Foster care for local teens needed

Local teenagers in the foster care system are running out of places to call home.

According to Pam Richardson, The Family Incorporated resource family supervisor for the Southeast Kansas region, foster parents for teen age children is in the most need in Bourbon County. She said the average age of a child needing a home in America is 10-years-old, while the average age of children being placed in Bourbon County is only 8-years-old.

"The biggest need for TFI right now is the placement of teenagers," Richardson said.

According to TFI Resource Family Worker Stacy Bishop, who works in the Fort Scott office, there are 12 licensed foster care homes in Bourbon County and only eight have children. Of those eight, she said, only one has a teenager.

"The rest of them aren't even willing to take teen kids. They are all under the age of 8," Bishop said.

According to TFI statistics as of December 2009, 64 children we in need of care and placement in Bourbon County. Of those 64, 15 are between the ages of 11 and 18.

Richardson believes that many families struggle with the stereotype associated with teen that it is the child's fault they were placed in foster care. She said the children are placed in foster care as a result of physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect.

"The stereotype is incorrect, what we are tying to do ... is dispel this myth, that teenagers are worth giving a chance," she said.

Another reason some may be turned away from caring for a teenager is dealing with their already established personalities. Richardson said many prefer caring for younger children because they do not want to deal with a teenager who has already established their attitude and have already been exposed to a certain parenting style -- or lack there of.

"I think a lot of folk are afraid to take on that headache," Richardson said.

Bishop added, "A lot of foster parents think that, with little ones, you aren't going to get the attitude, you can control them more, they think teens are set in their ways ... it's too late to change them. They just struggle with the idea that they wouldn't be able to handle it."

Richardson said that the lack of homes for teenagers could cause a problem in the children's lives, forcing them to live in shelters.

"We do have a lot of good older kids that may have to temporarily reside in a shelter situation until we can find an open bed in a foster home for them," she said.

Bishop said that due to the lack of homes for older children, one local teenager recent moved to Winfield because they could not find a home in Bourbon County.

The primary goal for TFI is to place the children with relatives, however if that is not possible they look toward foster care with the intention of reunifying the family in the future, according to Richardson. She said that when a child moves to a different location it makes it difficult to place that child back with their birth parents. She said the children have to deal with the initial trauma of being separated from their parents, then have to start over in a new town and new school with new parents.

Another large need in Bourbon County is the placement of sibling groups. Bishop said she was asked last week if she could place a group of three siblings and a group of 4 siblings. Unfortunately, there are no foster parents in Bourbon County who are willing to accept them.

"I have no homes to take them because the homes I have have openings for one or maybe two kids," she said.

In an effort to recruit more foster families, TFI is conducting their annual poster campaign in which they distribute 2,000 to 3,000 poster to business across Kansas with information on how to become a foster parent.

"Its our most effective way to recruit families," Richardson said.

For more information contact TFI by calling (800) 279-9914 or by visiting their Web site at www.the-farm.org.