Regional children service agencies increasingly have to look out of their counties to place children who come into their custody. In recent years, this kinship network has been more difficult to tap into, as children coming into Children Services are lacking relatives who can or will take them in, Rickett said.Ĭhildren can benefit greatly from being placed with a foster family as opposed to a group home or other care center, as foster families can dedicate more specialized time and attention to the children in their household, Rickett said. “Being removed from the home is a traumatic situation for a child,” he said. When a child is removed from his or her home and comes into the care of Montgomery County Children Services, the agency first looks to place the child with a nearby relative who has played a role in the child’s life, Rickett said. But we’ve got some absolutely wonderful foster parents.” “I think everybody’s reasons are different,” Rickett said. Still other times, caregivers choose to close their home because they entered into a busy season in life and fear they don’t have time for the commitment, Rickett said. In recent years, other foster caregivers have moved out of the county or have asked for no more placements because they have chosen to adopt the children in their care. “People were fearful of the unknown.” Explore Here’s how - and why - to become a foster parent in the Dayton area “It was kind of an unintended consequence of the pandemic for a myriad of reasons,” Rickett said. Since then, the number of caregivers has leveled off, while the number of children in custody remains high, Rickett said.ĬOVID-19 impacted some families’ decision to close their homes to foster children in Montgomery County and beyond. Several years ago, Montgomery County saw a drop in the number of in-county caregivers. Montgomery County has the sixth largest number of children in custody in the state.
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