Before the pandemic started, Lisa Duda, of Manchester, was preparing to send her 9-month-old foster son back to his biological mom. The boy, who has medical complications and is fed with a breathing tube, had been with Duda since he was released from the hospital at three-months old. During that time, his mother had been learning how to care for him. Although Duda loves him, she was happy to see the family moving toward reunification.
“If he can be with her, there’s no place else he should be,” Duda said.
Then, in mid-March, visits stopped because of the pandemic. Rather than spending time with his mom three times a week for hours on end, Duda’s foster son suddenly only saw his mother over video-chat.
“It’s taking away from his bonding time with his mom,” said Duda. “Medically, he did better when he had regular contact with her. He’s completely regressed.”
As for his mother, “I can’t even imagine the heartbreak for mom,” Duda said. Because the state follows protocols for slowly increasing visits with a biological parent before sending a child home, the case will almost definitely be delayed, with the boy spending more time in foster care than he would have had coronavirus not struck.
This is just one example of how New Hampshire’s foster care system, already overburdened before the COVID-19, is trying to adjust to serve kids and families as the pandemic stretches forward indefinitely.
“There’s a lot of really amazing people still doing a lot of great work right now even though times are tough,” said Joe Ribsam, director of the Division for Children, Youth and Families.
But, during National Foster Care Month, Duda says the pandemic is definitely affecting children, families and foster parents in the Granite State. Families like her foster sons’ aren’t being reunited; adoptions are being delayed; and foster families, overburdened with homeschooling the kids already in care, are having to turn down new placements, Duda said.
“The increased burden on foster parents is not easy to describe,” she said.
Duda, a single mom, has been a foster parent for more than 4 years. She’s had 11 placements and countless kids stay at her home for a brief emergency placement. Right now, in addition to her four-year-old daughter who was adopted from foster care, Duda has two foster sons: the 9-month-old and a 12-month-old, both of whom are medically fragile.
Each boy has three weekly visits with his biological family, as well as therapy and medical appointments. Under normal circumstances, the boys are transported by DCYF from daycare to family visits. But now, with visits happening digitally, Duda is responsible for organizing seven video calls a week. She’s also required to do bi-weekly DCYF check-ins (since the agency is not doing it’s usual monthly home visits), bi-weekly calls with each boy’s court-appointed advocate, and weekly calls with the subcontracted agency that oversees her foster care license.
“All of that is in addition to working my full-time 40 hours,” said Duda, a project manager with New England VA.
Ribsan said that the check-ins are necessary to keep foster kids safe and in contact with their biological families, while respecting social distancing. He acknowledged that the adjustment can still be tough, for foster families and DCYF employees.
“Our staff has pivoted into this new world in a way none of us would have thought would be possible a couple months ago,” Ribsan said.
In high-risk situations, case workers are still making in-person visits to families receiving support from DCYF, taking precautions like wearing masks or conducting interviews outside, he added.
New Hampshire currently has about 350 foster homes that are actively accepting placements. The total number of licensed homes is more than 700, but that includes many homes that are licensed only to accept family members.
That’s not nearly enough. The state has about 1,200 kids in out-of-home placement at a given time. Although Ribsan wouldn’t say what “magic number” of foster homes would be ideal for New Hampshire, he mentioned that when he worked in the New Jersey Department of Child and Families, he was satisfied when the state had about double the number of foster homes as it had kids in care. That surplus would allow DCYF to really make a good match between kids and foster homes, and allow children to stay in their communities, rather than going to whatever home in the state has an open space.
Ribsan said that New Hampshire has avoided crisis situations that other states have faced, where foster children have been housed temporarily in offices or hotels. No children have been left in unsafe situations because of a lack of foster homes, he said, but there are teens in residential facilities who could potentially be placed in homes if more options were available, he said.
Earlier this year, before the pandemic, DCYF launched a campaign to try to attract new foster parents, and Ribsan said it worked.
“Recruitment efforts have been awesome,” he said.
Although he didn’t have the exact number of new foster parents being trained, he said that classes — currently offered through video chat — have been “jam packed.”
However, people who can complete the class aren’t necessarily ready to be licensed. Each foster parent needs to pass a background check and have their fingerprints run. Because many police departments are not doing finger-prints during the shutdown, the state has temporarily waived that requirement, and is running background checks just based on a person’s name.
