Foster parents face challenges

Thursday, Dec. 4, 1997 | 10:38 a.m.

When the Southern Nevada Children's Home in Boulder City closed, the young residents were sad and angry.

Already tossed around the foster care system, the children should have directed their wrath at the state Legislature.

Instead, they chose the cottage parents and staff.

"There was a little more defiance when they heard the cottage was closing so they figured they didn't have to listen to the staff any more," Kay Campbell says. "Once they knew where they were going, they were fine. A lot of them accepted the fact they didn't have a choice."

Like other caregivers, former cottage parents Kay and her husband, Brett Campbell, attempt to bring stability to children separated from their birth parents.

Although child protection is financed by taxpayers, most adults in the system aren't government employees. They're foster parents or court-appointed special advocates.

Only a small percentage of foster parents, those dealing with special-needs children, are paid by the state. Therapeutic foster parents who house children with heightened behavioral or emotional problems are paid $12,000 a year per child. Other foster parents receive reimbursements -- either $365 or $438 a month. The children receive a clothing allowance.

Most foster parents are volunteers, just like the child advocates. Yet they shoulder a major part of the stressed-out child protective system.

In its foster parent recruitment brochure, the Nevada Division of Child and Family Services quotes from someone referred to only as Betty. She was 10 when her mother died.

"I decided as a child when I got older what kind of mother I was going to be to my own children, and how I wanted to be a mother to one who has lost a parent," Betty wrote. "It is so rewarding to be able to nurture a shattered person and help restore their life to be able to live a functional and successful life in the community."

It takes love and patience to be a foster parent, given the baggage abused or neglected children bring with them.

"You have to be realistic that love alone may not make a difference," says Sherri Lasoff, another former Boulder City cottage parent. "Every time a kid leaves you there's a tug on your heart. When someone new comes in, you start all over and that's hard."

"You learn to temper your expectations," adds her husband David Lasoff. "You have to pick your battles."

The role of male foster parent cannot be underestimated.

"We are often the closest thing they have had to a male role model," David Lasoff says.

The Campbells and Lasoffs each took three children from the Boulder City home and are serving as their foster parents. They have a long way to go to match Deanne Blazzard of Las Vegas. The president of the Foster Care Association of Nevada has cared for 150 foster children in her home over the past 12 years.

The Legislature this year raised the foster child reimbursement rate 20 percent and increased the children's clothing allowance. There's also a respite care fund for foster parents who wish to take a vacation.

Some people complain that foster parents get involved only for the money. The reimbursement rate they receive for a standard foster child is about $100 to $200 more per month than a welfare parent would get for the same child.

But that still doesn't cover the costs of "mom and pop" foster homes such as hers, Blazzard says. Anyone who goes into foster parenting for the money is fooling himself, she says. Her once-hearty savings account has been drained.

"There's a lot of hidden expenses you don't see," Blazzard says. "You need a bigger car, you're paying more for utilities and you need a bigger house. There's no other reason I have to have a five-bedroom house."

One of the most serious problems foster parents face is the lack of adequate medical records for many of the children.

"We had kids come in here (children's home) with ringworm or lice and no one tells us," Brett Campbell says. "If we've had a 4-year-old who needs vaccinations we go nuts because a lot of the paperwork is missing. Our most accurate records are vaccination records from the schools."

Medical records aren't available for several reasons: * the birth parents weren't cooperative with authorities when their kids were taken from the home; * the initial caseworker didn't have time to check all potential sources; * or the child moved around the system so often that the records weren't updated.

"If the kids were immunized in a different community or state, how would we get those records?" Blazzard asks. "Every time I take a child to the doctor they ask about medical history, and I often say I don't have one."

Clark County's Child Haven shelter has attempted to rectify at least part of the problem by ensuring that all kids who leave its facility get full checkups before they go into foster care. The Court-Appointed Special Advocate program, also known as CASA, is developing a medical "passport" that each child will have as he moves through the system.

Brett Campbell says improved communication between foster parents and child therapists is needed.

"The first time I dealt with a state therapist I had to chase her down to find out what the issues were," he says. "They try to get these kids through (state-supported) counseling as fast as they can because there's a long waiting list."

Some foster parents are trained to handle children with specific medical or behavioral problems. However, many regular foster parents are not so equipped, which is one reason why certain kids bounce from home to home. This has become more apparent with the growing number of children whose mothers were substance abusers.

As tougher children enter the system, foster parents also find themselves facing more liability issues. Blazzard says that's why her organization wants foster parents removed from liability when their foster children commit crimes or miss school.

"They do so much now to keep families together that the ones we're getting are mostly the failures," Blazzard says. "The joke is (that) a healthy, non-drug or alcohol-affected (foster) baby doesn't exist."

Blazzard says caseworker visits to her home are irregular. Some show up once a month. Others once every six months.

