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Rylee Tudor

Marcia Hughes

English Composition 1201

1 May 2022

How are Foster Care and Safe Families comparable?

Foster care and Safe Families are two organizations that focus on the placement of children, who

are removed from their homes. Foster care and Safe Families differences outweigh their similarities. The

primary connection between the two systems is the goal of caring for children. Additionally, they both

focus on keeping children safe and finding a home that will do so. Some situations legally require the

extraction of children from their residences. However, there are some instances where the removal of

children is optional. Foster care and Safe Families help decide where these children will go. The main

differences between the two are their history and ethics. This includes variants such as parent

involvement, terms of hosting, host family's introduction, and many other factors. These differences could

either prevent parents from getting help or create an opportunity to keep their kids safe, while they work

on preventing an issue that would force the kids to be taken away. To differentiate between these

organizations, there must first be an understanding of the history, regulations, and many other aspects of

their operations.

In addition, every year millions of children are vulnerable in the United States. A vulnerable

child is defined as "a child below the age of 18 who is currently or is likely to be in adverse conditions

hereby subject to significant physical, emotional or mental stress resulting in inhibited development"

(“Who Is a Vulnerable or Orphaned Child”, 2020). There are many agencies including governmental,

non-profit, and private that have been formed to combat the pandemic of vulnerable children in the

United States. Two of those agencies are foster care and Safe Families. There are a host of differences

between the two including the introduction of the program to the family, the custody situation of the
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children, the relationship between biological family and host family, the typical length of stay, the

compensation for the host family, visitation, availability of the programs, and the reunification process.

Understanding the differences and history is fundamental in the approach that should be taken for these

vulnerable children.

According to Voices for Children, the foster care system has evolved over several centuries starting as

a program that sent orphaned youth to homes as indentured servants. In the mid-19th century, states began

to offer funding to families that would take in children. In these early years, the focus was on the hosting

families and their comfort and protection. In the early 1900s, agencies began paying and monitoring the

host families and making sure the children were being properly cared for There was also a shift from

caring for orphans to caring for children that had a biological family that were in some sort of abusive or

neglectful situation. In 1935, the federal government took control of the foster care program. In 1977, the

CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) model was first attempted. This model included a volunteer

that was an advocate for the child and did not represent either the agency or the biological family. It

provided a neutral third party that would help determine the best situation for the child (History of Foster

Care, 2020).

The Safe Families movement was started in Chicago in 2003 by Dr. Dave Anderson. Dr. Anderson

researched the impact of foster care on children for his doctoral research in 1996. He understood that

there was long-term trauma left on children taken from their biological homes long after the reunification

process. He questioned if the tragedies of abuse and neglect could be prevented. He also questioned how

the church could help families in crisis not only stabilize but thrive (Rabey, 2021). His theory was that

volunteers could step in when a family was in crisis and become the support system, they needed by

hosting the children while the family dealt with the crisis. He introduced the thought to Mayor Daley who

then sent him to the Department of Children and Family Services Director. The director loved the idea but

doubted that families would simply volunteer to host children in their homes with no compensation. In
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2019, Safe Families joined Stand Together which brings some needed funds to the volunteer-based

movement.

One of the key differences between the two programs is the method the program gets funding to

operate and how this funding flows to the host family. According to the Assistant Secretary for Planning

and Evaluation, federal funding for foster care was over 5.5 billion dollars (about $17 per person in the

US) (“Federal Foster Care Financing: How and Why the Current Funding Structure Fails to Meet the

Needs of the Child Welfare Field”, 2005). Additional funds came from state and local government funds.

For example, in Ohio, the state contributes 24 million dollars to foster care. The amount of funds even a

particular county has at its disposal dictates the services that the county can provide. This means that one

county in one state can have different options available for a child and for a family than a county right

next door. The host family is paid a stipend when hosting foster care children and that amount fluctuates

from state to state as well. For example, according to We Have Kids, South Carolina pays foster care

parents $332 per month while Tennessee pays $761 per month per child (Peeples, 2022). These funds

assist foster care host families with food and other necessities for the children in their care. In addition,

the state usually provides health insurance for doctor visits, counseling, and therapy. Per Western and

Southern, it costs on average $14,800 per year to raise a child so although foster parents are provided a

stipend, it falls short of covering all the costs for the children in their care (“How Much Does It Cost to

Raise a Child?”, 2021).

