Less Government Will Help Relieve the U.S. Foster Care Crisis

The U.S. foster system is broken. Children are getting “lost” in the system and the outcomes for those in the system are abysmal. Despite the fact that there’s a dearth of families who do actually foster, there are plenty of families who want to open their homes to children but run into a maze of regulations, red tape, and confusing obstacles that discourage them from even getting started.

In fact, as many as 60% of families who finally overcome the bureaucratic nightmare to become foster parents quit within the first year.

Why are so many families opting out or refusing to join in the first place?

Let’s look at what the government is doing and, perhaps more importantly, who the government is trying to push out…

Consider what’s happening in Massachusetts where the state’s child welfare agency just reached a $7 million settlement for their negligence in failing to protect foster kids from a “house of horrors” foster home despite copious evidence of unsafe conditions that was missed by no less than 17 case workers. 

Instead of working to prevent this sort of abuse, Massachusetts state officials were too busy “protecting children” from so-called “anti-LGBTQ” foster parents—otherwise known as Christian families, who make up the vast majority of foster and adoptive parents. In fact, Christians are three times more likely to consider fostering as the non-religious. And it goes beyond fostering children. The people volunteering to support children across the U.S. are mostly made up of Christians and conservatives. 

Sadly, activists in the state of Massachusetts have been very successful in pushing for the elimination of Christian families from the system—undoubtedly contributing to the shortage that now exists.

Instead of bowing to leftist pressure and discouraging Christian families from fostering, the state should be equipping qualified families to become foster parents (and supporting them once they start getting placements). Do that, and the foster care problems so prevalent in the U.S. today will see some measure of relief. 

And bonus: no government intervention is required.