How to Foster a Haitian Refugee

Because of persistently difficult economic and political conditions at home, Haitians have long immigrated to the United States, even before the devastating earthquake of 12 January 2010. These immigrants include children, some of them orphans, and some recipients of healthcare or other services that are unavailable or limited in Haiti. If you are interested in foster parenting a Haitian refugee child or children, you will need to take the same steps involved in becoming a foster parent of any other children, plus some extra ones.

Instructions

1. Decide whether fostering is the best way for you personally to make a difference with and for Haitian people or children in need. Most children from poor countries, even many orphans and disaster survivors, are best served through educational opportunities and economic development projects that enable them to stay in familiar places and cultures with their relatives or other concerned community members. Use Charity Navigator to evaluate charities that, for example, pay children's school fees or reforest with agriculturally valuable trees.

2. Learn about the current laws, policies and ethical guidelines governing foster care and adoptive placements of Haitian children in the United States, even if you are not considering adoption. Read materials on the websites of the International Foster Care Organization and Child Welfare Information Gateway or CWIG, as well as the U.S. State Department's inter-country adoption pages.

3. Identify an ethically operated child welfare agency that is licensed in your state and places Haitian refugee children in foster homes. Start with CWIG's U.S. Adoption Agencies That Place Children from Abroad or its National Foster Care and Adoption Directory, as well as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Unaccompanied Refugee Minor program.

4. Become licensed in your state as a foster parent. Your agency most likely can aid you with this process, for example by conducting a home study, an assessment of your family's capacity to take in a foster child or children. CWIG and the National Foster Parents Association website give a great deal of helpful information about the process of foster parenting.

5. Learn all you can, especially from Haitian people themselves, about Haitian culture, if you are not of Haitian heritage yourself or lack other significant connections to Haiti. Explore Haitian Kreyòl-also spelled Creole-language, literature, cuisine, cinema, music, dance and/or art. The work of author Edwidge Danticat, who immigrated to the U.S. as a child, may be a good place to start.

Tips & Warnings

• When your foster child is placed in your home, give everyone in the household a chance to adjust. If any difficulties continue, your state probably makes free or low-cost medical and social services available to foster children. Even before the placement, ask your caseworker about these. Being an immigrant and refugee can be quite psychologically stressful.

References

• Child Welfare Information Gateway: Caring for Children in Foster Care
• Child Welfare Information Gateway: National Foster Care and Adoption Directory
• Chidl Welfare Information Gateway: U.S. Adoption Agencies That Place Children from Abroad
• International Foster Care Organisation: Haiti-Can We Foster/Adopt the Children? Guiding Principles
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Unaccompanied Refugee Minor Program
• U.S. State Department: Intercountry Adoption