They provide the daily care, understanding, and affection that gives foster children the opportunity for healthy physical and emotional growth while they are separated from their own family. Foster care is unique partly because its goals can only be achieved through teamwork. Foster parents are vital members of the Children's Services Team. Accepting confused, often angry and severely abused, and sometimes quite difficult children into one's family, and doing all that is necessary to help them and their families is one tough job. But foster parenting has its rewards - although they are not monetary.
Foster parents receive minimal reimbursement from agencies to cover the costs providing care.
People become foster parents because their bottom line is their sincere concern for the well-being of children and families. Foster parents represent all income levels, races, religions, and marital statuses. They may be young couples with no children of their own, or their own children may be living at home, or they may have successfully raised their own children to adulthood. Some have been fostering children for 25 years or more. However, the largest number of foster parents have been involved with foster care for five years or less and reflect the changing roles and increased professionalism of today's foster parents.