Foster parents are a necessity in Bermuda. There are not enough of them and too many children end up in the system away from their family and loved ones.

The main focus, says the Department of Child and Family Services in a radio interview this year, is to get the child back to their family or back into their neighbourhood within familiar surroundings.

This pitch is great. It makes you want to be a foster parent and to help with this difficult transition where children take care of parents or siblings. Or where the parents just cannot take care of their child at this time, but they are going to get the help they need to become a family again. This is a way to give back to your community and to help the development of a child and make it so that they have the support system they need until they are back to their family.

But this is just a smokescreen. What the DCFS does not tell you is that you will be faced with hardships, miscommunication and dishonesty. You may even be threatened or abused by a family member of the child you willingly foster. And, worse, the child will be neglected in the care of the people who took them from their families in the first place.

The main purpose of this column is not to point fingers at employees or senior staff of the DCFS, but to let people know the flaws of the system and to encourage all foster parents that it is OK to speak up for the children in their care. The children have no voice, so foster parents have to be their advocates.

Having talked to a few foster parents, it has become clear that the foster care system in Bermuda is overwhelmingly flawed, with it failing not just the children but also the parents they are taken from.

How is it that a parent with a lovely, well-fed, happy baby can have them taken away? How is it that the foster parents are told from the social worker that they have to set up visitations with family members because they “don’t work weekends” when it is a known fact that they do?

How is it that a home inspection was carried out only once, in six months, only after it was mentioned that one had not been performed? How is it that babies come back from a scheduled parent visit — whether the visits happen or not — or doctor’s appointment wet, soiled and/or hungry on multiple occasions when there are diapers and food present?

How is it that a baby gets sent to home care, which has more babies than it should and it be “OK because they are our go-to person”? How is it that there is no written policy for many of the issues expressed earlier?

How is it that when asking for assistance, clarification and/or guidance, foster parents get brushed off, yelled at, told that it is not their business, that the child “will be messed up anyway [so there is no need for structure]”? Does no one think that this is not right?

These are some of the experiences of foster parents in Bermuda.

The department will say: “We have a lot of children in the foster system.” Which means that they are “overworked and underfunded”. But as children of Bermuda, as our future Bermudian people, should they not be cared for in a manner that shows that these workers care? Should they not treat every child like it was their only case? Shouldn’t children be more than just an inconvenience to them?

I can go on and on about what is happening in this system, to the children, to the parents, to the foster parents, but it would be pages and pages long. When speaking to officials of the department, they did not seem to care that there are concerns with the system, that the checks and balances are not what they should be because no one has been persistent in making them accountable.

So many foster parents fight the good fight only to be batted away by non-answers, misconceptions, falsehoods and the unwillingness to “rock the boat” so that the child will not be taken away prematurely and the foster parent blacklisted or barred from performing their duties.

What is sought for is an investigation into this system. To make sure that there are policies which that all parties and make it so that there are clear rules and guidelines for all to follow. That the foster parents can sleep at night knowing that wherever the child goes, that the child will be safe, happy and cared for.

• Phyllis H. Burch is the single parent of two daughters, a foster grandparent for six months and has worked in accounts for 44 years. She believes all children deserve love, support and the tools to become productive members of society