Foster care

Who needs help more?

The front-page top-of-the-fold headline, bumping up against the date at the top, fairly hollered: “Sanders calling for foster care fixes.”

Doubtless hundreds, maybe thousands, of Arkansas families thought: Well, it’s about time.

The big problem with foster care today, or one of the big problems, is that it’s

so hard to do. A family that decides to volunteer as a foster family might as well have applied to drive a truckload of chemicals across the state line. The paperwork gets to be . . . “oppressive” isn’t the right word. How about “relentless” instead?

Somebody with the state is going to comb through your house, doncha know. You’ll need to lock up all your meds (which sounds reasonable) and your guns (more than reasonable) and fill out the paperwork on background checks and your driving record and proof of medical shots for the cats.The fire extinguisher needs to be there, and the next court appearance is on this date. Fill out this paperwork and that, and somebody will come by for an inspection of the house on a regular basis. Surely you can be at home then?

You don’t want to give foster kids to just anybody. But those who’ve been in the system sometimes find themselves wondering if the rules don’t discourage foster families, when the state should be doing exactly the opposite.

The new governor of Arkansas, who gets less new every day, signed an executive order this week “requiring state officials and a newly formed coalition to draft policies addressing faults in Arkansas’ foster care system.” There was a lot of talk in that front-page article (Will Langhorne, sole prop.) about streamlining and helping foster families. Of all those who need state help in Arkansas, who better to receive that help than foster families trying to help these kids?

From the story: “The executive order requires the establishment of the Arkansas Strategic Plan for Foster Care Placement. The plan involves a working group composed of Every Child Arkansas and the secretaries of the state Department of Human Services, Department of Public Safety and Department of Education.

“Among other strategies, the plan will aim to support in-home parenting, deliver mental health and substance abuse treatment services to foster children and biological and foster families, facilitate coordinated monitoring of child safety and recruit foster families committed to supporting biological families and promoting reunification.”

The short version of that: The state will try to help these people more.

And deep into the story, there’s a most important part. We’re glad the news side editors didn’t leave this out: State officials will include in their required report “strategies to interrupt generational cycles of abuse and neglect that impact children aging out of foster care . . . .”

Why, yes. Those who’ve been in the foster system in Arkansas know the realities of foster care, and one of those realities is that infants aren’t the only ones in need of shelter/warmth/ love. Some of these kids — through no fault of their own — are well into their teens when mom or dad gets into trouble. And they might live several years in the foster system before going back to their families, if they ever do.

For those who don’t, the state has plans in place to help them enter the adult world when they turn 18. But many of these kids just walk away. The foster system needs to do a better job in prepping them to take advantage of all that’s offered in the way of college, jobs, and a future.

Not everything the state government is up to this year has to do with bathrooms and library books. Some of this stuff is important: top-of-the-fold, bumping up against the date important.