Consequently, the funding for Safe Families is quite different from foster care. Whereas foster

care funding comes from government agencies, Safe Families does not receive any funding from those

agencies. Safe Families had total revenue in 2020 of 7.7 million dollars. Their total expenses in 2020 were

slightly over 6 million with most of those funds dedicated to programming services. (Rabey, 2021) The

revenue that Safe Families generates is done so through donations from churches and individuals that

operate as non-profit organizations. Safe Families does not provide a stipend to the host families to help

compensate for the cost of food, clothing, and other necessities. This means the host family is covering
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the additional expenses in their household from their own pockets. According to Safe Families for

Children, “host families open their homes because of their faith & belief in serving and loving others.”

(“What You Need to Know” Safe Families for Children)

A stark difference between these two organizations is the method in which the organization is

introduced to the family. When a child is placed in foster care, it is often against the wishes of the

biological parent. The Marchall Project researched the trauma that is created from these foster care

placements and interviewed a child that said it “felt like being kidnapped.” Many children are aware that

their parents are against foster care placement and harbor negative feelings towards the system that

caused it and the family that takes them in that they feel (erroneously) are partly to blame. Eli Hager

explains how The Marshall Project also concludes that the “officers who remove children from their

homes may not be aware that family separation can be more traumatizing for a child than living in

poverty.” (Hager,2021) Children are sometimes taken with none of their belongings and without the

proper goodbye to their parents. They do not know their destination or length of separation. The removal

of children is often viewed as a punishment to the parents for whatever circumstances resulted in their

removal.

The introduction to Safe Families is different from the Foster Care introduction. First. Safe Families is

usually introduced to the parent by an agency that sees a crisis within the family. This can be local

hospitals, schools, welfare agencies, social workers, churches, and many others. When a family presents a

crisis, these agencies refer them to Safe Families as an option for hosting their children. The biological

family must need and want to use Safe Families services and must themselves call and request hosting.

Then the Safe Families team will interview them to determine if they are fit for hosting. They assess the

situation and needs and connect the family with the assistance and tools they require. If they are a match

for the program, ideally the host family will be found that can keep sibling groups intact and keep them in

the same schools. If possible, meetings are arranged between the host families and the biological families

to facilitate as smooth a transition as possible. The children, therefore, know where they are going and
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often even the length of their stay. This process can help minimize the trauma children feel when placed

outside of their homes.

Figure 1 shows the connection that Safe Families attempts to retain between host families and biological

families (“How It Works”).

Another substantial difference between the programs is the issue of legal custody of the children.

Emily Doskow states that legal custody means, “you are responsible for making decisions about the

important things in their lives, like where they go to school, what religious instruction they receive,

whether they need academic tutoring or psychological counseling, and when they go to the doctor”

(Doskow, 2021). When foster care is involved, there is a hearing where the legal overseer of foster care,

typically a department of children and services, is held requesting temporary legal custody of the children.

The parents legally must be notified of the hearing and can be present. This hearing seeks to transfer the

owners of legal custody from the parent to the agency. If the judge approves this request, the parents

temporarily lose legal custody of their children. At that point, the courts determine when the child can

return to their biological parents, how communication between child and parent will transpire, and the

method of visitation with the child.

When a parent chooses to have their children hosted with Safe Families, they only sign a power of

attorney for medical reasons as well as a general power of attorney for school-related issues. They need

the power of attorney because the parent retains full legal custody of the child. This also means that the

parent retains the power of all important decisions relating to the child including medical care, permission

to seek counseling, school issues, and all other important decisions. If the parent changes their mind and

wants the child back, the child is immediately returned as this is a voluntary placement.

Another key difference between the two programs is the relational side of the equation between

hosting parents and biological parents. In a foster care relationship, there are strict rules and regulations

which govern the interactions between foster children and their biological parents. The enforcer of that

communication and visit is sometimes the foster parents themselves. This is often falsely viewed by foster

children and biological parents as a foster parent decision. When reunification does not happen as quickly

as biological parent desire, they can also hold that against a foster parent. The frustration is more about

the situation than personal to the foster parents, but the situation leads itself to a general distrust of the

foster parents by the biological parents. Many biological parents will feel that the foster parent is trying to

“steal” their child away.

One of the key components of Safe Families is the ability to create a relationship between the

host family and the biological family. According to Safe Families, “the relationship between the two

families is a partnership in caring for the children, with shared decision-making and responsibility.” The

relationship is the main aspect of the movement because it not only creates a safe place for the kids but

just as importantly, it creates a network of support for the biological family. Within the hosting, the host

family is in contact and communication directly with the biological parents with no legal middleman.

This also creates trust between the two parties. The Imprint tells of an example of this with Corisma

Gillespie who was a biological mom in 2012 that had her daughter hosted with the Emery family.

