Boone County needs foster parents

Boone County has 170 children in foster care, according to a briefing by Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services social services clinician Clyde Jamison.

At the Oct. 7 Florence City Council caucus meeting, he briefed the members on foster care services in Kentucky and on local conditions in Boone County.

Kentucky has 8,605 children in foster care. “We are in need of foster parents,” Jamison said.

Boone County is located within the Northern Bluegrass Service Region, which includes Bourbon, Campbell, Carroll, Gallatin, Grant, Harrison, Kenton, Nicholas, Owen, Pendleton and Scott counties. There are 1,224 children in foster care in the region.

In Northern Kentucky, Kenton County, the most populous county with the biggest city, Covington, has 427 foster care children. Campbell County has 162 foster children.

Jamison explained that his agency has three groups for placement in foster homes. The youngest is newborns to age 5. There are 57 Boone County children in that category. For ages 6 to 11, there are 33 children and for ages 12 to 21, there are 80 children.

Children with health issues are hard to place, Jamison said. The biggest need, he said, is for homes for children older than 7.

There are three types of homes where the state’s foster children can go. They can go to live with a family member through the state’s relative program. Or, Jamison said, “They could be placed with fictive kin or they could be placed in a non-familial foster home.”

Fictive kin refers to individuals with existing ties to the children. “Close family friends or others with strong relationships with a child,” Jamison said. “Not necessarily a biological person in their life.”

Fictive kin play a big role in the foster care system. According to Jamison, “It could be someone who’s a teacher in a child’s life. It could also be a family friend. And we see a lot of times with younger children, we can make that leap a little bit, say if the child’s under 12 months, if it’s a friend of that child.”

Homes with relatives are the best solution. “Some of the benefits for the children are maintaining the familial connections, family ties, reducing trauma with placement,” Jamison said.

Statewide, the foster care system is at 85% capacity. The demand for foster care is high, leading to some extraordinary situations.

“It is not uncommon for us to have a child that might be sleeping in a non-traditional placement,” Jamison said. “By non-traditional placement, we mean sleeping in our office.”

Jamison described having to place two children less than 2 hours before speaking to the city council. “I was asked to find a placement for a sibling set at 4:20, and fortunately, at 4:45, I was able to find someone who could take them for a day. So that is where we are right now,” Jamison said.