Call for help — children in need of loving care

Press, 5 December 1978, Page 19

Call for help — children in need of loving care

By

DENISE McNABB

The Social Welfare Department recently held a large-scale survey of its foster care system. Its aims were to provide basic descriptive data about the system to enable an examination to be made of some of its strengths and weaknesses, and to see ways in which the services might be improved. The survey examined a representative sample of foster parents, children being fostered, and social workers. From the initial results some impressions of foster parents emerged. A common factor was that they tended to come from large families. Seventy-eight per cent of the parents had two or more children of their own and 20 per cent had five or more. Occupations of fathers and mothers were diverse. Foster fathers had jobs ranging from farming, machine fitting, plumbing, carpentry, printing, teaching, and accounting to being mechanics, railway men, scientists, and architects. Most foster mothers do not work, but their previous occupations included nursing, teaching, clerical work, sales and service work, and farming.

The ages of foster parents were equally diverse. Mothers ranged from 20 to 75 years, with an average age of 41. The fathers span was similar, with an average of 43 years. Of the sample surveyed, 14 per cent of the women and 11 per cent of the men were Maori. Seventy-one per cent fostered one child, 20 per cent two. and 10 per cent three or more. These figures did not include foster parents in departmental family homes who were caring for about six children. Almost half those surveyed were fostering for the first time and 29 per cent fostered for less than three years. At the other end of the scale 34 per cent had fostered for more than nine years. Aspects the parents found most rewarding were grouped broadly. Three per cent thought everything about fostering was rewarding; 30 per cent implied that rewards came from their own feelings of satisfaction; and a similar percentage implied that their rewards came from the benefit to the child. Unrewarding features mentioned most frequently

were problems with the child, difficulties arising from contact with the child’s natural family, and uncertainty caused by the threat of removal of the child. About 60 per cent said they would foster again or regarded their present placement as indefinite. Twenty per cent felt they were too old to foster again. Only a small number said they probably would not foster again because of disillusionment. Eight per cent of those surveyed saw their role as being most like a natural parent or an adoptive parent. Only 13 per cent saw themselves as being like a relative. Most saw fostering as more like having another child of their own than like having another job which could be done at home. Twenty-six per cent supported the idea of payment, although the average amount of payment suggested was Sl3 per week. Twenty-two per cent were unsure on payment. The main reason foster parents gave against extra payment was that fostering involved sharing love. That could not be bought with money, they said.

“Will you cure for me?” “My parents don’t want me.” “Can I lire with you?”

These words are cries from' thousands of children in New Zealand who are put in a situation which they cannot understand. It is a situation where, for reasons beyond their control, whether it be a break-up in their partents’ marriage, a rejection from an emotionally disturbed mother, or parents just needing a break, the children are at the mercy of someone else’s care and kindness.

It is now 95 years since the State first “boarded out” children in its care to foster homes in New Zealand. At December 31, 1977, there were 7214 children under the care and control of the Department of Social Welfare.

Of these 2968 were in foster homes and 694 in departmental family homes. That meant that 51 per cent of State wards were in foster care. In Christchurch, nearly 600 children are in foster homes, either in private or in institutions or in family homes. For these children foster parents are their guardian angels..

The numbers of foster children are increasing at a much faster rate than temporary parents can be found for them. “We are really desperate for foster parents, especially for disturbed children,” says Mrs Mary Moody, president of the Foster Care Association in Christchurch. She says that social

changes, such as better job opportunities for women, have contributed to the non-availability of mothers at home for fostering. Mrs Moody, herself a foster mother of 12 childr e n , including intellectually handicapped, says that foster parents have been put down by some members of society in the past. “Society screams out that more must be done to help the elderly, but what about help at the beginning rather than at the end. “We need an excess of between 50 and 100 foster parents so that different capabilities and make-ups of children can be matched with the most suitable parents.”

