
Make the Leap
Make the Leap focuses on the many economic hurdles facing college students, lower-income individuals, and those striving to move up the social ladder. Hosts George Grayeb, Brad Constant, and Kristen Beal pay special attention to social mobility, career opportunities and the support that people need along the way.
Make the Leap
Our Foster Care Journey: The Inspiring Story of Beth Dock-Henschen
What if the shortage of foster homes could be solved by one inspiring story? Join us as we tackle the foster care crisis, sharing the compelling journey of Beth Dock-Henschen. Learn how a close friend's impact led Beth to open her heart and home to foster children. Her experiences reveal the complexities and emotional challenges of foster parenting, while also highlighting the profound rewards.
Beth's candid reflections underscore the perseverance and support required to make a difference. We dive deep into the systemic issues of frequent moves and the critical need for more foster parents in states like Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Indiana, and California. Beth's story brings to light the harsh realities foster children face and the resilience required to provide a loving, stable environment amidst these challenges.
As we explore the broader foster care landscape, we discuss the ideal of reuniting children with their families, the financial and training constraints on foster parents, and the joys of witnessing a child's growth. Our conversation emphasizes the urgent need for better support systems, adequate compensation, and community involvement. Don't miss our call to action and a preview of our next episode focused on the Ross Foster Care Program. Tune in and discover how you can make a difference.
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Thank you. I'm Brad Constance here with George Grayup. George, what is our topic for today?
Speaker 2:Thank you, brad. Today's episode is a follow-up on a previous podcast that we did regarding foster care and foster children. The follow-up today deals more or less with the lack of available homes for foster children. Majority of children in foster care come from environments of abuse and neglect, typically created by biological parents who have fallen victim to drug addiction, prison or death. The need for foster parents are greater than ever. The US Department of Health and Human Services found the number of children entering foster care grew for five consecutive years.
Speaker 2:States are increasingly experiencing an acute shortage of competent foster parents and scramble to find places for the thousands uprooted from their homes. This national crisis in the search for foster parents stems from inadequate training and lack of support to drive approximately half of all foster parents to quit fostering children after their first year. As an example, many states continue to struggle with finding enough parents. Georgia and Tennessee child welfare workers fight to find homes for the increasing number of children in care. The increasing number of children in care. In Texas, lack of foster parents result in some children from foster care sleeping in child welfare offices. In Indiana, where the number of children being placed into foster care has reached an all-time high, the state is scrambling to find more foster parents to care for the increased number of children needing a home On the West Coast. California faces the same challenge, as the shortage of foster parents has grown to record numbers. The number of licensed foster homes dropped last year in more than half of the states, and in some states the drop was profound. For example, south Carolina lost more than 61% of its available foster homes last year. Meanwhile, more children continue to enter the child welfare system. Other areas of the nation face the challenge of both recruiting foster parents and of retention, or the keeping of strong foster parents. The turnover rate for foster parents ranges from 30% to 50%. Thus, the 30% to 50% of foster parents make a decision to no longer be a foster parent home for children in need. As a result, with the increase in children in foster care paired with the decrease of number of foster parents, the end result is simply that there are not enough homes for children in need to be placed in, or a child is moved from one home to another, and so forth and so forth.
Speaker 2:So I want to use an example before we begin our conversation today. This example really is a testimonial by a foster kid who has aged out of the system. I'm going to quote it verbatim. I was probably like 13 years old and we spent hours upon hours inside the actual Children's Services Agency intellectual children's services agency. So in that lobby you see a bunch of different kids with a bunch of trash bags just sitting there and waiting and waiting. Then you get out of school and it's like, oh no, you can't go back there. You have some caseworker there to pick you up and you have to go to the agency. They have completely packed up all your things in trash bags. You don't know what they left, what they missed, what they decided to disregard or discard, and that in itself was very demeaning. You lose your sense of autonomy, you lose your humanity, you feel like you don't have any control over your life. End of the quote.
