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 These are the babies in foster care

Jeanne Sager
Posted 6/28/22

Three per 1,000. That’s how many children in America enter foster care every year, a figure that comes from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Twenty-eight thousand five hundred twenty-four. …

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Inside Out

 These are the babies in foster care

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Three per 1,000. That’s how many children in America enter foster care every year, a figure that comes from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Twenty-eight thousand five hundred twenty-four. That’s the number of babies living in foster care in 2020, the most recent year for which data is available.

Babies, in this particular sense, refers to children younger than age 1.

This figure makes up just 7 percent of the total children living in foster care, a figure that represents more than 407,000 American children — what some would term babies as they’re still young, innocent, not responsible for their particular circumstances in life.

They didn’t choose to end up in foster care.

They didn’t have any say in the matter, least of all to be born.

Half are living in non-relative foster homes, meaning they spend their day-to-day with people who are not part of their own biological family. They depend on these people for love, support, comfort, and all that a child deserves.

The list of ways to address the root problems of children ending up in foster care is long — too long for a short column in your local paper.

But if you’re 21 or older, a US citizen or legal resident, have sufficient income to meet your own family’s needs and have extra left over to supply a child with their own bed, food, and a whole lot of love, you could become a foster parent.

Foster parents receive training and are provided with support by the county.

The children in their care are provided with Medicaid to cover their health needs, and a small stipend is provided to the foster parents to help cover their most immediate needs such as food and clothing.

The needs of these living, breathing babies are great — they need comforting arms to hold them and loving hearts to provide for them. They need everything that a child who is not in the foster care could need and then some.

Worried about these babies? Feel they deserve your help?

Call 292-0100 ext. 2389 to speak with a case worker at the Sullivan County Department of Family Services about becoming a foster parent today.

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