Montgomery County child welfare officials say foster parents want more support in caring for foster children, not more money for the services they provide.
“The issue is not money,” child welfare services manager Agnes Leshner said.
Leshner said recent feedback from foster parents in the county indicates they would appreciate assistance with transportation and mental health support for foster children.
“If a foster family has two parents that work, it’s not easy for them to get the children in their care to visits with birth parents and relatives or therapists,” Leshner said. “The therapy is important, but foster parents frequently ask if we can
find somebody who can come into the home to work with the children.”
According to Leshner, there are more than 500 Montgomery County children who, for various reasons, have been removed from
their homes: 290 live with foster families, 80 live with extended family, and about 100 are in group homes and residential treatment facilities.
The county now is paying for six mental health therapists specifically for child welfare cases, who will go to the children’s homes to provide care.
Leshner met with the Montgomery County Council’s Health and Human Services Committee on Monday to brief committee members on child welfare issues.
“We need foster families who will take teenagers and sibling groups,” Leshner said. “Teenagers in the best of times are hard to manage, but emotional problems and years of neglect make them even harder to handle, so some foster parents shy away from teens.”
Health and Human Services Chairman George Leventhal said the County Council had appropriated $40,000 for transportation necessary to ensure foster children could continue to attend the same school after they are removed from the home during the upcoming school year.
“Even though their family situation may not be stable, we want their school situation to be stable,” Leventhal said.