Speaker 1:Thanks, george. Now it's time to introduce our guest. Kristen normally does this, but she's unable to join us today, so I get to take over. Today, we're joined by Beth Dockhenschen. Beth is an advisor on Ross's Career Services team. She helps our students through externship and post-graduation employment.
Speaker 1:Beth lives in Fort Wayne, indiana, and has a passion for extending a helping hand to anyone in need. Her caring heart called her to become a foster parent many years ago, where she hosted a therapeutic home for children with special needs. After meeting her now wife, alexis, in 2015, beth took a break from fostering, but in 2021, the two decided to open their home to children once again. When she's not at work, beth loves to enjoy her free time by playing pickleball, going fishing, taking her two dogs for car rides and exploring with her wife. A true art enthusiast at heart, she finds peace in painting and taking photos of her three cats. You can always find her ready to visit with loved ones too. She offers an infectious laugh, quick wit, a listening ear and a pure heart filled with love for those around her.
Speaker 2:Beth, thank you so much for joining us today. So as we begin, I'd like you to maybe take a few minutes talk about your background, your experience and your journey into being a foster parent.
Speaker 3:Of course and thank you so much for having me on today my journey as a foster parent. In high school, my best friend was in foster system for a year or more, so that's when I knew I had to grow up and be a helper. In 2015 is when I first started as a special needs foster home. I put it back down in 2019 and picked it back up in 2021.
Speaker 2:So talk through, I guess from my end of it, talk through how you get involved. I guess it came on your radar through your friend, but how did you get involved?
Speaker 3:I decided that my community contribution it just couldn't be through my work. I needed more than that and I kept searching and searching for more ways that I can help impact on a large scale and nothing was coming. And then foster care did my best friend. She works for DCS and she is the licensure person, so the person that comes to your house and goes over how to become a foster parent. You go through all the training classes CPR and bloodborne pathogens and such to become a licensed home, and that's how I started.
Speaker 2:So, before you get that phase where they try to qualify or make sure that you can be a foster parent, what are the initial steps that you took to kind of research it, look into it, get comfortable with it.
Speaker 3:I Google a lot of things like what is foster care and why would I want to do that, and what thoughts are going through parents' head as they have someone's child living in your home, how are you going to adapt to their culture, and those kinds of things. So I started searching from there. I did all my homework and found that it just matches my heart and that's why I decided to do it.
Speaker 2:So did you see any like data about how many people quit the amount of turnover, and did that cause you to pause at all?
Speaker 3:I know the amount of turnover and right now I'm going through it, but I'm not going to quit and I understand why people turn over. We are about to reunify our daughter that we've had for two years now and it's very difficult. So, yes, I'm aware of all the hard things and for me it was just letting those hard things go so that I can help at least one. And then one turned into eight. That's how many we've had so far.
Speaker 2:You've had eight foster kids, so talk through that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so my special needs were the hard to love, but in my heart it's just you have to know where to look for things on the Internet to be able to cut through it sometimes and it's very difficult. A lot of perseverance, a lot of talking with the GAL, a guardian at Lytton or your caseworker If they're good, they will definitely find support groups for you and help you with your struggle.
Speaker 2:So was your first foster kid, a kid with disabilities or special needs.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my first foster son was 18, and he was a sex offender.
Speaker 2:That's a huge, I don't know what the word to call it. You're diving in a deep end on day one.
Speaker 3:You found the bit right.
Speaker 2:Did you have a choice, beth, or they assigned to you, and it is what it is.
Speaker 3:Well, they'll call you and I'm not the type that wants to listen to their behaviors or this, or they have this about them. That all doesn't matter. It's a child in need and that's why you signed up for it. So I took the phone call and said come on, let's go. A loving home and some stability and some structure will be able to help this person.
