State neglects children

My wife and I are therapeutic foster parents. Thanks to Gov. Baldacci’s inappropriate cuts to foster care reimbursements we may no longer be able to provide for foster children.

Working with therapeutic foster children is challenging and requires one parent being home. Appointments and explosive behaviors render it impossible for my wife to work outside the home. The state has cut respite, cut the children’s recreational fund, proposed reducing daily board rates, mandated both foster parents be employed, and they have cut the supplemental income to adoptive families.

Each dollar supports these children. With these detrimental cuts the state is as neglectful to these children as their neglecting and abusive parents are. Fostering is a full-time job. The state should be completely responsible for the provisions of the children in custody. Love and charity does not put biscuits on the table.

There are costs the state doesn’t reimburse. Vehicle wear, holes punched in walls, doors ripped from hinges, etc. Children are abused and they need safe, funded foster homes.

Chip Moors

Plymouth