The Hidden Mental Health Crisis in Foster Care
- Eva Green
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
We Cannot Support Youth in Foster Care Without Prioritizing the Needs of Caregivers
If we really want better outcomes for youth and families, we must begin treating foster parents and caregivers as an essential part of the youth’s team, rather than an after thought that must sit on the sidelines during critical moments of a case, while sacrificing many other areas of their life; our relationships, careers, years of lost sleep and so much more to care for a child in foster care.
We must begin treating foster parent support as a child welfare priority rather than an after thought. This starts with:
Ensuring caregivers receive critical information before placements whenever possible.
Placing youth with foster parents and relative caregivers appropriately based on their needs and capacity.
Providing timely mental health screenings for children entering care, not just physical examinations, as well as thereafter.
Creating more efficient systems for health services, medication management, and information sharing.
Increasing access to respite care, peer support, trauma-informed training, and mental health services for caregivers themselves.
I will be discussing these and related issues on Ep. 51 of Shining Light on Shadows: A Candid Conversation About Mental Health, "The Mental Health Toll of Navigating the Foster Care System" The show will be livestreamed Tuesday, June 23 at 6pm CT / 7pm ET. I hope you can join. You can watch the live show or recording on Facebook*, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram or below.
*Facebook will delete the video in 30 days (approx. June 22nd). **We won't know the exact urls for Twitter or Instagram until we go live on Tuesday evening.
Personal Experience
As someone with over 30 years of experience working with youth in foster care, as a foster parent, relative caregiver, adoptive parent, court-designated Guardian to youth, and a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA), I have witnessed and experienced the mental health toll it takes to navigate and care for children falling through the cracks of such a fragmented system.
For so long, I felt alone in this space until I started talking to other foster parents and caregivers and realized we were all going through it together. Whether a foster parent or relative caregiver, every day families are expected to do an impossible job, caring for our most vulnerable youth with little training, scarce resources, and what often feels like no support.
The Big Picture
Each year, millions of taxpayer dollars are spent by child welfare agencies and departments across the country on recruiting new foster homes and funding emergency placement programs.
Despite it being well known that half of foster homes surrender their licenses within the first year, recruitment, rather than retention, seems to be the priority.
Mental health in general is a widespread issue, even more so for youth in foster care, with up to 80% of children involved with the child welfare system being diagnosed with a mental health disorder. For families whose children have been taken out of their home, we know that mental health, among other related challenges with substance use and poverty, also plays a critical role in their involvement with the child welfare system.
What I don’t see are statistics, studies, and conversations about the mental health of foster parents and caregivers who are forced to close their homes and stop caring for youth.
Looking Ahead
Most foster parents and caregivers do not quit or have a child move because they stop caring. In my experience, and from talking to other caregivers for youth in foster care, people quit because caring becomes unsustainable.
People quit because they feel alone and the system makes it seem impossible to meet the needs of youth.
They quit because they are expected to navigate complex trauma with limited information and insufficient support.
Foster parents quit because the system often asks them to do one of the most difficult jobs imaginable without the tools needed to succeed. It takes a toll on their mental health and on those around them.
Children in foster care deserve safe, stable, and healing homes.
But those homes cannot exist without caregivers who are informed, supported, and equipped to meet the challenges they face.
If we want to improve outcomes for youth and families, we must stop focusing solely on how many foster parents and relative caregivers we can recruit and start asking why the system is continuously failing to retain them.
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