Speaker 2:I got into this conversation because of Kristen. This was never on my radar. Kristen puts it on my radar and on our third episode about foster kids, we will talk a little bit about Ross and what Ross is trying to do. So I am learning as I go. Process is kids getting moved so many times, and I'm going to give you a couple of examples in a minute. And then the second is the high turnover. Parents do not stick around. There's just not enough homes. Kids are sleeping in welfare offices, Some of them are sleeping in hotels, or some of them are told to stay in the hospital longer, a week or two longer, until they find them a home when they are not feeling well or injured. So I want to try to encourage and promote individuals who are thinking about being a foster parent. So if somebody listens to here and listen to Beth and says, yeah, my first child was a special need kids with your eight foster kids, is there something you can share that balances sometimes the challenge you had to go through with your first foster kid?
Speaker 3:The training that's involved, you do get like you are prepared for the topics that are brought up. You're not necessarily prepared for the behavior that happens in your home, but that training will give you a little push to start that conversation with the child and help them. You're never left alone. You never feel on your own with the agencies behind you. You always can call them.
Speaker 2:And then, as you went to your second and third, what was those kids like?
Speaker 3:second and third, what was those kids like? So those kids we had two months they were under. They were five, seven and nine, and one of them was a special needs child. Their parents were in the process of rehabilitating their lives from drugs. So those two months that we had them, it was just getting them to school, new routines and finding out the things that they love to do and keeping them engaged with reading and activities so they stay focused with us. They keep kids busy. It's a good thing. They'll love you and they love that you care about their interests and they'll be great.
Speaker 2:Were they moved along the way, or were you their first foster parent?
Speaker 3:I was their second foster home. Mom was having some trouble with drug abuse but she did rehabilitate her life and she got her three boys back.
Speaker 2:What's the next one?
Speaker 3:So I'll tell you about the most recent. It's most relevant. I had a child. They're two of eight, so I have two siblings of eight.
Speaker 3:Their youngest brother has been placed 18 times in its behaviors that these foster parents fighting in school, foster parents fighting in school, drugs at home, sneaking things in those foster parents. They have an out and if they're not ready to bring all that on then they can move somebody again and that's why you see a lot of foster kids from home to home. I don't believe that we're really trained that deep into how to help a child that is so, just so angry about what life has handed to him. Our foster daughter has been in seven different homes and she's different and she would tell us about how one person left her at McDonald's after a Bowen Center therapy because they just didn't like her, and one said that she wasn't a good fit for their home and moved her the next week. The others we really didn't talk about much because I could tell it was a trigger for her. So we just kind of dismissed it and let her know that we are going to be a forever fixture in her life.
Speaker 3:Regardless of what home she's in or collaborative care, she can always reach out. Her little sister is seven and she's being reunited with her father next week, the 19th. We've had her for two years now and that's the hard part. This is where you're talking about. Why do foster parents not do it again? It's a grieving process right now for my wife and I. We've loved this child and we've brought her from where she was to where she is now, which is a significant difference in all ways of her life, socially and mentally and it's hard it's just hard to not have that control anymore to make sure she stays safe.
Speaker 2:So, beth, I am going to come to the stress and the angst that the parents go through and when they wake up one day and say I'm not doing this anymore. But before that, I want to continue to talk about kids being moved from home to home. It's a process I can't get a handle on. I mean, we spend $30 billion on the entire system, so to speak, and the system seems to be broken. As I was preparing for today, on Sunday I read this testimonial and I'm going to summarize it. It's different than the one I used at the beginning.
Speaker 2:This is a gentleman who, aged out of the system, still uses the last name of the woman that adopted him in grade school but then gave him back and turned him back to the system. His journey from when he was three until he turned 14, he bounced to 80 different foster homes. When he turned 18, he found himself homeless and resorting to really a life of crime for lack of option. At 20, he now has a home. His home, unfortunately, is a prison in Kansas. He says I had plans for the future and I kind of ruined it.