Gillespie had lost her job, her car was impounded, and she was about to be homeless. Within 3 weeks,

this respite allowed Gillespie to find a job and an apartment, and her daughter came home. Eight years
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later these families, brought together by a crisis, remain close and still visit one another. If Gillespie has

another crisis, she has already built an extended family that can step in to help her care for her child.

Another difference is the length of stay and the expectation for that length of stay. Most of the

placements with foster care do not have an expectation as far as the length of stay. Usually, there is a case

plan that the parent must complete. That can include drug rehabilitation, parenting classes, finding an

appropriate home, counseling, and a host of other responsibilities. Typically, there are several court

appearances, where the parents prove or earn their parental rights back through their actions over a course

of time. In Ohio, the current average length of stay is 25 months which is a long time for a child to be

separated from their parents (“Foster Care and Adoption FAQs.”,2021). This amount of time sometimes

necessitates a movement from one foster family to the next with an average stay per placement of one

year. The length of stay and movement from one host family to another further inflicts emotional trauma

onto the child that will last far beyond the time in foster care. Foster Focus says “children often have no

control of this transition, no control where they are placed, and no control of when they will go back to

their birth family. It is this lack of control that many times send children in foster care spiraling into

depression.” (DeGarmo)

Safe Families’ website declares that it is typically a short-term placement with an average 6-week

period of involvement although they can be as short as 2 days or up to a year (“How It Works”).

Additionally, both parties are aware that there is no expectation of adoption. At the time of placement,

Safe Families attempts to estimate the length of stay before the hosting even begins. For example, if the

issue is homelessness, they work with the biological parent to get an action plan of steps required which

then creates a basic timeline until reunification. This is a benefit for the biological parent for planning but

also the host family has an understanding before commitment about how long of a commitment this

placement would be. This also benefits the child because they have an expectation of when they will

return to the biological parent. This planned period can help ease the anxiety a child feels when living in

unfamiliar surroundings.
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Another key difference is the situations in which each of these programs is used. Foster care is

used when there are already signs of neglect or abuse whereas Safe Families is used before those events

occur that would require the removal of the children. This means many of the children entering foster care

already have experienced some sort of trauma. Safe Families states that “children placed by Safe Families

are not believed to be victims of physical or sexual abuse; otherwise, they would be wards of the state and

ineligible for hosting (“FAQ’s”, 2018) This would lead one to believe that one of the primary differences

is also the timing of the placement. In other words, if a family that needs help because they face

homelessness encounters Safe Families before they are homeless, they do not encounter foster care

because they got the help at the right time. If a family that has no food in the house gets help hosting their

children through Safe Families while they work to put themselves in a better financial situation, avoid

foster care involvement before the lack of food becomes problematic.

Another comparison involves the availability of the two programs. Foster care is available in

every state in the United States. There were 218,927 licensed foster care homes in 2019 in the United

States. Although statistics show that there is an abundant need for more foster care homes, when a family

is in crisis, geographically, there are foster care options to place the children.

Safe Families, though, are only found in 120 cities across 40 states. This means that in thousands

of communities across the country, Safe Families is not an option for families in crisis. For example, the

closest chapter to South Bend, Indiana is in Chicago, Illinois which is almost a two-hour drive. If a

placement for a South Bend family were in Chicago, it would mean a change of school for the child, and

visitation between the child and the biological parents would be extremely difficult. The program is faith-

based and relies on a volunteer movement to start a chapter in a new location. There is also work to be

done judicially to allow a chapter to start in a new location. For example, New York City started its local

chapter in 2017. In 2020, legislators attempted to enact new regulations that would allow child welfare

workers to use hosting as an ultimatum or coercion to avoid foster care. As stated previously, the tenant of

making the Safe Families model work is that parents must desire to place their children with Safe
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Families hosts. This regulation would feel more like forcing their children to be placed in an alternate and

unfamiliar home.

Still another difference is in the process and frequency of reunification of the biological family.

According to childwelfare.gov, only 47% of children that left foster care were discharged to be reunited

with their parents. Another 8% of those that left foster care were emancipated which means they reached

the age of 18 with no reunification with their biological parents. These kids face adverse outcomes like

early pregnancies, homelessness, high unemployment rates, and low educational attainment. (Rosemberg,

2019). Another 26% were adopted out of foster care, which also means no reunification with their

biological parents. Only half the number of children left foster care due to reunification. When

reunification does happen, it typically begins with unsupervised visits, overnight visits, and weekend

visits. These visits often create behaviors in children because they will be confused, and they may not be

able to verbally express their feelings. After reunification, ideally, parents work with a social worker that

can provide services and support to help the family make a smooth transition. The foster parents will

express both joy and grief as reunification draws near. Joyful that the family will be able to reunify and

grieve because they have built a bond with that child over time. Although historically there has been no

contact between foster parents and birth parents, there have been some significant changes that facilitate a

relationship after reunification. In North Carolina, for instance, a formal policy to create a shared

parenting practice was adopted in 2008. This allowed communication between the families and reduced

the interference of the agency as a middleman.

