May is Foster Care Month in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Foster families are heroes in our society, providing temporary parenting and care for children whose birth parents are in crisis.
Children are often placed in the foster care system as a result of poverty, abuse, neglect, and dysfunction. Recently in Virginia, there has been a significant increase in children coming into care because of the opioid epidemic.
The ultimate goal of child welfare systems is to, when possible, keep a child with relatives and eventually work toward reunification with the birth family. Virginia’s state and local child welfare systems tirelessly works to accomplish this goal and avoid overburdening the foster system by placing children with family or family friends. They also actively pursue reunification by working with birth families to become healthy, stable, and ready for parenting again.
Unfortunately, reunification isn’t always possible. Approximately 1 in 4 children in foster care will have parental rights terminated. In these difficult cases, it is the state’s duty to find a permanent family for that child or sibling set. If a child is not placed with a family, he or she “ages out,” meaning they become adults without an identified family.
Sadly, Virginia has the highest rate in the country for foster care children “aging out.” These children turn 18 or in some cases 21, and on top of the trauma of being in foster care in the first place, they then try to make it in the world with little or no support system.
The prospects for these “aged out” children are often troubling. Statistics show that within two years of aging out, too many of these children become homeless, struggle with addiction, have encounters with the criminal justice system or have babies of their own before they are stable enough to take care of a child.
These numbers and the status quo are simply unacceptable – and even sadder – there is a shortage of foster parents right now in Virginia, with more than 700 children waiting to be adopted.
Ed wants every child in Virginia to have a loving family and the support they need to thrive. Temporary foster families can leave a permanent mark of love on children by caring for them during a traumatic time. Adoptive families can give children a sense of belonging by opening up their hearts and homes permanently, and enable siblings to stay together instead of being separated.
Ed will seek to increase public and private efforts to change the future for Virginia’s foster care children, to better support the child welfare system so that social workers have the resources they need to help these children. He will promote policies that break down barriers between the public and the private agencies so that vulnerable children can find a permanent home before aging out of the system.
Ed will be a governor for ALL Virginians – including the most vulnerable children among us.