Amy Basting on a Critical Need for Foster Care in Wisconsin

Frederica Freyberg:
Some 7000 children in Wisconsin are in need of foster care. Families who provide them out of home care when their immediate families cannot. Of critical need, families who provide treatment foster care. This can be for physical, developmental or emotional needs of the child. As part of Children’s Wisconsin, a health care system and child welfare agency, foster children and their families can get wraparound services. Here to discuss is Amy Basting, a foster home recruiter and the treatment respite foster care lead at Children’s. And thanks very much for being here.

Amy Basting:
Hi, Frederica. Nice to have time to spend with you today.

Frederica Freyberg:
So we understand again that there is a dire need for treatment foster families across Wisconsin. What does that need look like? How many children are waiting?

Amy Basting:
Well, across the state of Wisconsin, there are, like you mentioned, are about 7000 children in need in in foster homes. Really in terms of children waiting? None. We need to get them into homes ASAP. So there are children placed into foster homes, but sometimes it takes a little bit longer and they have to wait in, maybe group care where they would just do better in a treatment foster home.

Frederica Freyberg:
Is it difficult to get licensed as a treatment foster parent? And then what about the commitment? Is that difficult physically, emotionally or financially for these foster families?

Amy Basting:
Sure, the qualifications for treatment foster parents are a little bit higher, but it’s nothing outside the — nothing really difficult. You know, you might have to — you maybe have to have some experience parenting: five years experience parenting. A lot of people can knock that right off. So the qualifications are pretty easy to meet. The toll it takes as far as on your emotions or your health, there is so much support that Children’s Wisconsin treatment foster parent — treatment foster care program offers that we hope we are supporting our treatment foster parents at the level that they need so that they can take breaks using respite care when they need to take care of themselves. You know, if there’s health needs that they need to take care of, need to take care of themselves, we’re going to make sure they take care of themselves.

Frederica Freyberg:
I want to ask you more about those wraparound services in a moment, but what does it mean to be a treatment foster parent?

Amy Basting:
Treatment foster care is a higher level of foster care. So if you compare it to its counterpart, general foster care, that would be to capture the needs of kids with lower to — low to moderate level needs and then moving up the scale treatment, treatment foster care is there to capture the needs and care for children with moderate to high level needs. So we are looking at caring for that population that is beyond the scope of general foster care.

Frederica Freyberg:
What are the rewards for the foster parents?

Amy Basting:
Well, they tell me that it’s very — it fills their heart. They feel so rewarded when they see the children meet some treatment barriers and exceed and grow and change and get healthier. And they know they were a part of that. So the rewards are great in terms of just feeling personally successful as a parent.

Frederica Freyberg:
What does Children’s offer families and foster children in its wraparound program?

Amy Basting:
So in treatment foster care, we wrap our foster parents with more support beyond, like I mentioned, the general foster care program. So in addition to support meaning visits from — visits and contact from a social worker, our treatment foster care program gets additional staff that come to the home and support and advocate for both the foster parents and children. We reward our treatment foster parents with respite, and it’s kind of like how you earn rest or vacation time or paid personal leave at work. Our foster parents are getting some paid time off to take care of themselves. Our treatment foster care program also offers clinical consultation, a mentoring program. We have in teen Incentive program built into our treatment foster care program for those homes that are willing to care for our older youth, which is greatly needed.

Frederica Freyberg:
So what are the end goals for children in foster care?

Amy Basting:
The end goals would be hopefully, reunification with their birth family. Another goal would be that the children meet some of their treatment goals, whether they are health related, mental health related, behavioral. So we really want to see children gain a sense of well-being and thrive in our treatment foster care programs.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Well, we leave it there. Amy Basting, thank you so much.

Amy Basting:
Thank you.