The State of Foster Care Up North: "We Just Don't Have Enough Homes"

Foster care organizations advocate for better mental health care and more foster parents

By Anna Faller | Aug. 24, 2024

It's no secret that the U.S. needs more foster parents. The Michigan foster care network alone comprises about 10,000 children.

Though the state has made some recent strides—1,600 children were adopted in 2021, and as of late 2023, the number of kids in foster care was down by half from the previous decade—there is still plenty of room for improvement.

But what would that improvement look like?

Northern Express connected with two Traverse City-based foster care agencies—Child and Family Services of Northwestern Michigan and Bethany Christian Services—for some insight on the most pressing issues our regional foster care system is facing and how our communities can help support the children and families those programs serve.

“We believe that every child deserves to feel safe, loved, and connected,” Bethany Christian Services Branch Director Chelsea Hill notes. “Our services are designed around that vision.”

Keeping Families Together

Founded in 1937 and 1944 respectively, Child and Family Services of Northwestern Michigan (CFS) and Bethany Christian Services (BCS) are two key organizations connecting foster kids with local families. Together, they serve upwards of 30 counties throughout the state and collectively advocate for the safety and wellbeing of about 120 kids annually.

Of their widespread service networks (which also include programs like suicide prevention and awareness, legal counsel, and immigration assistance), child welfare is a primary pillar—the goal of which, both organizations underscore, is family reunification.

“We’re in the business of removing the barriers that brought that child into care [in the first place],” CFS Executive Director Gina Aranki says. “We always say at CFS that the best day is when a kid goes back home, whatever that looks like.”

But doesn’t adoption also provide a safe, stable home for children that need it? The short answer is yes. In fact, Hill estimates that 65 percent of applicable cases move to adoption. The process, though, is time consuming, taking six to 18 months on average, and can also put additional pressure on a child who is doing their best to adjust.

Per Aprille Sutton, CFS child welfare director, uprooting a child from home places them in a situation that feels, in that moment, uncertain and scary. “That [separation] can be frightening. As much as the system is able, we’re trying to avoid those re-traumatizations,” adds Sutton.

Missing Infrastructure and Services

To encourage keeping families together, the last two decades have seen a total overhaul of Michigan’s welfare system, headlined by the Dwayne B. vs. Snyder Modified Settlement Agreement. This case catalyzed improvements in monitoring programs and prerequisites for caseload workers—essentially ensuring Michigan communities were meeting state-mandated care benchmarks—all with the goal of mitigating the need to implement foster care.

The downside to these efforts though, notes Hill, is that when children now enter the foster care system, their need for placement is immediate, as past interventions have already been ineffective.

“We’re seeing more significant situations than we did in the past, because [those children] have already received services at home that they still aren’t benefiting from,” she says.

As for what those situations are? Both agencies highlight abuse and neglect, as well as circumstances that reduce the stability of the child’s caregiver, like addiction, homelessness, and mental illness.

The latter three, in particular, are on the rise in northern Michigan—though Hill notes substance abuse disorders, like alcoholism, aren’t new—and driven at least in part by a combination of widespread factors like an increasingly difficult housing market, social media use, and long-term changes to our social landscape following the pandemic.

“There’s a lot of elements, but I think a lot of people are trying to lock their anxieties away. As a result, these kinds of reasons are a common thread with [many] of our cases,” adds Aranki.

Consequently, both CFS and BCS stress a local need for infrastructural resources and specialized services, like targeted treatments and therapists who take Medicaid. Psychiatric facilities are also needed, and are all but inaccessible locally.

Per Sutton, kids experiencing mental health crises could wait for days before a bed opens up. In some cases, CFS has even sent children to facilities in Detroit and Grand Rapids for treatment. “There’s just nothing available, so that’s a strain for our organization,” she adds.

Kids in Need

With dozens of children in the system at any one time, both organizations also face the challenge of securing adequate foster homes—in particular, accommodations that are willing to take on sibling sets, or “teams.”

“We get about 15 to 20 calls and emails per day looking for accommodation replacements, most of them for sibling sets, from around the state. That’s our most significant challenge,” Hill notes.

When a new foster home is licensed, that family can stipulate the age range of the children they’d prefer to take on (e.g., infants, elementary-aged, etc.) as well as the number of children they can help. Statewide statistics reflect that children and infants aged six and younger comprise more than half of all kids in foster care.

Kids in Michigan foster care can elect to stay until they turn 21, though those last three years are voluntary, and are known as “Independent Living.”

While just 12 percent of BCS’s cases represent children older than 10—with an even 44 percent split between infants and five- to 10-year-olds, respectively—there’s almost certainly a larger percentage of children in that age range throughout the state.

Add to that an additional shortage in the region’s relative population—placing a child with extended family is always Plan A in the foster care world—and we’ve got a serious gap to fill. “We just don’t have enough homes,” Sutton says.

Seeking More Foster Families

To accommodate that need for placements, agencies need more foster families.

The process starts by attending orientation, which Hill describes as an informational meeting that addresses licensure expectations and components. From there, you’ll submit an application—these often include fingerprints, references, and medical records—before being assigned to a licensing worker that coordinates with the agency you select. The last two steps are to complete training and undergo a home inspection.

It’s this last box, Sutton and Hill agree, that typically takes the most time to tick. The inspection includes checks for safety measures like working smoke detectors, central registry clearances, and septic evaluation, all of which can take weeks to clear.

The end result, though, is a high-quality home, which Sutton stresses is critical to ensuring the safety of the children they’ll eventually house.

“The worst thing we could do is place [those children] into another unsafe situation, so we hold our foster parents to a really high standard,” she adds. “It really is working closely with our licensing worker to ensure that level of safety is there.”

A critical misconception about becoming a foster family is that you have to own your own home or hit income benchmarks to qualify. Per both organizations, this isn’t true. Instead, the only real fostering requirements—besides passing the requisite background checks—are the financial stability to take on a child and providing a loving and safe environment.

“We have families who own their homes; we have families who rent. We have two-parent households, same-sex households, and single parents who work full time,” Hill notes. “Other than having a heart for children, being a safe person, and having a safe place to stay, there are no other expectations.”

Caring for Kids (and Parents)

On the other side of that coin, Aranki also quashes the myth that some foster families are “only in it for the money.” Though it’s true that the State of Michigan provides a monthly reimbursement to foster families, it ranges from $400-$600 per child and is intended to cover basic needs.

“There just isn’t enough money to make [fostering] worth anyone’s while for that reason,” she adds. “You really have to care about kids.”

More than that, we have to care about the kids’ parents.

Per Hill, there’s a widespread preconception that parents with children in foster care are villains or aren’t able to have a productive relationship with their kids’ caregivers.

Trauma, she points out, can happen to anyone, especially when we lack vital resources. “We really try to normalize what they’re going through, because it’s often their circumstances that have led them where they are,” she explains. Consequently, encouragement from foster families can sometimes be the push that lands parents upright.

“Our best foster parents are supporting their kids, but they’re also supporting the birth parents—not just while [the children] are in care, but also once they go home,” Sutton adds. “That kind of support goes beyond the case and can really make a huge impact.”

For more information on the northern Michigan foster care networks, visit them online at bethany.org and cfsnwmi.org. To connect with a foster care navigator, call 855-MICHKIDS or visit michigan.gov.