Furthermore, in Safe Families, 95% of children leave Safe Families due to reunification. The

reunification process is vastly different from foster care because the parents can have their child back at

any time by just requesting a return. This can make the transition back to the biological family quicker but

can also cause anxiety by using this quick reunification method. Since the children were not removed

because of abuse or neglect, a trial home visit or supervised visit is just not necessary. Recalling that the

placement is usually of a predetermined length of time eases the transition period for both the host family
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and the biological family. Both organizations claim that reunification is the goal. But the statistics show

that reunification is much more likely to occur with a Safe Families placement than with foster care.

The primary similarity between the two organizations is the desire to keep kids safe. Foster care

removes kids from unsafe or unhealthy conditions and assists biological parents to follow a case plan that

can lead to reunification. They seek to provide a safe, stable, nurturing environment while the parents

correct the situation that necessitated the removal of the children. Safe Families also provide a safe

environment while the parents take care of whatever the crisis was that necessitated them to seek

assistance from Safe Families. Safe Families assign a “family friend” volunteer that assists the parents to

meet the goals defined by them and the family friend. Foster care assigns the parent a caseworker that

helps them work their case plan that is required for reunification. They both work to keep kids safe and

ensure that kids are returning to a better environment than they left.

Another similarity is that they both require the use of host families that are willing to take

strangers’ children into their homes for a length of time Although Safe Families hosts receive no stipend

for their care, even the foster care parents must subsidize the care from their own pocket. Host families in

both situations completely accept the responsibility of raising these children, for a time, as if they were

their own. Both types of host families could retain a relationship after reunification although simply the

introduction of Safe Families allows a higher probability of continued relationship.

The differences between the two models are vast but their core similarities make them seem very

much alike. The chief difference is in introduction and reunification while the similarity is in their general

overall purpose. Both organizations have the goal of safe reunification with the child's family. However,

the process of getting there is vastly different. They are both valuable resources for families in need and

the core reason to choose one over the other seems to be the point of introduction in a crisis. If introduced

quickly enough, Safe Families provides the easiest introduction and the highest probability of

reunification. But if not introduced early enough, foster care is the only option.
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Work Cited

Doskow, Emily. “Differences between Legal and Physical Child Custody.” Divorce Net, Nolo, 16

Aug. 2021, www.divorcenet.com/resources/divorce/divorce-and-children/legal-and-physical-custody-

children.

“FAQs.” Safe Families for Children, 2 Mar. 2018, https://safe-families.org/about/faq/

“Federal Foster Care Financing: How and Why the Current Funding Structure Fails to Meet the

Needs of the Child Welfare Field.” ASPE, 31 July 2005, https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/federal-foster-care-

financing-how-why-current-funding-structure-fails-meet-needs-child-welfare-field-0.

Fitzgerald, Michael. “Faith-Based Movement to ‘Host’ Children of Struggling Families Hits

Opposition in New York.” The Imprint, 30 Nov. 2020, https://imprintnews.org/news-2/host-home-safe-

families-hits-opposition-new-york/44553.

“Foster Care and Adoption FAQ's.” Focus on Youth, 22 Mar. 2021,

https://focusonyouth.com/foster-care-and-adoption-

faqs/#:~:text=In%20Ohio%2C%20the%20average%20length,foster%20care%20is%2025%20months.

“Getting Paid to Be a Foster Parent: State-by-State Monthly Guide.” We Have Kids, Peeples, 22

Sept. 2012, https://wehavekids.com/adoption-fostering/What-does-being-a-foster-parent-really-pay.

Hager, Eli. “The Hidden Trauma of ‘Short Stays’ in Foster Care.” The Marshall Project,

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trauma-of-short-stays-in-foster-care.

“History of Foster Care.” Voices for Children | CASA Program, 26 May 2020,

https://www.speakupnow.org/history-of-foster-care/.
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“How It Works.” Safe Families,

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0of%206%20weeks.

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2021, https://www.westernsouthern.com/learn/financial-education/how-much-does-it-cost-to-raise-a-kid.

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resigns-local-chapters-depart/.

Rosenberg, Rachel, and Samuel Abbott. “Supporting Older Youth beyond Age 18: Examining

Data and Trends in Extended Foster Care.” Child Trends, 3 June 2019,

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