Government might not have many answers to foster care problem

By Jennifer Bioche

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I attended the April 11 forum on child removal sponsored by The Gazette and KCRG-TV9 at the African American Museum of Iowa in Cedar Rapids. The panel included various professionals who work in or with the foster care system. One major theme of the discussion was bias toward removal of black children from their homes.

I attended after being intrigued by Gazette columnist Jennifer Hemmingsen's series of columns that highlighted parents who fought for years to regain custody of children they felt were wrongly removed from the home.

What began as a program for the best interests of children has become for some the ultimate invasion of liberty, and we should all take notice.

Most of the professionals at the forum were pleased with the recent downward trend of removals, particularly in Linn County. A visit to the Department of Human Services website

will confirm these numbers.

I am a relative newcomer to the discussion and while I appreciate

the concern on racial bias, eventually, I noted other issues worth discussing.

The assertion came up that families need more services to prevent the risk of child removal. I ran this past my father, Joseph Tomsic, a San Francisco-based juvenile defense attorney, who has spent 21 years representing displaced children in and out of California's foster care system. Many of his clients are from black families, and he said this about the initial factors in their children's removal:

“A good portion of the foster care children come from parents who are not married ... many come from uneducated and underprivileged homes. There are the teen mothers, drug addicts, alcoholics, there's physical and sexual abuse.”

So if services are introduced as a form of prevention of child removal, what does that look like?

Take for example, teenage motherhood. I've noticed, at least in Cedar Rapids, that many a service is already in place. Turn on a Cedar Rapids radio station and hear Planned Parenthood's ads inviting you all to a “free teen health clinic,” compliments of your tax dollars.

Every time I visit a well-known movie theatre, there are conspicuous “free birth control - come on down!” ads, compliments of a hospital, splashed across the screen. Schools teach sex education.

We already have “services” and yet they have largely failed.

Foster parents can do great things for children. Many give their time, volunteer, open their homes and take in impossible situations, trying to make the best of things. Some of them, maybe not.

My father described the “business” of foster care, something else currently broken in the system:

“Some foster parents do enjoy the money (the stipend provided for the child by public agencies) especially when they have several foster children in their care. Unfortunately, despite the training of foster parents, some merely take the money and provide the minimal care and supervision.”

Whether it's white or black children being removed from their parents' homes, in California or Iowa, the bottom line is that society loses when this happens.

And maybe there's a harsh truth to face: Government really doesn't have the solution to cure the foster care problem.

Forums are a good place to start asking questions. More tax dollars to revolving-door programs are probably not the answer.

Jennifer Bioche, of Marion, is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in several national and regional publications. Comments: jbioche@yahoo.com