This post is part of a series:
- How Grief and Loss Affects Foster Care Retention Rates
- Why Current Solutions Are Ineffective At Solving Foster Care Retention Rates
- What Foster Care Agencies Can Do To Improve Foster Parent Retention Rates
In 2021, she was 16 and sleeping on a cot in the building of the county Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS). When she should be working about prom or Chemistry, she is wondering where her next shower would come from. After bouncing from two foster care placements, MDHHS workers were frantically searching for a place for the teenager.
No options were available because there are not enough licensed foster homes. This story is a common one for many foster children, especially teenagers, and is related to the shortage of licensed foster parents in Michigan.
How Grief and Loss Affects Foster Parent Retention Rates
The problem is grief and loss is the biggest factor in low retention rates. This is due to absent or ineffective training around grief and loss during foster care orientation training and throughout the fostering process. On top of a lack of training, few agencies offer opportunities for counseling or therapy around the loss and grief experienced after the removal or loss of a foster child. Many foster parents, despite the expectation for professionalism, become attached to each of their foster children in a unique way.
Attachments are formed and the removal of a child, even if the child is being reunited with their birth parents, can hurt. As a result, foster care retention rates are low. Low retention is a big deal because it affects child welfare outcomes. Better outcomes are achieved — short time in foster care and fewer disruptions or changes in placement — when foster children are placed in stable, experienced foster homes. With low retention, many foster parents are inexperienced.
Inexperienced foster parents are a problem that affects every single person in the community. Inexperienced foster parents cost the foster care agency more resources, such as time. For example, foster care workers must walk through the entire foster care system with new foster care parents. The parents will often have a large amount of questions, which creates time requirements on the part of the caseworker. The increased demand on the caseworker leads to case worker burnout.
Increased resource demands for foster parent recruiting, new case workers, and more costs money. All taxpayers pay for the increased resource demand. Either taxpayers, as is the case when the foster care agency is the county MDHHS, or it comes from donor funds, as is the case with a private agency. There is a shortage of foster homes. If a child does not fit in a home, there often is not anywhere else for them. Just like the teenager who was sleeping at the county DHHS building.
Michigan needs more foster parents. Michigan can recruit more foster parents if the agencies address and look at how grief and loss affects retention. The purpose of this research is to identify causes of foster parent grief and loss and what foster care agencies — both public and private — can do so foster parents feel supported so foster care agencies can improve their retention rates.
Ambiguous Loss On Foster Care Grief
While researching low foster care retention rates, grief and loss was a problem within low foster care retention rates because of dealing with the removal of a foster child is an ambiguous loss, there are lack of resources and training that supports foster parents in the grieving process, and a belief, or expectation, that foster parents should maintain professionalism and not get attached to the foster child. Based on my research of foster care retention rates, more research about the grieving process that addresses the unique characteristics of the loss and removal of a foster child is needed. The purpose of this research is to explore how improving the grief and loss process for foster parents can improve retention rates in Michigan.
While researching grief and loss within foster care retention rates, the type of loss — an ambiguous loss — was a problem because an ambiguous loss is created when a foster child is removed from the home of a foster parent and many foster parents struggle with this type of loss.
Jennifer Newquist et al. conducted a qualitative analysis of foster parents’ experience with grief and loss and published their findings in an article titled, “Processing the Removal and Managing the Moves or Removals of Foster Children: A Qualitative Exploration of Foster Parents’ Experiences”. The researchers argue grief and loss plays a critical role in the experience of foster parents and their decision to continue or terminate licensure.
Ambiguous loss is more difficult moving on from than losses that have closure. “Several of the foster parents identified that they struggled with the physical absence of their foster child and had to find means of managing the move or removal, before and after the child was gone,” argue Newquist and researchers (Newquist et al. 540). The research findings show many foster parents find it difficult to deal with the loss or removal of a foster child.
Many foster parents struggle to effectively cope with the ambiguous loss that is created by the removal of a foster child, as a result, foster parents delay new placements or close their license. This quote highlights the grieving process often starts before the removal or loss of the child. In fact, the loss and grief process can start at the anticipation of a child reuniting with their birth parent(s) or a family member. This direct quote is connected to the topic sentence because it shows the type of loss and grief in the foster care process.
The direct quote is connected to the topic sentence because it explores ambiguous loss. What is convincing and important was the researchers interviewed foster parents directly rather than relying on other data types. The foster parents who were interviewed represent a broad range of ages and experience, giving a broader range of experiences. The only caveat to the source is only ten foster parents were interviewed.
Therefore, the research cannot necessarily be applied to all foster parents and their experience with grief and loss. The small selection of foster parents is most unconvincing in the data shared by the researchers. While the analysis explored the experience, it did not dive deep into potential solutions.
This source helped me categorize the loss a foster parent experiences. Foster parents often lack the closure that comes from other types of loss, like the death of a child. The removal of a foster child is closer to a missing child. That can explain why it is often harder to grieving the loss. Since ambiguous loss is common for many foster parents, there must be more training around the topic.
