STEVENS POINT, Wis. (WSAU) — There is a statewide need for more foster parents. That’s according to Foster Care and Independent Living Coordinator Danita Docka from Portage County. She says they are always trying to find more homes that can help temporarily care for children from birth to 18-years-old.
She says thousands of Wisconsin children are in foster care. “The statistics from the state identified that on average, there’s about 8,000 children in foster care in Wisconsin. Portage County, we currently have approximately 100, and that includes children in foster care or children in a relative’s home.”
Docka says sometimes the reason for foster parents is because the birth parents are having drug or domestic violence issues. Other times, it can be a child or teenager that is difficult for the parents to control. “We have children that are just newborns, and parents are unavailable. Maybe they’re incarcerated or they have significant mental health issues. We do have children, again, that have been victims of physical abuse or sexual abuse and need a safe place and intense counseling.”
Sometimes, teenagers need foster homes when their behavior is too much for the natural parents to manage on their own. “We also have a need for teen foster homes, where children are truant, delinquent, or uncontrollable, and birth parents are saying, ‘Help, I can’t manage’ and children then need a more structured and intensely supervised environment.”
Docka says there is a screening process and background check for potential foster parents to make sure they have no issues that would endanger the children. It starts with several questions on a website. She says any adult with the interest and ability to care for children and work with the department in the care of that child can apply. “Any individual over the age of 21 can apply. They can be a single parent. They can be an unmarried couple. It can be a same-sex couple, can be grandparents or aunts and uncles. We do have a lot of individuals or couples that their children are now grown, and they have the empty nest, and they have this great big house that they say, ‘You know what? I could fill this house with kids.’”
Docka says they get to know applicants, and try to match with kids to make the foster setting successful. They also try to find foster parent homes throughout the county, so that when a child is placed with them, they are close to their real home and don’t have to change school districts.
A typical placement for a foster child is from 6 months up to about a year, but can go close to 18 months.
If a minor is in foster care over a year, that’s when federal guidelines kick in. Docka says the Adoption and Safe Families Act requires local agencies to look at a more permanent and stable solution for the child, whether it’s back with their birth parents or in a guardianship or adoption setting. “Children deserve a permanent home. They deserve to be raised in a permanent family, not foster care.”
Anyone interested in the foster parents program should contact their county’s Department of Social Services. In Portage County, contact Danita Docka at 715-345-5913.
(Find out more about becoming a foster parent. Listen to our interview with Donita Docka on our website, here.)