"I've had kids placed in my home that a caseworker has never seen or maybe seen just once," she says. "I've had kids come in as a 'healthy' child, but they have a whole list of problems."

One foster child began "acting out" in Blazzard's home. She found out the child was sexually abused by a parent -- a detail missed by the caseworker.

There's no question that being a foster parent means leading an unconventional lifestyle. It also means sacrificing one's privacy. That was particularly true in the Boulder City Children's Home's cottages, each of which housed up to 10 children.

"You have to give up a lot of your social life to do this," Sherri Lasoff says.

Gerald Robinson, the state's foster parent recruiter in Las Vegas, recruits applicants in libraries, shopping malls, churches, banks and fairs.

Candidates must be at least 21. Marital status doesn't matter, but they have to be physically and mentally fit, maintain a clean home, have a stable income and complete 36 hours of orientation and training. Regular foster homes can take up to six children.

Recruitment is tricky, however. Sometimes the state is looking to house children in a specific age range but can only find candidates willing to take other kids. Finding affordable day care is also an issue for many applicants.

"We have so many children coming into our custody it's difficult to keep up with the numbers," Robinson says.

Applicants must submit at least five references -- including no more than two relatives -- that they've known for at least three years. But Robinson and fellow state employee Joan Lindsey, who handles foster parent licensing, concede there are flaws in the background checks.

Robinson says one of the biggest problems is that it usually takes the FBI at least three months to complete and return applicants' fingerprint checks to determine whether they have a criminal background. This alone causes a bottleneck in the child protective system because the state cannot license foster parents until they've been cleared by the FBI.

Lindsey says foster parent candidates are also checked for any abuse or neglect complaints filed in Nevada. But there is no national registry for such information. That means Lindsey and her staff have to rely on the truthfulness of applicants who came from other states and the cooperation of those states.

This can be problematic where an applicant has been accused of abuse or neglect in a civil case because some states will guard that information with their privacy laws. Other states may confirm that a complaint has been filed but won't release details. The FBI won't have anything unless a criminal complaint was filed.

Even a Nevadan who has been investigated for abuse or neglect won't show up in the state's records unless the complaint was substantiated.

"There are some flaws in our system, but we do the best that we can," Lindsey says. "Hopefully, we will be able to hook up with other states."

Nevada will release substantiated reports to other states upon request but must consult with the attorney general's office to disclose details. Mary Ellen White, a state child welfare program chief, says Nevada has to weigh its privacy laws with a child's welfare.

"There's a move among the state to disclose less," she adds.

Lindsey has four employees who annually inspect licensed foster homes in Clark County. She plans to add a fifth staffer this year. But she'd have to hire a sixth inspector just to achieve her ideal caseload of about 80 homes. Today, the average caseload is about 120 homes.

"The down side is we have to rush through the licensing inspections, which means there may be things we're missing," Lindsey says. "With a higher caseload you don't have a lot of time to spend with the families."

Not surprisingly, many birth parents are deeply suspicious of foster parents. Because of that potentially adversarial relationship, most foster parents don't give the birth parents their address or phone number. Typically, it's the foster child who calls the birth parents.

"Sometimes, they (birth parents) will come to my doorstep because things don't happen as they want," says Blazzard, who has been harassed by two sets of parents. "My address and phone number are confidential information until I choose to give them out. My own children have to feel safe here and so do the foster children."

Some youths in the Southern Nevada Children's Home were victims of physical or sexual abuse in foster homes. The assailants were either the foster parents or other children, including their siblings.

In 1996, 112 complaints of abuse or neglect were lodged against foster parents in Clark County, and 12 were substantiated. Of those 12, four resulted in license revocation. In the other eight cases, the foster parents were allowed to continue -- with stipulations. These can include elimination of a hazard that led to a child's injury or a reduction in the number of kids allowed in the home.

Through August of this year, there were about 70 complaints, two of which were substantiated. In both cases, the foster parents' license was revoked.

Boulder City resident Torri Haney, who was a volunteer at the Children's Home, says the state doesn't have enough personnel to monitor foster parents.

"The government could fix this by adding more caseworkers," she says.

Even Blazzard concedes that some foster parents are abusers. But she says the state goes to great lengths to make sure foster parents understand proper disciplinary measures. For instance, while many birth parents spank their children, Blazzard says foster parents will lose their license if they use any corporal punishment.

"An abused child is used to being abused, and sometimes they'll push their caretaker to try to abuse them," Blazzard says. "You might have a kid who likes to set fires. It's hard to keep kids like that in your home."

Although foster parents such as Blazzard have adopted some of their foster kids, she says they don't want to destroy families.

"There's this perception that we're trying to take them, but that's not true," she says. "I don't want to break up families, but I don't want the kids to be in danger either. I'm taking these kids until their parents can take them back."

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