MabelGirl

Thank you so much for sharing your story and so many resources, too. Hopefully you'll encourage a few people to open their homes and their hearts to fostering.

What I'm wondering is how long a typical placement lasts? Did you find that the good placements outnumbered the bad? If a child is removed from foster care because of abuse in the (foster) home, what happens to those foster parents? Do you have any ideas about how to decrease the frequency of abuse that's happening? (It just occurred to me that the abuse may be coming from other foster kids or bio children in the home...oh god.)

Thanks for doing the AMA, and the best of luck to you in your future endeavors. You are going to do great things. :)

100% exactly right.

So, let's say a little guy of 8 or 9 is placed in foster care until he's 18, how likely is it that he'd stay with the same family? I guess what I'm asking is does the bouncing around from home to home only happen when there's a problem?

Thanks so much for answering. Back in college, I worked in a group home for adults with MR/DD, so while it's not quite the same thing, I completely understand how it would feel like an institution.

I guess what frustrates me so much with our system is that the one thing foster children need more than anything else (with the exception of love) is consistency and stability. It just doesn't make sense to me that there isn't more of an effort to find and encourage that. Obviously, I know each kid's circumstance is different, but I just hear stories all the time about kids with "behavior problems" being bounced from home to home to home, and it just makes me sick to think that the reason for the bouncing around is the result of being bounced around. It just breaks my heart...no one deserves that.

Gotcha. Thank you!