The number of children in foster care has been growing steadily over the past five years. This sad fact also means that there has been an increase in child abuse. In 2005, 135 children were taken into care (in 2004 there were 123 and in 2003, 127).

Selina Simons who runs Government’s Foster Care programme through Child and Family Services, said: “The vast majority of our cases are neglect cases.”

She said she mostly sees parents who are unable to adequately provide for their children. “Some cases are for substance abuse reasons some are for limitations in education and economics. The parent or parents are unable to actually maintain a real basic life that is meeting their children’s needs,” she said.

And she said in about 60 percent of the cases the mother was also in foster care.

“If she is in her 30s now it would not have been called traditional foster care then. You know you hear people say ‘I was raised by so and so’, maybe a relative maybe not a relative mom’s friend raised me. You know you have people that say ‘There is Miss so and so’s daughter’ but really it wasn’t. It was just a known fact. If there was a lack of stability in the mother’s life growing up chances are that lack of stability tends to be repeated when she then has children,” said Ms Simons.

So far this year her office has 73 children who have another relative in foster care. It may be a sibling or a cousin.

The office wants to keep families together and although children are placed in foster homes the move is meant to be temporary. The court usually orders the parent or parents to undergo certain training or treatment and counselling and Ms Simons said parental contact is strongly encouraged.

“We want natural parents to stay involved in their children’s lives,” she said. “We don’t want the children to think that their parents vanished. We are progressive about setting up visits whether supervised or unsupervised.”

But she said that parents have to show progress and some incentive to make changes in their life so that they can get their children back.

“I think there’s a misconception that we put children into care and then that’s it. That we want to keep them,” she said.

The vast majority of children remain in care for less than 18 months. She said: “I would consider anything over 18 months long term and that would indicate to me that there are some real problems and that the family is not doing various things that they have been asked to do.”

Out of 135 children in 2005 — 30 were long-term placement.

Ms Simons admitted the work can tug at her heartstrings as she never has enough foster parents. “Most of our foster families right now have one or two children. We always need more. Sometimes children are placed in the Sunshine League simply because there are no private families available for them to go to,” she said.

The dilemma happens because foster parents are volunteers. “Sometimes they (the foster parents) have real specific demographics in terms of children they are interested in taking into their homes. Which is actually their choice,” she explained. “Some people only want infants. Some people don’t want infants because they don’t want to go through the demands that babies have on them and they say I would prefer primary school student; some people want a little bit of an older child, it really all depends. But because people tend to be so specific that puts us in a bind in terms of a shortage. I can get one of my colleagues call me on the intake team and say look I’ve got a case I’m dealing with. It looks like we are going to have to do a Police investigation we need to get the child out of the home, what do you have?

“And I can say I have a couple but they are pretty clear that they only want someone between age four and ten. And they have a 15-year-old. That makes it a bit difficult.”

Add to that the upset the child is going through because they are being removed from home, and it’s enough to make you cry. Ms Simons explained: “You have a child who has to move from the only thing that they know, although it may be a bad scene. It could be really awful. It’s still mommy. Our foster homes are considered places of safety for them but depending on the age of the child they may not understand why this is necessary. Which is sad and hard. Hard for the staff, hard for the foster parent for they try to nurture and love.”

All very young children (eight and under) are usually able to be placed in private homes. Older children and those with behavioural and/or emotional concerns are usually placed at the Sunshine League Children’s Home.

The home will take children between eight-years-old and 14. Children older than that, are placed at the Brangman home if they are female and Oleander Cottage if they are male.

There are 29 sets of siblings currently in care and Ms Simons said every effort is made to place them together, but added that this is not always possible. “Space is a real problem. Everyone is affected by the housing situation in terms of space,” she said. “People do not have three and four bedrooms homes where they have space to take in two and three children so in a lot of cases we have to separate siblings.” At present she has 23 sets of two, three sets of three siblings, two sets of four siblings and a set of five.