Foster Youth Savings Through Relative Placement Can Equal Millions

Since 2008, most state agencies have bemoaned their slashed budgets and the growing cost to maintain services. A case in point is the $7.2 billion bill to taxpayers for social services for foster teens who age out. This estimated cost is based on the 24,000 foster children who aged out in 2013 and the social services they will incur over their lifetime. However, millions in tax dollars...

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Foster Children Impact San Diego Businesses

San Diego Business Owner We all know that companies are in the business of making money. Without profits, a business won't last too long. With all the activities of marketing, sales and operations, it's easy for companies to overlook other costs that can and do impact their bottom line as well as opportunities to generate more sales and profits. A commentary in San Diego's The Daily Transcript...

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Foster Children - Knowing Their Parent Is Important

It's the start of a new week, and like many people, you may have spent your weekend with at least one family member. Most of us probably don't give it a second's thought about our time with family. We just enjoy, eat, talk, listen, eat, bicker, argue, eat, make up and repeat because it's family, and that's what families do. Unfortunately, this reality is not one that many foster children...

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California Foster Children Costly for Relatives

Pretty much every expert agrees that foster care is not a nice place for children. Understandably, one of the goals of foster care is to move children out of the system as quickly as possible. Many child-welfare experts agrees that it's in a foster child's best interest to be placed with family members because foster kids "experience more stability, fewer placement changes and more contact with...

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Are Foster Childen Being Protected by Foster Care System?

Almost weekly, some foster child advocacy group questions whether these children are being protected by the very systems put in place to ensure just that. The latest article comes as an editorial questioning certain aspects of the foster care system. One area of concern involved the high level of secrecy that surrounds foster children cases. The same federal law, the Health Insurance Portability...

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A Foster Kid's Life versus Hollywood Teen

Once again a young well-to-do teenager has mistaken his plight in life as being equal to that of foster children. While debating with his sister about their family life, Jaden Smith, son of Will Smith, was caught saying ”We have no parents all the misfits are foster kids.” One former foster child took to writing a response. Michael Price points out that the life of foster youth is vastly different...

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Moms and Foster Kids Focus of Holiday Event

Unless you have been unplugged from all media and stopped shopping at the stores, then you know that Mother's Day is just around the corner. (It's May 11th just in case you are living off the grid.) Many organizations are using this holiday not only to celebrate motherhood but also to raise funds to help foster children. One such organization is Voices for Children Foundation in Washington. The...

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Foster Youth Lack Support from Healthy, Loving Homes

Many foster children have lives with stress levels that most people can't imagine. You may have heard this before, but it's so worth repeating:   "A collaborative study hosted by Harvard Medical School found that former foster youth had post-traumatic stress disorder rates up to twice as high as U.S. war veterans (Pecora, et al., 2005)."   Martin Guggenheim, Fiorello LaGuardia...

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