Foster homes also need to pass a local fire inspection, which most fire departments are not doing right now. Ribsan is talking with the Governor’s office and the Attorney General’s office about temporarily waiving that requirement as well.
“It’s obviously sub-optimal,” he said, “but the risk of kids not having good safe foster parents is greater right now than the risk I’m worried about with fire inspections.”
Staff from DCYF would still inspect homes, and take basic steps like testing fire detectors, Ribsan said.
Abbey Clegg, of Manchester, is a licensed foster parent and works for an agency that is sub-contracted by DCYF to inspect foster homes. Most homes licensed through her agency are already full, so she said it’s important that the state find a way to move forward while traditional fire inspections aren’t being offered.
“I don’t think the state should just say ok we can’t go in let’s just waive it, but with due diligence and creative solutions there could be a safe way to license without it,” including video inspection and exterior inspections, she said.
Even under normal circumstances, fire inspections are a major barrier for potential foster parents. Seemingly small issues — like having a window that is a fraction of an inch too small — can disqualify a home. Given the critical need for foster parents, Ribsan said he would like to explore ways to allow more families to qualify, while maintaining safety.
Recently, Ribsan listened to a woman who had aged out of foster care after being in a residential facility. She was frustrated that stringent fire inspection requirements were disqualifying foster parents, leaving kids like her living in group homes.
“She expressed dismay that she was longing for a family and folks were focused on these other aspects, which to her felt a little minor,” Ribsan said.
DCYF has been carefully tracking data on the number of calls it gets each week concerning potential cases of abuse and neglect. The department publishes that data on its website weekly.
Since the governor’s stay at home order took effect on March 26, the number of calls to the department has dropped significantly. Last year, there were approximately 530 calls to the department during the last week of April; this year, there were approximately 315. That drop is driven by the fact that schools — which are the largest source of calls to DCYF — are closed.
“Nobody would believe that kids are suddenly safer and families are suddenly stronger right now than they typically are. Probably the opposite is probably true,” Ribsan said. “But because people aren’t putting eyes on kids and having conversations with kids in the way they typically do, their ability to report concerns to us has dropped off. It’s a pretty scary time because we don’t have the ability to get that information in the way we typically do.”
Now, a higher percentage of the calls coming in are related to parental substance use and domestic violence, Ribsan said. Typically, 20% of calls that require further investigation by the department are related to substance use, but during April that rose to 24%. Domestic violence typically comprises about 11% of calls that screen in for investigation, but that rose to 15% during the last two week period. Ribsan saw similar upticks in domestic violence and substance abuse calls during his time in New Jersey following crises like Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath.
To try to counteract the lack of calls, DCYF has put together a guide to supporting children and families during the pandemic. The guide includes questions that individuals can ask parents and children, and a list of resources available to help support families.
“What this is designed to do is to activate people in checking in with the people they know,” Ribsan said. “It’s not intended to be an interrogation, but just a way to check in and ask people how they’re doing, what their needs might be.”
In New Hampshire, everyone is a mandated reporter, meaning that they are required to call the department if they even suspect child abuse or neglect. However, Ribsan emphasized that it’s also important for the public to help support families who are struggling and might need help with resources, in cases where there is no abuse or neglect.
“To the extent that we can make the general public step into this role in the way that teachers usually do, especially with summer coming, hopefully we can mitigate the long term impacts on families,” Ribsan said.
Duda, the foster mom, has been worried about kids who are at home in unsafe situations during the pandemic.
“The very scary reality is that there are kids out there in unsafe situations not being seen,” she said.
As social distancing measures relax, she expects DCYF will see a spike in reported cases of abuse or neglect.
“I think we’re going to see an influx,” she said.
Although the governor announced in March that he is “putting a hold” on new state hiring, he specifically made an exception for DCYF and the department is still hiring. That could help DCYF be better able to meet the needs of New Hampshire children and families in the future, Ribsan said.
“Right now with fewer assessments coming in the front door, but the ability to keep hiring, we’re hopeful that we’ll be in a good position when we’re on the other side of this to make sure we can meet the increased demand.”
These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.