The Rights of Youth in Care

Young people in foster care placements licensed by the Minnesota Department of Human Services have legal rights. The following information was presented in January 1992 and explains some of those rights, but cannot provide complete answers to individual legal problems. If you are a young person in foster care and have a question about your legal rights, please contact MAYPAC for further information.

1. You have the right to what every person needs: enough food, clean clothes, a clean bed, adequate housing and the attention of people who will listen to you.
2. You have the right to be safe from being hurt by foster parents, caregivers or other children. Foster parents, caregivers and other children may not physically, sexually or verbally abuse you. Corporal punishment (hitting, slapping, spanking, pinching, shaking or kicking) may not be used to discipline you.
3. You have the right to medical and dental care. Your social worker should see to it that your medical and dental needs are met. Your foster parents and caregivers should allow you to see a doctor or nurse if you are sick, to ask them questions, or to talk to them about how medicine is making you feel. Confidential information and medical care for pregnancy, birth control, and drug problems should be available to you.
4. You have the right to go to school. You also have the right to join some school activities. If you have special problems learning, you have the right to receive special education services.
5. You have special rights if your are placed in a hospital for treatment of a mental health or chemical dependency problem.
6. You have the right to have visitors and make telephone calls during certain hours. You also have the right to send and receive mail. As part of your case plan, you should have home visits with family or friends. Contact with certain people may be restricted for your own safety.
7. You have the right to live in an unlocked place. This right is yours unless the court has ordered you into a locked place.
8. You have the right to apply for foster care benefits up to age 21. Six months before your eighteenth birthday you should talk with your social worker about getting foster care benefits from the time you turn 18 until you reach age 21.
9. You have the right to preserve your heritage. You have the right to live in a home that will accept and be supportive of your religious, racial, cultural, and ethnic identity. If possible, placement should be with a family member or someone from your community.
10. You have the right to reasonable rules concerning your behavior. If you are unable to control your behavior, discipline may be used to help you behave. For example, your right to watch television may be cut, or you can be "grounded" or given additional chores like dishwashing or mowing the lawn. You have the right not to be punished too severely. You should not be denied meals, sleep, mail, or family visits as a method of discipline. If time-out is used as a method of discipline, you may not be isolated in a locked room. You may not be put in time out for longer than one hour.
11. You have the right to have a social worker. Your social worker should talk with you regularly. If you cannot contact your social worker, call his or her supervisor.
12. You have the right to a case plan. This is a plan written by you, your parents and social worker to meet your needs and plan for your future. Your case plan should explain why it was necessary to place you in foster care, what can be done to correct the problems that made it necessary for you to be placed in foster care, who will arrange for your education, what days your parents are to visit you, and when you are expected to return home. Your social worker should discuss this plan with you and ask you to sign it. You have the right to discuss this plan with your parents and ask for changes in it. You also have the right to ask for a lawyer to help prepare it. This plan should be reviewed every six months.
13. You have the right to ask for independent living. This results in both freedoms and responsibilities. There is no established process for emancipation by the court of Minnesota. However, young people over age 15 in court as "children in need of protection or services" can ask to live on their own in the community. You can ask a lawyer about emancipation issues. If you are over 15 years old, your case plan should include transitional services to help you move towards independent living.
14. You have the right to appeal any decision made by the local social services agency concerning your services or plans for your future. If you disagree with your case plan and cannot get it changed, you can ask for a state hearing to review the plan. An appeal can be started by writing to your social worker or the Department of Human Services.
15. You have legal rights in court. You have the right to be in court and to give your opinion when important decisions are being made about your future. You have the right to know about important Department of Human Services decisions regarding your case. You also have the right to be represented in court by a lawyer. You can call the lawyer who represents you.

If you have any questions, comments, an experience or letter to share or to be published, write to: Michelle Chalmers, MAYPAC, c/o Human Service Associates, 336 North Robert St., Suite 1520, St. Paul. MN 55101.

Proposed Foster Parents’ Rights

1. You have the right to be treated with dignity, respect, and consideration as a team member who is making an important contribution to the agency’s objectives.
2. You have the right to a clear understanding of your role as a foster parent, the role of the agency, and the roles of the members of the child’s legal family.
3. You have the right to continuation of your own family patterns and routines.
4. You have the right to training and support in your efforts to improve your skills in providing the day-to-day care and meeting the special needs of the child in care.
5. You have the right to know how to contact the agency and receive help, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
6. You have the right to timely, adequate financial reimbursement for your quality and knowledgeable care of a child.
7. You have the right to say no to a placement or to have a child moved when absolutely necessary, without reprisal, unless you have specific agreement with the agency that indicates otherwise.
8. You have the right to ask for a "break" as needed with follow-up contacts by the agency a minimum of every two months.
9. You have the right for your family to be considered first when issues of health and/or safety occur.
10. You have the right to have a clear understanding of agency plans concerning placement of children in your home.
11. You have the right to an administrative review by a group, including your peers, to render an opinion of a home verification denial or home verification revocation.
12. You have the right to receive a copy of all information placed in your foster home record by agency staff immediately upon placement of the information in the record.
13. You have the right to open, timely access to your foster home record to review it whenever you feel the need to review the record.
14. You have the right, prior to placement, to review a child’s case file as it pertains to the child, to assist in determining if this would be a proper placement for your family.
15. You have the right to be notified of meetings in order to actively participate in the case planning and decision-making process regarding the child in your care and have your input treated in the same manner as information presented by the other professionals.
16. You have the right to be provided all pertinent information regarding the child and the child’s family as it relates to the child, in a timely manner on an ongoing basis.
17. You have the right to reasonable notification of changes in the case plan or termination of the placement and the reasons for the changes or termination of placement.
18. You have the right to information regarding the child’s progress after a child leaves your home.
19. You have the right to file a grievance if any of the above rights have been violated or denied.

