. Any consideration of individual circumstances leaves room for a lawsuit, devastating PR coverage, or legislative investigations. So the agencies try to close down every loophole, and everyone is happy except the foster parents and kids who have to live with the rules.

Whenever we look at reforms to the foster care system, we need to look at reforms to the many ways we keep kids from normal relationships. We may have to consider wide-ranging reforms, such as limits on civil suits or public awareness about the rules. As long as the safest course for agencies is to limit opportunities for foster parents and kids, that is exactly what the agencies will do.