By Stephen Smoot
Foster care sat at the forefront of a number of minds in the West Virginia State Legislature last session. Debates centered on determining the needs of the state system and figuring out how to address them.
While a number of critics hurl blame at the state legislature, the foster care system suffers from the same major need as many community entities from EMS to service clubs such as the Lions, Rotary, and Ruritan whose volunteer work is so vital to so many.
Fewer and fewer all the time step forward to assume the responsibility of caring for children in struggling circumstances who need a safe and secure haven.
NECCO is one of several foster care agencies serving the Mountain State. Stormy Fullmer from NECCO’s Elkins office serves a number of counties in the region, including Pendleton, Hardy, Pocahontas, and Grant. She says the area has “such a need for foster homes.”
Fullmer works in these counties to identify, train, and support those willing to take foster children into their homes.
According to the Christian Alliance for Orphans, West Virginia leads the nation in per capita separation of children from families. Just under 20 minors per every thousand children live apart from their birth families.
Interestingly, from 2013 to 2022 the number of foster children across the United States rose slowly. The numbers elevated from 369,000 to 396,000, but trailed the rate of growth of population between the 2010 and 2020 Census.
In West Virginia, however, the ratio rose from 11.5 per 1,000 in 2011 to the alarming numbers seen today. State officials have started working with retention programs to aid birth parents who may have grown up in dysfunctional homes themselves and never learned effective and productive parenting.
In other cases, the impact of addiction and its byproducts of destructive behaviors have led to more homes declared unsafe for children during the past decade. During a public forum held by Congressman Alex Mooney in 2015, Jay Courrier, then-Mineral County prosecutor, shared that every child abuse case that came before his office had a drug addiction component to it.
The National Council for Adoption, however, cautions that reducing the number of children in foster care should not serve as the all-encompassing goal. They state that “our goal should be to reduce maltreatment rates, reduce time spent outside permanent family care, and reduce timeframes of numbers of children awaiting adoption.”
Some of Fullmer’s toughest work lies in recruitment. She shared that “you don’t know until you start having conversations whether they’ll be interested or not.”
Taking the time to work with prospective foster parents in person drives better communication, which leads to better results of families feeling a stronger level of comfort with taking a child into their care.
Once a family agrees to accept children, Fullmer states that “you can do classes constantly.” Though some have a virtual component, Fullmer says “I personally prefer to do those in person. You get to know families better.” She went on to add that helps her get to know the families better because “no matter what, you have to meet people where they are.”
That includes working around sometimes hectic family and work schedules.
Fullmer relates also that families will always “thank you for being so accommodating.”
The need for foster care parents extends “from zero up,” says Fullmer, but she went on to add that “we’re struggling to meet the need of houses that take in teens.” Many of those children have seen more than one removal and all too many of those came from situations that involved profound neglect, drug abuse, and a number of trauma inducing events and issues.
Adding on to the problem at all ages is the dilemma of how to treat sibling sets. With so few placement opportunities, many endure the additional trauma of separation from brothers and/or sisters. When those children are pulled away from perhaps their only friend and ally in an unsafe environment, trauma occurs with them as well.
The choice often boils down to separating siblings to place in foster homes, or keeping them together in a less-than-ideal collective environment.
Individual children have individual defense mechanisms that they craft as they go through their own “survival mode.” They may come into foster care acting out, unable to articulate the emotions driving their behaviors. Others may seem as if they behave ideally, but do so out of terror of making a mistake. Fullmer says that the surface calm in such children can hide “some serious behaviors.”
She advises that new foster parents “have some patience and show some grace,” but also understand that rules and boundaries are vital to children “who have been in chaos up to this point.”
Fullmer shared that “in the month of March, I’ll bet you we pushed through about 300 referrals.” Only nine of those received placement. Most of the rest, numbering approximately 400, end up living in hotel rooms, supervised by state personnel.
Facilities for challenged children, such as Burlington Children’s Home in Mineral County, also take in children in desperate situations.
One of the perceived barriers to entry comes in the form of paying for the needs of the child or children. Many have more of a willingness to become a foster family, as Fullmer explains, “as long as they have enough money to pay their bills” and also provide reasonably for those in their care.
“We do offer reimbursement for foster families,” explains Fullmer, who also added that they wish to “lessen the burden they endure by helping us.”