The Problem With Foster Parent Grief and Loss Training
While researching foster care retention rates, grief and loss was a problem because of a lack of pre-placement training, which occurs before a foster parent becomes licensed and has a child placed into their home. Melanie Randle and researchers found training played a critical role in the overall success of carer satisfaction, and thus retention rates (Randle et al. 219).
In their research, “What can agencies do to increase foster carer satisfaction,” they argue pre-placement training, financial support, and perceived agency support play important roles in foster parent satisfaction. By providing proper pre-placement training, agencies have an opportunity for setting appropriate expectations and avoid a case ending in grief. “Preplacement training plays a role not only in teaching future foster carers how to successfully perform in their role; it also allows agencies to shape the expectations of foster parents and potentially avoid disappointment, thus directly impacting levels of satisfaction,” according to Randle and authors (Randle et al. 219).
The quote is connected to the topic sentence since they both talk about training and how an agency can use pretraining to set the right expectations. This quote is connected to the topic sentence because most preplacement training does not set up appropriate expectations. The source looked at various aspects that influenced satisfaction among foster parents. The researchers did a study with a regression analysis and found proper pretraining was a factor that played a major role. What is most convincing by the researchers is their regression analysis which shows pretraining accounted for 12.7% of the variance in foster care satisfaction (Randle et al. 216).
The research findings indicates the importance of pretraining in foster care retention rates. The questions this research raised are what kind of pretraining research made the biggest difference? How long was the pretraining program? Depending on the agency, grief and loss training may be included as foster care pretraining. If pretraining is not, there is a lower chance of foster care satisfaction, and therefore, retention rates. What was most unconvincing from the source was the time between preplacement training and the study. As a result, there may be a level of survivorship bias.
In other words, the foster parents who were interviewed are only those who are foster parents and research does not explore the foster parents who closed their license. For what reasons did foster parents close their license? If training is included, it must be focused on a specific kind of grief: one that is often disenfranchised.
The Foster Parent And Disenfranchised Grief
While researching foster care retention rates, grief and loss was a problem because the grief is often disenfranchised. Disenfranchised grief is exactly what Susan Edelstein and researchers discovered in their research in the article “Helping Foster Parents Cope with Separation, Loss, and Grief”.
In their research, the authors look at ways foster parents experience grief and loss, then offer solutions agencies can take that reduce grief and loss so foster parent retention rates improve. The researchers discovered there is a belief from agency professionals or those in a foster parent’s support network that “a foster parent-child relationship is not strong enough to warrant grief upon its dissolution, or that, since the foster parent knew all along that the relationship was temporary, giving the child up should not elicit grief,” according to research done by Susan Edelstein and researchers (Edelstein et al. 12).
The quote shows how foster parents have a hard time grieving when many people around them will not acknowledge the loss. Not acknowledging a foster parent’s grief is a form of gaslighting and can make foster parents feel crazy. What is most convincing and important in the research was disenfranchised grief often cannot be publicly validated or openly mourned. As a result, feelings of grief can be intensified and there is no outlet for foster parents seeking help.
A common cause of disenfranchised grief is the response from the child welfare agency. Often foster parents who grieve are labeled as misunderstanding their professional role (Edelstein et al. 17). Foster parents have a difficult time letting go, moving on, and grieving the loss.
Grieving foster parents close their license usually after a hard removal or loss of a placement. The source showed that foster care agencies and even foster parents create an environment of disenfranchised grief. Agencies will call us foster parents, yet, expect professionalism.
What is most unconvincing is the role the agency places in validating grief. From personal experience, the areas where disenfranchised grief hurt the most was from family members or friends, especially those without experience as a foster parent. With understanding the beliefs about disenfranchised grief, practical solutions that solve foster parent retention rates can be explored.
Conclusion
The significance of the research is such that by solving the grieving problem, foster parent retention rates can improve and there will be more successful outcomes for foster children. More research is needed that will extend existing knowledge to develop and understand the unique grieving process foster parents must go through in order to fully heal and continue their licensure status.
By looking at the specific type of loss — ambiguous loss — an effective grieving process can be developed that is taught to every single foster parent before a single placement occurs. Since there is very little control over disenfranchised grief — people cannot be made to validate the grief of a foster parent — every foster parent must find ways to cope with disenfranchised grief. Hopefully more research will reveal a more effective grieving process that deals with the specific, unique experiences by foster parents.
Works Cited
Newquist, Jennifer, et al. “Processing the Removal and Managing the Moves or Removals of Foster Children: A Qualitative Exploration of Foster Parents’ Experiences.” Child & Adolescent Social Work Journal, vol. 37, no. 5, Oct. 2020, pp. 537–545. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.monroeccc.idm.oclc.org/10.1007/s10560-020-00652-w
Edelstein, Susan B., et al. “Helping Foster Parents Cope with Separation, Loss, and Grief.” Child Welfare, vol. 80, no. 1, Jan. 2001, pp. 5–25. EBSCOhost, https://search-ebscohost-com.monroeccc.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=3988110&site=ehost-live
Randle, Melanie, et al. “What Can Agencies Do to Increase Foster Carer Satisfaction?” Child & Family Social Work, vol. 23, no. 2, May 2018, pp. 212–221. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.monroeccc.idm.oclc.org/10.1111/cfs.12402.
