Some 7,000 children in Wisconsin are in need of foster care.
Families who provide them out of home care when their immediate families cannot.
Of critical need, families who provide treatment foster care.
This can be for physical, developmental, or emotional needs of the child.
As part of Children's Wisconsin, a health care system and child welfare agency, foster
children and their families can get wraparound services.
Here to discuss is Amy Basting, a foster home recruiter, and the treatment respite foster
care lead at Children.
Thanks very much for being here.
Hi, Frederica.
Nice to have have time to spend with you today.
So we understand, again, that there is a dire need for treatment foster families across
Wisconsin.
What does that need look like?
How many children are waiting?
Well, across the state of Wisconsin, there are, like you mentioned, about 7,000 children
in foster homes.
Really in terms of children waiting, none.
We need to get them into homes ASAP.
So there are children placed into foster homes, but sometimes it takes a little bit longer
and they have to wait in maybe group care where they would just do better in a treatment
foster home.
Is it difficult to get licensed as a treatment foster parent?
And then what about the commitment?
Is that difficult physically, emotionally, or financially for these foster families?
Sure.
The qualifications for treatment foster parents are a little bit higher, but it's nothing
outside the, nothing really difficult.
You know, you might have to, you have to maybe have some experienced parenting, five years
experience parenting.
A lot of people can knock that right off.
So the qualifications are pretty easy to meet.
The toll it takes as far as on your emotions or your health, there is so much support that
children's Wisconsin treatment foster care program offers that we hope we are supporting
our treatment foster parents at the level that they need so that they can take breaks
using respite care when they need to take care of themselves.
You know, if there's health needs that they need to take care of themselves, we're going
to make sure they take care of themselves.
I want to ask you more about those wraparound services in a moment, but what does it mean
to be a treatment foster parent?
Treatment foster care is a higher level of foster care.
So if you compare it to its counterpart, general foster care, that would be to capture
the needs of kids with lower to moderate level needs.
And then moving up the scale, treatment foster care is there to capture the needs and care
for children with moderate to high level needs.
So we are looking at caring for that population that is beyond the scope of general foster
care.
What are the rewards for the foster parents?
Well, they tell me that it feels their heart.
They feel so rewarded when they see the children meet some treatment barriers and exceed and
grow and change and get healthier.
And they know they were a part of that.
So the rewards are great in terms of just feeling personally successful as a parent.
What does children's offer families and foster children in its wraparound program?
So in treatment foster care, we are foster parents with more support beyond, like I mentioned,
the general foster care program.
So in addition to support meaning visits and contact from a social worker, our treatment
foster care program gets additional staff that come to the home and support and advocate
for both the foster parents and children.
We reward our treatment foster parents with respite.
And it's kind of like how you earn vacation time or paid personally at work.
Our foster parents are getting some time off to take care of themselves.
Our treatment foster care program also offers clinical consultation, a mentoring program.
We have an incentive program built into our treatment foster care program for those homes
that are willing to care for our older youth, which is greatly needed.
So what are the end goals for children in foster care?
The end goals would be hopefully reunification with their birth family.
Another goal would be that the children meet some of their treatment goals, whether they
are health-related, mental health-related, behavioral.
So we really want to see children gain a sense of well-being and thrive in our treatment
foster care programs.
All right.
Well, we leave it there.
Amy Basting.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Again, thank you for your work.
Thank you.
It's great to be here.
Appreciate your time.
All right.
You too.
Have a good weekend.
Hopefully, let's smoothly.
And you don't have to edit.
No.
It was perfect.
Thank you.
Okay.
Take care, Frederica.
Have a good weekend.
You too.