May is National Foster Care Month, a time for raising awareness about the hundreds of thousands of children in the U.S. foster care system, and how we can support the unique needs of foster families and kinship caregivers to help promote positive outcomes for children.
Foster families who open their homes to foster children can make an immeasurable difference in children’s lives, and can provide or pave the way toward a permanent home for them. But a lack of access to paid time off work to address a new foster child’s specific needs poses a significant barrier for many would-be foster parents and caregivers.
As many states face a shortage of foster homes, it’s important to do everything we can to support foster parents and caregivers in the workplace, so that they can take the time they need to welcome new foster children, attend to their needs, and help them get acclimated to their new home environment. This support is also critical for kinship caregivers, such as grandparents or other relatives, who often support better outcomes for children but have fewer resources.
Tennessee, one such state with a severe shortage of available foster families, recently joined the six other Southern states that already cover foster parents under their paid family leave programs for state government employees. Once the expansion takes effect, foster parents working for the state will be able to take the same six weeks of paid parental leave as birth and adoptive parents when they welcome a new child.
Access to paid parental leave allows foster parents to meaningfully address a newly placed child’s specific medical, behavioral, and emotional needs while promoting healthy bonding. Support in the workplace is essential for all new parents, and it’s important that our paid leave laws provide the same protections for foster parents as for birth or adoptive parents.
States recognizing foster families’ needs and stepping up to ensure their paid leave laws cover them is heartening, and shows how paid leave programs can be continually built out to meet the needs of families who rely most urgently on these protections.