For further information, contact Irene Clemens, President, Texas State Foster Parents, Inc., Route 2, Box 195, Marion, TX 78124 (or phone or fax 210-914-2205). Reprinted from Human Service Associates "Notes," February 1996, published by HSA, 336 N. Robert St., Suite 1520, St. Paul, MN 55101-1507.

Supporting Foster Parents
by Dr. Frank Kunstal

We have growing numbers of children who are increasingly disturbed, and we need to maintain the homes we have and add more.

All too often, foster parents quite simply are taken for granted, neither treated as necessary nor appropriately respected for their critical role in the care of vulnerable and needy children. We have growing numbers of children who are increasingly disturbed, and we need to maintain the homes we have and add more. Yet, immersed as we are in the care of troubled, sometimes enigmatic children, many of us find it easier to remember the techniques and interventions of change, forgetting that what really matters in the lives of these youngsters: caring, nurturing, committed families. As the positive outcome of what foster parents do in caring for these children, we see enduring successes secure, attached, and happier children and many on the path from bad beginnings to better endings. I thought in this column that I would focus on the bigger picture and share some thoughts on supporting, protecting, and retaining foster parents . . . to help them survive with these children the true test of time.

1. Consider foster families as real families with real children. Perhaps differing by structure, foster families are just as concerned and caring as so called real families, no better or worse than any other family.
2. Give foster parents a promotion in status. Consider them to he professional, therapeutic parents, with credibility and knowledge commensurate with experience and expertise. Look to and promote foster parents as part of the team of involved child care and family aid professionals.
3. Supplement responsibility with control. Permit and promote foster parents involvement in important decision making about placements. Foster parents frequently have little voice in placement issues; they are often acknowledged when blame is passed out but seldom given credit.
4. Work to counteract the often inaccurate negative image of foster parenting. Make efforts to provide recognition of foster parenting challenges and achievements, to support accomplishments, and to acknowledge successes.
5. Recognize and value the relationship between foster parents and foster children. Do not expect instant bonding or detachment. Attachments in family foster care do not exist on expect instant bonding or or detachment. Attachments in family foster care do not exist on demand, nor are they expendable.
6. Learn about a foster child by talking with the foster parent. Speak with foster parents about a child’s problems, needs, and dilemmas. There are no better experts about a child’s progress, problems, or readiness for transitions.
7. Provide foster parents full and complete information about a child in need or placement. And keep them informed. Match child needs with the competence, qualifications, and placement experiences of families
8. Provide foster parents with respite care and day care services. At times respite care and time released from parenting are the most important strategies in supporting foster families and in assisting them in parenting the special–perhaps extraordinary–needs child.
9. Help foster parents by protecting them from themselves. Many foster parents are encouraged to accept a child for placement experimentally to assess whether he or she is ready for a family. Often this test is accomplished with no awareness of the potential negative impact on the family. Many of the most skilled parents consistently accept the most troubled and challenging children, with the lasting results of gradual "foster burn out" and the resulting loss of our most skilled and effective care givers.
10. Offer therapeutic support to foster families. Provide effective, reasonably priced, and accessible in service training and opportunities for development.
11. Do not judge foster parenting by traditional parenting standards. Rather use standards that consistent with realistic, obtainable goals and objectives for the children in placement. Recognize the needs and troubles of the children in care, their impact on a family; be realistic about change in other words, get to know the special needs of these children. Sadly, we often have our most emotionally injured, vulnerable, and disturbed children placed without needed foster family support.
12. Pay foster parents. Pay at a level that indicates their value, importance, and professionalism. At a minimum provide reimbursement of the costs of parenting a foster child.
13. Ask foster parents first, not last or not at all. Request their input and obtain their opinions about program decisions and about potential plans that may affect their foster care.
14. Help establish foster parent support groups and fund them. Encourage mentoring encourage experienced families to work with and assist new or struggling foster parents. Use the power of foster parent groups, and work to end the feelings of isolation that exists in foster families, between foster families, and between foster parents and other professionals. Encourage membership in local, state, or national organizations (such as MFCA and NFL)

Call 612-333-2943 for more information!
Wanted: Continued Support and Protection

Foster parents at times are unrealistically perceived as the cure all for a child’s destructive past and early family problems or failures. Placement parents need support, encouragement, assistance, and respect in meeting the challenges of raising today’s foster children. More and more, foster parents are accepting into placement those children who in the past might never have had the opportunity to grow up in a family.

Offering these special needs foster children a place in real homes, and effectively altering the course of their lives, is for them the opportunity of a lifetime. Healing children takes more than the application of strategies and other therapeutic techniques and endeavors.

Many of us must make a commitment to remembering that nothing takes the place of the family in altering for the better these children’s lives.

This article originally appeared in the The National Advocate, Spring 1995, published by the National Foster Parent Association. This adaptation also appeared in Kids News, published by KIDS Inc. of Lake County, Florida P.O. Box 8938, Tavares, Florida, 21778

Reprinted from the Dakota County Foster Care Association.