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For children and teens who have been the victims of abuse, the pandemic has added to the trauma of their situation.
In the early months, when schools, child care facilities and churches were closed, the shutdown cut off this at-risk population from people who are tasked with reporting suspected abuse, but as the pandemic extended through the months, it presented added trauma when at times people have been reluctant to open their homes as foster parents.
"I would say that the volume of calls that I get from people who are interested in foster parenting has definitely decreased since the pandemic," said Heather Wood, a resource family caseworker at Lycoming County Children and Youth who works in foster care.
"You know it always ebbs and flows. "They either have a ton at once or just a few trickle in. We've been pretty consistent with just a few people trickle in and even less then that actually that go through the process and be approved," Wood added.
Becoming a foster parent is a time commitment starting with the meetings and trainings in the application process. Potential foster parents have clearances done and they also have to be fingerprinted in-person.
"I'm not sure that people aren't reluctant to do that," Wood said.
Another factor which may contribute to the decrease in people applying to be foster parents is that the pandemic has created issues in the educational system, with parents never knowing when schools may need to go to a remote platform for instruction.
"There's also so much going on in the world that people have full plates. I think some people may even be worried about I don't have any kids at home now and adding a child what's that mean if school would close again and I have a child with me full time and I work. What am I going to do," Wood said.
Jessie Young, a caseworker at KidsPeace, a private agency that deals with placing foster children, agreed with Wood.
"One of the main reasons is uncertainty. Like bringing sickness into the home is definitely a concern, but it's more of logistics," Young stated.
"Let's say you're a two-parent working family and you want to foster. You depend on the school system and you don't know if there's going to be in-person school or hybrid or when it's going to change and how it's going to change," Young explained. "That's a barrier because you're also having to find care for older kids where you have no way to predict what you're going to need."
She added that many prospective foster parents have said that they want to wait until issues with schooling and childcare are resolved.
"So, that's been a real barrier. We always need foster parents and now it's even a little bit more difficult," Young said.
Young noted that during the shutdown last year, in-person family visits were curtailed and the court system half shutdown for a period of time.
"Everything crawled to almost a halt or at least a very slow pace. But, we've adapted and it's gotten better. We're all figuring out that happy medium about how to stay safe and how to actually still advocate for kids and families because that need doesn't change.
The policy at Children and Youth, since they are a county agency, is that the children from the county must be placed in homes in the county.
"It's always so important for us to have families to take kids in and it's especially important to our agency that we have local families to take our kids. All the kids that we place come from Lycoming County and our goal is to keep them here. I always have a great need to have for foster parents who can keep our kids in our community," Wood said.
"So, they can go to their school. They can keep their friends. They can keep their activities. Keep their life as normal as possible," she said.
She noted that this is especially important during the pandemic because if children have to go to facilities or a foster home out of the area, travelling anywhere brings with it more restrictions.
"We don't want to see our kids put where they can't see their family because they're two hours away from home because of COVID. It's so important to have families in the picture," she said.
Matt Salvatori, assistant administrator at Children and Youth, emphasized that whether it's a pandemic or not, they work to recruit foster parents.
"I think foster parents are in need regardless of the pandemic. If you look at our reports coming in, we are back to receiving the same amount of reports we got prior to the pandemic," Salvatori said.
He cited statistics from March 1 to May 31, 2019, Children and Youth had over 400 reports. For the same time period in 2020, the agency had had less than 300 cases of suspected abuse reported, which is a 30 percent decrease in reports. Since the end of May last year, Salvatori noted that the number had again increased.
"The need for foster parents continues as much as it was prior to the pandemic and as an agency we continue to do all the measures we can to get as many foster parents and recruit as many individuals because they are our true asset to the child welfare system," Salvatori said.
"Without good foster parents, it leaves kids in transition. They play a key part in the overall success of finding kids permanency," he said.
"Foster parents are what make our kids successful," interjected Wood. "The work they do with our kids, the time they spend with them, that's when we see kids make so much progress, is when we have committed families."
At the present time there are about 50 families who are approved to foster parent. Wood said that some of those families have placements right now while others do not. Some have been approved because at one time they had a family member who was in need of foster care, but they have chosen to stay on the list just in case the situation arose again.
"We really have a great need of foster parents willing to take care of all ages but as always it's so hard for us to have good homes for teenagers in this community," Wood said.
Children and Youth offers training for prospective foster parents. Anyone interested in becoming a foster parent should contact the agency.
"We try to curtail our training to meet the busy schedules of the individual who wants to be a foster parent. We will do anything to help assist them to make the process as easy as possible, but ultimately to train them to deal with issues that come up about with children and create a successful home environment for them," Salvatori said.
Young, who also offers training through KidsPeace, said that during the pandemic she has had casework visits in a park or on front porches--anything to make the process work.
"We had foster parent training which we really value, in October in James Short Park. It was freezing, but it was still good for us to get all of our foster parents together, get some training and also that opportunity to be supportive to each other," she said.
"We're also working really hard to help support our kids and families through this pandemic…there's barriers and we do our best to overcome that," Young stressed.