New York’s Daily News published an Opinion piece authored by AGAPE Long Island Family Support Specialist, Danielle Skelly on April 23, 2020. 

I love my nine children boundlessly and equally. Some of them are my biological children and some I adopted after first becoming their foster mom.

Several have suffered early childhood trauma as a result of their experiences entering the foster care system in New York and, even today, it is love that gets us through sleepless nights, therapy sessions and the inherent anxiety associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. That same love is also the reason my husband and I have made endless financial sacrifices to ensure each of our children receives the care they need, and why we are stopping at nothing to ensure they are safe and supported while learning from home and managing tele-therapy while we’re sheltering in place.

One of the biggest and most devastating misconceptions about adoptive and foster parents is that we take on the role of parent as a means to financial gain. That could not be further from the truth. For the average foster parent, caring for a child in New York’s foster system amounts to thousands of dollars spent out-of-pocket to cover basic expenses associated with parenting — from food and clothing to school supplies and graphing calculators.

Those expenses only increase during this moment of school closures and social distancing, when we are ordering massive Instacart orders each week to make sure our two high school seniors and 6-year-old and 11-year-old have enough food to get them through a day of remote learning and occupational therapy sessions.

Disappointingly, reimbursement rates in New York State for foster families can be as low as $12 a day. Even buying enough food to feed growing teenagers is a major financial commitment, before or after we got hit with this unprecedented health crisis.

Even worse for New York parents is that federal law dictates that it shouldn’t be this way. The Child Welfare Act requires states to reimburse foster parents for the actual costs associated with raising children in their care.

Stunningly, New York State refuses to offer foster parents the financial support they are legally entitled to, instead calculating reimbursement rates arbitrarily and inadequately. That is why the Adoptive and Foster Family Coalition of New York brought a lawsuit against the state nearly a decade ago.

Yet year after year, the state has dodged its legal obligation to adequately reimburse foster families like mine. That’s right: The state is actively working to avoid paying families the money they are owed to support our most vulnerable children.

Last year, a federal court ruled in our favor. The state’s reaction? Gov. Cuomo’s administration appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, again trying to get New York out of its responsibility to take care of its foster families. SCOTUS, fortunately, declined to review the state’s appeal last month. 

Now, the need for ample reimbursement is greater than ever before during the COVID-19 crisis. Like any parent working from home right now, we take breaks from our work schedule to help them with their schoolwork and keep them on track. In our case, we also pause our day to sit with them in weekly or even daily therapy sessions, and moments of COVID-related stress which exacerbates existing trauma. We do everything in our power to make sure they stay safe and healthy, and always know how loved they are.

In my family as in so many loving foster families, we always find a way to make it work. But I think constantly about how much more we could offer our children if our leaders in Albany offered foster families what they are entitled to under federal law. On behalf of thousands of foster and adoptive parents like me across Long Island and New York State, I hope the state will finally ensure foster parents have what they need to care for children during this crisis and in the years to come.

Originally published on April 23, 2020 in New York’s Daily News.