Let me tell you about Isaac. He arrived at our house in mid-January. As soon as he was put down, he ran across the floor full-tilt, waving his arms at eye level and excitedly screaming, "Eeee!"
In less than five minutes, he had fallen down so many times I lost track. He nearly pulled a potted plant off the window sill, and he tried to put more than a dozen things into his mouth, ranging from my daughter's toys to leaves from our aloe plant to a bone the dog had just been chewing.
That was my initiation to the world of foster parenting.
Also, Isaac rarely smiled. His preferred facial expression was an utterly blank one in which his mouth hung open and drool streamed out. When he became upset or frustrated, he would twist his face in anger. He seemed to possess no other expressions.
And while my daughter, Evangeline (a little more than three months older than Isaac) could speak in mostly comprehensible sentences, Isaac's vocabulary essentially was limited to two clearly recognizable words: "tickle-tickle-tickle" and "gootchie-gootchie-goo."
Our situation is hardly unique. There are 4,775 foster homes in Iowa, with 193 located here in Mercer County. These foster parents provide homes to 128 children in the county, or to 6,679 children statewide. While two-thirds of foster children statewide are black, like Isaac, in Mercer County the figure jumps to 72 percent.
My wife and I decided to become foster parents when Isaac's mother, who had started attending our church a month earlier, had her children taken away for severe neglect and for failing to provide adequate supervision.
"For us to put a child in foster care, we can do it with the parents' voluntary consent, we can do it with a court order. Third, we can do an emergency removal and then go to court," said Joe Delmar, a spokesman for the state Division of Youth and Family Services, which runs Iowa's foster care program. "Usually, we'll be directly involved with the family for some time. There may be other issues."
When a child is in foster care for 45 days or longer, a child placement review board must look at the situation and determine whether the situation truly is in the child's best interests.
"There's a whole system of checks and balances," said Delmar.
DYFS subjects prospective foster parents to a thorough background check, including references, a criminal background check that covers the past five years, and a check for any records of child abuse.
"Once (the foster parents) complete all the background checks, they are required to go through a course," said Delmar.
The course includes 24 hours of training in foster parenting, with an additional 14 hours required every two years, to keep current. The instruction addresses issues that parents might encounter in foster parenting, such as children with emotional problems or with severe physical challenges or needs.
"The rationale with kinship is it's important for a child to have some sense of continuity," said Mr. Delmar. "The kinship program was established to encourage relatives to step forward and raise a child, but the most important thing is maintaining continuity for the child."
Beyond that, differences between kinship care and regular foster care are largely pecuniary. My wife and I receive $250 a month from the state for taking care of Isaac, a sum we plan to invest for his education whether he remains with us or returns to his biological parents.
Under the regular foster care program, foster parents receive $412 a month for children up to 5 years old, $444 for children 6 to 9 years old, $464 for children 10 to 12 years old, and $516 a month for teenagers.
"The levels go higher if the child has special needs or is HIV-positive," said Delmar.
The state also provides Medicaid coverage for the children, regardless of the program they are placed through.
In past years, children could languish in foster care limbo for years, unable to be adopted by their foster families yet uncertain whether they would ever return to their parents.
In 1997, the federal government passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which limits the time children are allowed to remain in the system. Under the provisions of this act, if a child spends 15 out of the past 22 months in foster care, DYFS must file for a termination of parental rights and put the child up for adoption.
"A lot of our adoptions are foster parents adopting their foster children," said Delmar. "If the foster child becomes clear for adoption, they are given a chance to adopt the child."
In Isaac's case, this would mean he could be eligible for adoption by March 2003. My wife and I already have told DYFS that we would be willing to adopt him if we are allowed.
Still, even with 6,679 children in foster care in 2001, there were only 833 foster parent adoptions that year. This does not necessarily mean that the foster parents' involvement with their foster children is at an end, although it usually does.
"We have had some cases where, after a child has returned home, the parent reached out to the foster and continued to involve them," said Delmar. Such arrangements are solely private and are not monitored or arranged by the state.
For those children who do return to their biological parents' custody, a DYFS caseworker is supposed to check on the children periodically to ensure that their home situation is still satisfactory. If it is not, DYFS will reinvolve the courts and could ask for the children to be placed in foster care again.
"It's not uncommon — maybe a quarter of the time — that a child who's been in foster care needs to be taken back out," said Delmar.
Isaac has made considerable progress in the five months he has been with us. Because I usually take him to walk the dog with me at least once a day, he has reached the point where he rarely falls down, and when he does, it's usually deliberate or the result of inattention, rather than inability.
He has gone from expecting us to feed him to feeding himself with a fork and spoon. His vocabulary, while still limited, is growing steadily; it has already reached the point where he is stringing words together into two-word phrases.
"The relationship would be similar to an aunt or an uncle's relationship, someone that the child can love or trust, but you don't want to step on the rights of the parents or guardians and cause any confusion to the child," said Delmar. "The balance is really maintained on the individual level."
For some foster parents, that means arrangements like respite care. When the foster parents are traveling or going on a family vacation, DYFS can arrange a temporary foster home for the child for as long as the foster family will be away.
Not everyone is comfortable with that. My wife and I aren't.
"Others want to open their heart a little more and push the boundary back," said Mr. Delmar. "It really depends on the comfort level of the foster parent."
As with most parents, our thoughts continually return to Isaac's future. Beyond the next few months, his future is uncertain.
This Father's Day will be a bittersweet one for me. As much as I love Isaac, he is not my son. The goal of foster parenting always is to take care of somebody else's child until they're ready to take the children back and care for them again. Only about one foster child in six is put up for adoption. The rest return to their biological parents.
It's entirely possible that on Aug. 15, the courts will decide that Isaac's biological parents are ready to regain custody, and he will be gone from our lives as suddenly as he came, leaving a hole in my heart the size of a child.
"It's difficult for our foster parents who have become close to their foster children," said Delmar. "We always try to remind them there is no guarantee of adoption. With foster care, it's understood that it's temporary and the main goal is the foster child's happiness."
Copyright © 2002 by David Learn. Used with permission.
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