Iowa faces a foster care crisis, according to an official with the state’s main contractor that supports foster families, and the only Iowa agency that licenses new foster parents.
Emma Pischel, the recruitment and retention coordinator at Four Oaks Foster and Adoptive Family Connections, says the state has seen the number of foster homes slowly fall over the past several years.
“Across Iowa, we have way more kiddos in care than we have families,” Pischel says, “so we really just need more families that can provide a temporary home.”
Pischel says there were nearly 2,400 children referred to a foster home in Iowa last year, compared to only about 1,700 licensed foster families.
“We’ve been experiencing a shortage of foster families probably since COVID, just with how the landscape changes,” Pischel says, “but we’re really working hard across the state to try and bring awareness of this need, as well as just to reach families that would be interested in providing that temporary care.”
To become licensed in Iowa as a foster parent, you need to pass a background check, get training for CPR and first aid, and pass an 11-week course on how to parent and work with a child’s birth family.
(By Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City)