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Florida Turns To Child Development Science To Improve Foster Care

TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/NSF)-- Foster parents are one of the keys to reforming Florida's troubled child-welfare system, experts say.

That's why state officials are turning to the science of child development to understand what it really means to take an abused or neglected child into state care.

And with the number of children entering foster care spiking in parts of the state --- especially the southeast and southwest --- the Department of Children and Families is putting more of a premium than ever on recruiting good foster parents.

"Children come to the child-welfare system badly traumatized by abuse, often severely neglected and deprived of parental attention," said DCF Deputy Secretary Pete Digre. "All the research shows that if not remediated through a consistent, committed attachment to an adult who nurtures them and protects them and takes care of them, it can have lifetime consequences."

Those consequences can include heart disease, diabetes, cancer, endocrine problems and cognitive impairment, Digre said, along with depression, anxiety "and just a generally fearful and unproductive life. But these things can be changed if we can get kids in secure relationships with committed foster parents."

The state is trying to encourage this by developing a more scientific approach to caring for traumatized children, one based on understanding the deep and complex bond that children form with their caregivers.

A central premise of the approach is that arrangements the state makes for children in its care must be based on what's best for the children --- not the adults.

"Often it's been what's best for the birth parents and trying to encourage them," said Paul Vernon of Cape Coral, who with his wife, Wendy, has taken in dozens of foster kids. "But in some cases, they don't really want that, and you can't push them. So to actually put the children first and think about what's best for the children --- that's very encouraging."

The Vernons, who lead the Southwest Florida Foster/Adoptive Parent Association, were attending a workshop on the method at the Child Protection Summit earlier this month.

"We need quality foster parents. We don't need just baby-sitters," said Wendy Vernon. "We need people who are willing to parent children, rather than just have children staying in their home."

The Vernons said they were encouraged by the workshop, which focused on how attachment issues affect children's behavior and why they are crucial considerations in where to place a traumatized child.

They also said they were encouraged that the child-welfare system is treating foster parents with more respect.

"We are now considered part of a professional team, and we have a say in things," Paul Vernon. "When we first became foster parents, we were just the foster parents, and we didn't really have a say in anything. But I think things are changing, and it makes it much more worthwhile when you know that your view of things is taken into account."

The Vernons, who also co-teach classes for new foster parents, credit the so-called "normalcy" bill (SB 164) that lawmaker passed last year with creating a better atmosphere. The measure gave foster parents more decision-making authority when their foster children wanted to go on a class trip or sleep at a friend's house, authority that the state's liability lawyers had once denied them.

A second bill that passed last year, SB 1036, extended to foster children the option of staying in care until age 21

"We stress during our recruitment efforts the new bills that make fostering more appealing to the community at large," said Trudy Petkovich, president of the Florida State Foster/Adoptive Parent Association.

Petkovich is based in Miami-Dade County, where the number of children in foster care has grown to the point that some were housed in hotels earlier this summer. She and her late husband fostered about 300 children over 18 years, adopted three and gave birth to two.

She described the association's role as supporting, educating and advocating for foster parents around the state, "as they are our best recruiters."

The association also partners with the Quality Parenting Initiative, a joint project of DCF, the California-based Youth Law Center, 15 of the state's community-based care lead agencies and the Eckerd Family Foundation. Many people credit the Quality Parenting Initiative with helping to pass the bills by changing the perception of foster parents.

Digre said the role of the foster parents often includes coaching the birth parents trying to reunify their families.

"They've got to make a total commitment to the child, and at the same time make a total commitment to the child's parents," Digre said. "They enter into a process of not only nurturing the child. ... They take on the role of mentoring, and helping the parents become good parents themselves."

The News Service of Florida's Margie Menzel contributed to this report.

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