“We Have No More Foster Parents.”

At the Child Rights Foundation, we ask all adults to imagine being that child. 

You are 8 or 9. Mom or Dad hurt you. There is a knock at the door. Strangers appear with police. They ask you some questions. Confusion and fear grow. Twenty minutes later, you are asked to gather some clothes, and you are taken from your home and family. 

Given your age, the complexity of laws, and the effects of an unstable home environment, you don’t understand. You are alone with your thoughts (as is always the case when a child is separated from a parent) you are suffering from trauma.

Of course, being a child, you are ignorant of state law, and the only criteria warranting your removal are a threat to your life due to the actions of your parent. Physical abuse. Or neglect — the kind that threatens your health to the point of death.

So you’re taken to some kind of temporary holding facility. A government social service office or a group home. The living room is unfamiliar. So is the bedroom, bathroom, and caretaker. 

You are unaware that the safest and most secure place — a healthy foster home — is not an option. There are no foster parents available to provide the temporary care you need. So you wait days, weeks, sometimes months.

This is the case across the nation today. In Louisville, Kentucky, for example, a shortage of foster parents makes it increasingly difficult to find homes for the thousands of vulnerable in the system.

“Right now, unfortunately, the situation is that we have more kids who don't have a place to live than we do foster homes,” said Tiffany White, spokesperson for St. Joseph Children's Home.

So children, in the United States of America, have no home to go to — no adult to provide essential love, safety, security, and care. The kids have bounced around. Transient. Alone.

No child should experience this reality. At Child Rights Foundation, we call on all adults to join our efforts to help these children of child abuse, child neglect, and child abandonment. 

We can change it.

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