Sharing Family Values

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But while some 290,000 children were taken into foster care in 2000--the most recent year for which the Federal Government has statistics--experts estimate that fewer than 2,000 families have ever gone through shared family care. The main reason is an all-too-common problem for social-service agencies: money. Foster care for two kids alone is about $2,600 a month in Contra Costa County, but it costs $3,000 to provide shared family care for a parent and two children. The difference of $400 might not seem like much, but in these cash-strapped times, it is. And the bulk of federal funds given to states for out-of-home care for vulnerable children is available only when kids have been removed from their parents. Shared family care, by definition, keeps families together--so states have to come up with the money themselves. Funding for Contra Costa's full-family program was cut in half last year. With a $35 billion state-budget shortfall, says Sheila Self, an executive director at FamiliesFirst of California, "the future looks very tenuous. These kinds of innovative, cutting-edge programs can fall by the wayside very quickly."

Advocates argue that raw costs don't include the intangible benefits of keeping a family together. "Shared family care buys you support, guidance and training for the entire family, not just care for children," says John Cullen, director of Contra Costa County's employment and human services department. "We think it's a much better bargain." On top of that, he continues, shared-care programs tend to last less than one year, compared with the average 12 to 18 months that kids in his county spend in foster care.

But are there really that many people who are willing to take in a whole family? And are there that many troubled parents who want to be taken in? Less than one-third of parents referred to shared family care are deemed appropriate for it, according to one study, and only 70% actually complete the program. Then there is the challenge of finding mentor families willing to open their homes to people who have led less than exemplary lives. Agencies like FamiliesFirst have placed newspaper advertisements and relied on word of mouth to find host families; mentors are then put through regular foster-care training as well as specific programs dealing with substance abuse and counseling adults.

Still, people like Ayesha Mahmoud are rare. Mahmoud, 58, quit being a foster mother 15 years ago because she was disappointed by the lack of contact between children and birth mothers. Today she hosts Nettie Carter, 28, and two of Carter's four children in her tidy, modest home in Milwaukee, Wis. As with any family there are tensions, but there is also a strong bond, particularly between Mahmoud and Charles, 11, who loves to solve puzzles with her help. "I introduce him as my grandson," says Mahmoud, who has raised four kids of her own. "That's how it feels to us."

Karin Niemuth, a social worker who helps run the program in Milwaukee, says mentors like Mahmoud are often the first real mother figures for program participants. "[These mothers] never had the experience themselves of growing up with a healthy parent-child relationship," she says.