Foster parentis have to be brave enough to get up and say they care, says Mrs Moody. “You need a lot of common sense and you have to accept children for what they are. “Not everybody can foster but a large number of people in the community have the potential. Fostering is a 24-hour-a-day, se v e n-day-a-week job, every day of the year.” Mr John Irons, a philosophy lecturer at Victoria University and president of the New Zealand Foster Care Association, said in radio talkback that every child has a right to a family of his own — caring for him, and committed to him. He says that in the long

run fostering is not an option, not when it becomes the whole of the child’s life. Mum or Dad puts the child into foster care and hopes for the best. Five years later they have lost track and the child bec >mes one of the system. While parents who are about to adopt a child require a lot of selection and preparation, there is little preparation by social workers to match children with • compatible foster parents. “A foster placement is about as important as adoption; and it is a specialist job,” Mr Irons says. "Foster parents have to

be the kind of people who can get a sense of fulfilment from seeing some kid who came to them frightened, unhappy, confused, and lonely, go away a bit better for having been with them.” For the would-be foster parent, the Social Welfare Department runs courses in conjunction with the Foster Care Association. Groups are told of their responsibilities, of the types of children available, and of how to cope with the emotional, mental, and physical aspects of the child. These classes are held under the guidance of psychologists, psychiatrists, and those experienced in the field of fostering.

“We need people with big, warm hearts,” says

Mrs Ruth Paton, the senior social worker in the Department of Social Welfare in Christchurch. “The department aims towards a majority of children being able to return to his or her natural parents with the foster homes acting as temporary placements.” “Of course this does not always work out, and it is heart-breaking for some foster parents who have grown very attached to a child and learned to love it as their own, to have it taken away and returned to its natural parents.” One of the greatest problems facing foster

parents is dealing with the natural parents. “There needs to be a four-way communication between the child, foster parents, natural parents, and the social worker,” says Mrs Faton. “Social workers try to get the foster child to b~ their friend and to gain their trust.” - There are two types of foster children with whom the Department of Social Welfare deals. The “care and protection” children are those who come up for fostering through no fault of their own, in a lot of cases from birth or as a young infant. Mrs Paton says that there are some really sad cases with these children who blame themselves for what has happened. “There is one case in

Christchurch of a 10-year-old boy who was placed in a foster home at six weeks of age. Now he cannot think of what he did to make his parents not want him and he cries thinking about it.” The other group, the older children, generally over 11 years of age, are much harder to place, says Mrs Paton. In some cases these children are persistent criminal offenders and delinquents. “They have often had a background of being passed from one foster home to another,” she says. And the crimes committed by these teen-age

offenders appear to be more sophisticated than 15 years ago.

Family homes are halfway between an ordinary home and a small institution. Usually they cater for about six to eight foster children who live in the Social Welfare Department-built houses with a married couple who usually have children of their own.

Foster parents in these houses get a slightly higher board rate, but they do not get wages, training, or a vehicle. There are about 150 family homes in New Zealand.

Mrs Paton says that the department tries to keep families of foster children together. For example, one of these homes in Chirstchurch has six brothers and sisters in it.

Children are scanetimes put in these homes because they might, be more difficult to cope with, or because they have some kind of mental or physical handicap. Generally they have not adjusted well in a private home.

Some foster homes also have provision for day care where children come and live and play at foster homes during the daj' to give their parents a break so as to avoid the child becoming a foster child. A big problem Mrs Paton fo'rsees in the near future is the closure of Karitane hospitals. It will mean, she says, the re* cruitment of many more social welfare workers and will cause many more difficulties, such as the care and treatment of the sick, physically handicapped, and disturbed babies. “Experienced foster parents with some sort of background such as nursing will be needed to cope with these types of infants. Looking after new babies is very time consuming, taking at least four hours a day. “When the family modules are introduced I do not see how they would be able to cope with such provisions as oxygen as they have in Karitane hospitals. There will need to be all kinds of regulations.”

Next year is International Year of the Child, and the Foster Care Association’s prime goal in Christchurch will be to place funds raised towards the building of an assess* ment centre where quali-

fied psychiatrists and other specialists can find the precise need of each child in the fostering situation and find a place w’here the child would fit in best.

Mrs Moody says that there should be a review of each child after six months to see how they are responding and getting on. This would eliminate the needless pain of the “moving on” of a child from one home to another. In Christchurch, the Foster Care Association is building up a library of books on the subject. “We can’t afford to do university degrees to be specialists in the field so we are

building up our knowledge and getting a lot of good books to help foster parents though the generosity of others,” Mrs Moody says. These books go towards helping the needs of children. Recently, the Hoon Hay women’s group of the Federated Farmers Division raised $l5O from a mannequin parade for books to go into the lib- 1 rary.

Next May, the Foster Care Association will be host to a conference in Christchurch which representatives from as far away as Brisbane and Adelaide, as well as from 21 related associations, will attend.