Foster families wanted: "If you take care of us, we're the best advertisement for more."

BarcelonaThey say they are in the reserve, that they have taken the summer as a "break" before accepting a new foster child who, for various reasons, cannot live with their parents. Josep Sala and Esther Bertran are teachers who during the 1990s had taken in children from Bosnia and the Sahara in the summer, and who, once retired, invest time, effort, and enthusiasm in taking in children under the guardianship of the general management of the Prevention and Protection of Children and Adolescents (DGPPIA)).

Foster care is an alternative to living in a center, but the problem is that there is a structural deficit; there has been a lack of families for many years, while the number of children in centers is growing: almost 60% of the 9,000 minors in care live in these facilities, another 40% with 40% Bertran-Sala. The worrying thing about the situation in Catalonia is that the law that expressly prohibits having children under six years old in centers is not being complied with: of the 1,250 children in care of this age, 280 are institutionalized.

Reversing these figures is one of the priorities set by all the teams within the Department of Social Rights, but promotional campaigns are proving ineffective. The latest attempt to increase the number of families is the shock plan announced at the end of last year by theCatalan Institute of Foster Care and Adoption (ICAA), which in the first six months has now achieved 43 families with children at home and another 80 in the study phase. For the director of this organization, Elena Lledós, this is a "small success," although she admits that the goal is to recruit 400 new ones to add to the existing 800. Catalonia is one of the regions with the most institutionalized children.

"We are the best advertising for foster care; if they take good care of us, we will do well and there will be more of us," says Inma Espín, a foster mother for 11 years of a girl who came home from a center at 22 months old and became the couple's third child. However, they have pointed out that in recent years there has still been some "abuse" by the ICAA. "That something goes wrong, that living with the child isn't going well," reproaches a veteran foster parent, who admits that on occasion they have considered letting it be.

Neither generosity nor favor

In the end, the "bond and affection" with the child and the personal commitment made outweigh all the difficulties that families encounter. But Xavier Gisbert, a foster father and President of Afatar (Association of Foster Families of Tarragona and Terres de l'Ebre), points out that "the administration cannot leave foster care to voluntary action," but must "guarantee the necessary conditions" to facilitate it. "Foster care is not generosity or a favor; it is a protective measure," she continues, emphasizing that children are the true "subjects of law."

In their list of grievances, families point out how difficult it is to achieve "normalcy" because foster care is full of demands that sometimes border on the ridiculous. For example, if Espín's daughter is invited to spend the night away from home, she must be informed, as well as if she wants to travel abroad because the guardianship is maintained by the Generalitat (Catalan government). These demands ignore the fact that foster care extends beyond the family nucleus. "They also take in our families: siblings, grandparents, cousins..." emphasize Davinia Reverté and Ramon Masip.

Bertran and Sala hope to resume emergency and diagnostic care, a modality designed for children under six years of age while an assessment is made of whether or not they will return to their biological family. On paper, these foster care placements have a maximum duration of six months—"we should be bridges"—but in practice, the stay extends a year or more. This situation, on the one hand, can unintentionally create more trauma for the child because they must break ties when another permanent family is assigned or they must return to a center. On the other hand, as the couple says, if the timeframes are extended, they create a bottleneck. In four years, this couple has fostered only three children. "It could have been eight," they lament.

The director of the ICAA affirms that she is aware that assessments must be expedited and says they are working to adjust the timescales. Temporary foster care also drags on, and the child spends years in a shelter without knowing what will happen until a firm decision is made. Often, this temporary situation is experienced with "fear, in case they'll be kicked out," the families report. "In many cases, foster care is a covert adoption," Espín points out. A debate is underway in Parliament to reform the law on rights and opportunities for children and adolescents to prioritize foster families if there is a possibility of adopting the child. The initiative, promoted by the Popular Party and supported by various organizations, aims to avoid unnecessary changes in children's lives. However, Espín states that there is no consensus, because if adoption is adopted, families lose access to professional support, although the backpack of the creature remains intact.

Foster care benefit

What's holding back foster care? It's not a financial issue, say families, who value being able to give children "opportunities" to grow up feeling loved, but many point to the "professionalization" of the reception, a modality that for now is ruled out by the ICAA.

Families receive a child support benefit of around 500 euros per month, a figure much lower than the investment to keep a child in a center, which easily quadruples because they must cover household expenses and the salaries of professionals who work shifts to cover the needs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. In addition, foster parents must cover expenses such as medication not funded by Social Security, speech therapists or psychiatrists, school cafeteria, extracurricular activities, and daycare tuition. "It's not done for the money, but it doesn't help when you see the huge difference," complains Espín. The emotional benefits of growing up in a family are already discounted because it's proven to provide stability and development to the child. To address these complaints, Lledós announces that tax deductions for foster care and a foster family card will soon be available.

Another common complaint is that visits with the biological family are scheduled during school hours because it often requires changing work shifts and traveling miles away from the foster home. Regarding this, the ICAA reports that it is trying to move these essential visits to the weekend so that the goal of foster care is always to return the child to the parents. However, new spaces and more equipment will need to be found to expand these schedules.

Specialized foster care

Davinia Reverté and Ramon Masip are a couple of educators without biological children who, three years ago, took in two sisters who "had spent five years with their extended family and five years in a center." Reverté met them at the center where she worked and remembers how excited they were to leave and live with them. The couple opted for a cohabitation unit for educational action (UCAE), a specialized foster home designed for children with functional diversity or groups of siblings, where one of the foster parents is a professional related to childhood.

The benefit amounts to 1,800 euros per month, half the cost of maintaining a residential place, in exchange for family and professional care, they emphasize. When one of the girls turned 18, with no other support, she stayed to live in the house. "Legally, she is a child who lives in our house," clarify these parents, who have stopped receiving the UCAE benefit for this young woman, and it is she who receives help from former guardianAt this point, Espín suggests that the law should be changed so that foster parents can have "some control" over the lives of those who, upon reaching adulthood, remain under their roof.