Speaker 2:This is a quote from him, as he is in prison, serving eight year sentence. But how could I be a good kid with all the horrible things happening? And it just and as I kind of looked at it, it really seems that this is he's not the exception that these kids on average are moved 10 to 12 times. On average, some are moved hundreds of times. You know there's 23,000 kids that come out of the system every year, kids that come out of the system every year, and many of them have been moved multiple times and over. More of them go to prison than actually go to college. What is the driver behind the movement? Like what? What is the upside? I guess that makes the decisions from the welfare team to move these kids from home to home versus reunification.
Speaker 3:That's a great question. I couldn't answer what situation or circumstance that their parents are in so they couldn't go back home. I don't understand. Like I get the foster kid part where they've probably been taught all their life their worth is nothing and the only control they have is by a self-sabotage, if you will, and moving from house to house where they'll tell their foster parent they hate them and they don't want to live there. By being shown some structure, by being shown love and affections, they don't. They're not used to that. Um, we've experienced that the same Foster parents have an option. All they have to do is write a two-week notice and they don't have to work with their foster placement anymore. And I think that's just too easy for a lot of families to do and I think that there should be more behind that in some professional therapist or someone. Look at those dynamics before they're moved again, because it's as simple as a two week notice.
Speaker 2:You know, one of the really shocking statistics is again, as I was getting ready for today 4,000 foster kids every year from the 23,000 that age out end up homeless after leaving the system, and many of them end up in crime, sex trafficking or drug addiction. It's just a staggering number to think of the generation of kids that we are losing in the system, right.
Speaker 1:From what I'm hearing in form of written stats, it sounds, beth, like you made it very clear it's too easy for foster parents to say, oh, we're moving a kid. Is it more common, at least in your community, to see foster parents just approach it with the same mentality as you of like we're going to do everything we can to give this child the support and love that they need, whether they're here for two months, two years or whatever. That is the support and love that they need, whether they're here for two months, two years or whatever that is.
Speaker 3:The foster parents that I meet in these support groups that I attend. They're that way and they share best practices. Every time We'll name off examples of what's happening in our home and somebody has either to talk to us about what power struggles are. I really dove into power struggles with the teenager that we had with Dr Green. He's got great videos out there to watch, but really, yeah, it's true, it's just very easy. But the ones that come to these resource groups, support group things, I don't see that happening A lot, I wouldn't say a lot. In these foster groups there are people that are older, and I'm talking like retirement age, where if you're placed with a younger child, it could be very hard to keep up with the demands and that could be a potential reason that that child is moved again because they were just wired. I mean the situation or circumstances. It's like that.
Speaker 2:So the two decision makers is the parents is I don't want that kid anymore right? Or the welfare system, saying you know this is not the right home, or the child In your experience. Where does this? Which way does it lean? Is it mostly parents quitting?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:And you think, in terms of the way we train and the way we fund the system, do you think we are truly preparing parents for the long term? To stick this one out no, Truly preparing a foster parent.
Speaker 3:I mean you would have to have training for a Rolodex of things and the basics are touched, but they're not preparing you for when that child finally opens up and tells you about something that was just devastating and terrible and then has behaviors two days later and you don't know how to handle it. And then they'll say, all right, I can't do this, I'm not the one for the kid. So it's the lack of training in that arena to push that child where they think I'm doing a good thing, maybe by putting them somewhere else where they might have somebody that can help them. I think that would be a way someone would sell that to themselves to move a child on by not being able to help them.
Speaker 2:Beth, again from your own personal experience, I'm assuming most parents that get into doing this they do it for the right intention. They may not be prepared mentally and emotionally for what they're getting into. They may not be getting the training and the support that they need to do a good job and maybe they're doing it for the money, I guess. Where do you think the system needs to change?
Speaker 3:That's a great question and one I don't know. The system is huge and there are many moving pieces and a child can have five different caseworkers. A child can have all these things, so I really don't know where it's broken down. We just know that it's broken and kids are being moved all over the place and left and we just need more people in the community that can help them, more training, more therapists involved, and it's a great. It's a great start. We took our kids every week like church to therapy at the Bowen Center. Getting more therapists involved is a great start. We took our kids every week like church to therapy at the Bowen Center.
