The Discourse Community of Utah County Foster Care 2,700 children are removed from abusive homes in Utah every year, but where do these children go? They are taken to one of the 1,300 foster homes, my home included. Foster care homes are very diverse as well as the foster families, but ultimately everyone in the foster care circles share the same goal, reunification with the parents. The foster family, foster child, DCFS, CPS and the biological parents are all working towards getting the child back home. Many things take place to achieve the highest possibility of that goal being met such as meetings with all parties involved, weekly visits with the parents, child nurturing and care, court, and the therapies and classes that the parents …show more content…
These classes teach the parents specific skills so that they are able to care for children who have been abused, neglected, and often times have very severe behavioral and developmental complications because of that. There are different “levels” that the foster children are classified in depending on the behaviors that they exhibit and different training is required for each level of child care. However sometimes the child doesn’t exhibit some of these behaviors up front, so it is not an uncommon occurrence for a foster parent to be caring for a child that is harder than they can handle and they reach out to other foster homes for advice and respite care. This is done mainly of the Western Regions Cluster//Utah Foster Care facebook page, a common post to see is one much like …show more content…
It’s absurd to think that foster families “do it for the money” because it costs more to take care of the child than the family actually ends up getting “paid.” The reason I hesitate to use the word paid is because the money isn’t for the foster family at all, that money goes towards the foster child. A certain percent of it is required to be spent on new clothes every month for the child, and the rest goes towards the cost of food, diapers, and anything else you might imagine a child needs. My family was once approached by a neighbor who asked, “Isn’t there any other way you can get money, this just seems too sad” (Collins). We still haven’t spoken to this neighbor and it has been 5 years, because it is just so offensive to everyone in the foster community because we’re all just trying to do what’s best for the kids. It is the responsibility of the foster family to use this money to take care of the child, my mom and I have spent countless days going to The Children's Place store and buying new clothes for children who often come with little to the clothes on their back. There are also many organized gatherings, also posted on the facebook page, when stores donate clothes, coats, shoes and toys to the UFC foundation and foster families are free to come and take whatever they