There is a lack of host families. There is a lack of families who agree to offer their homes for those boys and girls who, due to harsh life circumstances, must be separated from their families for a period of time, sometimes eternal. Even more serious is the lack of families willing to accept the “emergency foster care” formula, which is usually to welcome very young boys and girls, sometimes babies, who must be helped immediately.
“Right now we do not even have families in the evaluation period,” comments Elena Alabalat, general director of Family, Childhood and Adolescence and Demographic Challenge of the Generalitat Valenciana. “At the moment we have 100 boys and girls waiting for a foster family, but we do not have families,” she comments after offering an important piece of information: more than 1,600 minors are in foster care in the Valencian Community. But families are missing, she insists. “Juvenile centers are not the right place for when children are young, being with a family is the best for them,” she adds.
The department headed by the Valencian vice president Susana Camarero works in two directions. Firstly, it seeks to change the decree that regulates foster care in the Valencian Community to reduce bureaucracy and offer foster care formulas that have already been implemented in other autonomies. “We are studying possibilities such as weekend foster care or holiday foster care; it is already done in other regions and works well, it can be a way to give these children more opportunities,” says Camarero.
But in the opinion of the councilor, the key is “to change the paradigm, instead of waiting for families to sign up, we must go and look for them.” An objective that Elena Albalat details: “many people do not know what it means to be a host family, they do not even know how to sign up, and we must make this formula known because it is humanly fundamental.” She remembers that the host families “have support from the administration and will have even more, we help them with the support of the minors and we put many resources at their service.”
The Ministry wants, as Elena comments, that the reception policies link all the departments of the Generalitat Valenciana and, also, the Valencian town councils. “We are already working with other departments such as Education to establish improvements in the family reception program.” She also wants to encourage more collaboration from city councils: “We want to encourage reception in inland towns, in rural areas,” she adds.
Susana Camarero emphasizes that the host families “deserve all our help, we must keep in mind that they welcome these boys and girls to take care of them 24 hours a day.” “In recent years, very little has been done, especially in juvenile centers, we have to accelerate and give a push to this objective this legislature,” concludes the vice president.