Speaker 2:You can get referrals for just about anything that you need help with in that arena, as we switch this to kind of looking at it from the parent who decides to quit. I know you talked about the grieving part when a kid is being reunited with their family. I would assume, although there is some grieving, that's the ideal scenario, right? That is ultimately what you want to see happen, is the mom and dad and the child come back together. On the flip side of it, you've got people quitting because lack of resources, they don't get paid enough, they are assigned kids with very little discussion or maybe a little opportunity to weigh in and the stress, the angst not being prepared to deal with. I mean these kids are being bounced around.
Speaker 2:I have to assume they have been moved from school to school. I'm assuming they're behind on their educational journey. I'm assuming they probably have some social and many issues. So these parents don't know what they're getting and they probably are struggling with that. Is there something that you have learned in your time that you can share with somebody who is thinking about this? That can be uplifting, that can really like where did you find the joy? You've been doing it for a while. You must have gotten a lot of joy out of this, or some joy joy.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, um, our seven-year-old. She came to us when she was five but she had like zero reading level, zero idea of like the, the things like that. So like we've caught her up, she's reading at a second grade level and her math is just as good. She's going to be our little engineer. Creativity is out of it's, off the charts. She, she's just a she's a great, happy little kid because we worked every day at reading math and got flashcards.
Speaker 2:So if you, if you were making a pitch, if you were doing sales and your, your job was to recruit foster parents, what would your pitch be?
Speaker 3:Gosh, that's such a good pitch because I talk about it all the time and I'm trying to recruit more helpers. Just like me, there are so many kids that need help and they're good kids and they'll treat you great and they'll love you and just like anything else, it's hard, but you can do hard things and the impact that you leave on a child is unforgettable. So, yes, it's hard, but you can do hard things and it's worth it, because no one deserves to have a life like that. Everybody should have a chance.
Speaker 2:What is the biggest misconception that you think people have about foster kids?
Speaker 3:That they're just balls of trouble. They absolutely are not. They have been misplaced and unloved and been taught that their worth isn't really much. So that's the difference where you make in their lives.
Speaker 2:And you think that misconception comes from where?
Speaker 3:foster parents that quit. You're more likely to hear the horror stories of these foster kids than you are success stories, and that's just the nature of any bad experience. But my good experiences outweigh all the bad, and more people should see it that way.
Speaker 2:You talked about how you got kind of introduced to the system through your friend and I keep trying to picture this in my head Somebody that's never really have any clear idea what foster parents is like and they're listening to the podcast. I'm not doing this right. I'm going to be poorly trained. I am potentially, no matter how strong emotionally I feel about it, I may run out of oxygen. I may run out of passion. It may get sucked completely out of me. There has to be something that we can do to support parents better, and I recognize we don't talk about how much money it costs to raise these kids or have these kids with you and how much the additional training would cost or how much it would be meaningful, but it seems like that's where we have to start right. We have to come up with a better way to support parents and a better way to keep them, better way to train them, better way to compensate them. I agree?
Speaker 3:Sure, if you're. If you think you're going to do it for the money, think again, because that's that'll pay your grocery bill for these kids. You're not like the money thing it should be. I don't even want to consider that when I'm thinking about taking care of a child, you're taking care of a child Cause you're. Whatever personal needs are. Mine was I want to make sure that I'm helping my community and these kids. That didn't have a choice. It's the why for the people.
Speaker 2:But money has to be a factor, right? I mean, you really are raising kids. It costs thousands and tens of thousands of dollars to raise a child in America.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm, you can't like you. You get certain per diems per day and it's enough to cover like groceries and school supplies, like you're not.
Speaker 2:But how does that? How does that like, how is that just like, how is that figured out? Like, how do they decide it only costs the per diem to raise a child?
