Parents seek specialized class within foster care

By Adam Wilson | The Olympian • Published January 30, 2008

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Elizabeth Rich says she has attended three of one her infant foster daughter's surgeries, learned to work oxygen tanks and feeding tubes for others, and served as the coordinator among doctors, biological parents and the state.

For her trouble, she's paid between 55 cents and $3.25 an hour through the state-foster care program, Rich told lawmakers Tuesday.

"Teenaged baby sitters make more than this," she said, adding she stopped taking as many children so she could take a part-time consulting job to pay her bills.

She and other foster parents asked legislators to support a proposal that would create a specialized class of foster parents, possibly represented by a union.

It would be a major departure from the current system, which includes about 6,000 parents. They are compensated for some of the costs of caring for 10,000 foster children but aren't otherwise paid.

"All foster parents are expected to be volunteers, no matter the level of care required, the expertise or training required," Rich said. "I have skills that fragile infants in the state of Washington desperately need."

After a foster-parent group teamed with the largest state workers union, lawmakers last year convened a group to study the needs of parents who take children with extreme emotional or medical needs.

"What we're looking at is a special group and a special need," said Cheryl Stephani, director of the state Children's Administration. "We already have some foster parents who have self- selected into this category, but we don't have a structure for specialized care."

A bill written by Rep. Ruth Kagi, chairwoman of the House Children's Services Committee, would require the state to establish test groups of a specialized class this year.

"The biggest concern we have heard around foster parents has been the special-needs children. This is a highly trained, better-paid category of foster parents," Kagi said.

Her proposal, House Bill 3145, would not allow the specialized foster parents to bargain with the state over pay and other issues, however. Representatives of the Washington Federation of State Employees asked for an amendment that would allow bargaining.

Rep. Bill Hinkle, R-Cle Elum, said the state should simply pay the foster parents more, without contract negotiations.

"It really is, to be discussing organizing, to be paying union dues with state funds, is frustrating to me," he said. "We should prioritize things, and we don't do it."

Mary-Jeanne Smith, a foster parent from Dayton, said she and her husband are Republicans and are skeptical of unions. But collective bargaining for foster parents is a "necessary evil," she told the committee.

"Foster parents have no voice. We've only gotten this far since the union stepped in to help us," she said.