Occasionally, a County Department receives complaints regarding a foster family. These complaints may include reports of severe or unusual discipline, the lack of adequate care and maintenance of the children in placement, caring for extra children, problems with the foster family’s own children, health problems in the foster family, inadequate supervision of the children in the home, or unusual traffic in and out of the home. Some complaints may be valid, but others are not. 

Without checking further into the situation, the validity of the complaint cannot be determined. Therefore, for everyone’s protection – yours, the child’s and the agency’s – each complaint received by DFCS must be carefully assessed. Keep in mind, however, this does not mean that the agency has accepted the report as true. Your Case Manager will discuss with you any complaint made against you and the outcome of the assessment. 

A good rule to keep in mind in order to avoid complaints from the community is to share your role as foster parents with neighbors. Let them know that “it takes a village to raise a child” and that you welcome their input and observations as neighbors who have “the interest of the child at heart.” Introduce the children to your neighbors, and make each child aware of the neighbors’ care and concern for their well being also. Each situation is different. Some neighbors may be approached in this manner and others, of course, may not. Use your best judgment in this regard. 

In the event the school system sends permission slips requesting authority to administer corporal punishment to children who are in the temporary or permanent custody of the agency, foster parents are to deny such permission.

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