Speaker 3:I have no idea how that's figured out, but they'll change it Tier one, tier two, tier three and it's based off of their behavior. So if they're a harder kid, you'll get paid more. I don't know how they came up with that scale.
Speaker 2:I don't know either, but why would be a tougher kid more expensive? They eat more, or do they what?
Speaker 3:Right, exactly so a behavior therapeutic. You're getting paid because you're going to have to be a therapeutic home. I have no like. That's the way I understand it. The per diem rates are looked at every like six months to make sure that we're on the right tier.
Speaker 2:I don't think it should be an opportunity for people to make money about being foster kids, but it should reflect what it would cost to raise a normal child in America. Just because you're a foster kid doesn't mean you deserve less in terms of resources. Now you're on a per diem. When someone else gets to do what other things children do and I'm sure that parents that have gone into it with the right intention, with the right passion, and they got worn down then money becomes one more thing they got to worry about. So they got to worry about the stress, they got to worry about all the pressure and anxiety, and now they've got to worry about money on top of it. It seems the system will try to alleviate some of those issues, and one of them would be better training, better resources, better support and probably fund these kids, so these kids can have fun and stay a little bit longer.
Speaker 3:I agree I had asked for a support group because I was struggling with letting my 18-year-old go like go out on her own and help her and do the right thing so I know she can be a successful young adult they met me with. There is no support group for that, but you can be the lead of it. So I'm not trying to do that, I am trying to find it I'm not trying to lead one and she said that there would probably be so many people that would join you. Well, you're probably right yeah.
Speaker 2:So you're asking for a support group, and their answer is support yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can create a support group and invite people to it.
Speaker 2:I don't know. On the previous podcast we called them the invisible kids. Right, because as a society they're not on our radar and they weren't on mine. It's. It's. It's a really difficult just to even picture. You know, I use an earlier quote about these kids being moved and all their stuff are packed into trash bags. You know they put it into a trash bag and they carry the trash bag and they go from home to home it's true, every child I've had has shown up with a black or a white trash bag.
Speaker 3:We teach them some dignity when it's transition time and we use boxes and tape so that they don't have to go through that. But yeah, there's. I think I saw a program where there is a charity out there that's doing foster care bags where foster kids can have a giant duffel full with toiletries and things. But I don't know how that works. I'd love to see more things like that.
Speaker 2:I don't know either. There are 400 to 500,000 foster kids. We spent $30 billion on the system. I just highly doubt these kids are really seeing the benefit of a $30 billion. Yeah, yeah, just highly doubt these kids are really seeing the benefit of a 30 billion dollars. Yeah, yeah, all right. So who wants to wrap this up on an uplifting note?
Speaker 3:Beth, you want to do it, I'm happy. Yeah, I am absolutely happy to. I talk about all these things, like, like we're doing right now. We talk about the difficult things and we are like, yes, yes, yes, but I'm telling you, the hardest part of my life is also the best part of it, like I can never forget these kids and how we've helped them and the love that we receive from them by showing them that we care. That will carry you through life.
Speaker 2:You and Kristen have kind of converted me here and we will have one more. You and Kristen have kind of converted me here and we will have one more. Hopefully we will have a couple more foster parents and maybe even a couple of kids that grew up in the foster care system to talk about the experiences hopefully the good experiences and the positive experiences, and then we'll talk about the ROS program, but I think ultimately it's about parents program, but I think ultimately it's about parents. It's about finding competent parents and it's about a system that changes its priorities to reunification, to supporting parents, training parents and giving them the tools and the resources that they need so they can be effective at it. I truly appreciate your time today.
Speaker 3:Likewise, and thank you for helping me spread awareness and try to get more people to help the communities. The communities need helpers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you so much, beth.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to Make the Leap. Be sure to visit our site, rosspodcastcom or the podcast platform of your choice to listen to past episodes as well as subscribe, so you never miss a future episode. We hope you join us two weeks from now for our next episode as we learn more about the Ross Foster Care Program. See you then.