A Critical Look At The Foster Care System

Incentives to Foster Parents







INCENTIVES TO FOSTER PARENTS

While there are many dedicated people willing to open their homes and hearts to children in distress, it can not be denied that financial gain is among a number of significant incentives leading some to become foster parents.

As the number of licensed foster homes has dropped to a low of 100,000 for the nations' estimated 500,000 foster care children, so has the quality of foster care homes unquestionably diminished over the years.

Judge Judy Sheindlin, supervising judge for the Manhattan Family Court, describes the foster parent typically found today in the New York City foster care system:

The typical foster parent I see is a single woman who has several biological children of her own. She is supported by welfare or social security disability. She is a high school dropout whose own kids are marginally functioning. She does not have the ability to help them with their schoolwork, and she has little hope for a brighter economic or social future. [1]