Foster parents to join state union

OLYMPIA – In a nationwide first, a foster parents group in Washington confirmed Thursday that it intends to unionize and press for reforms.

“Like many foster care systems around the country, Washington State’s is in crisis,” the group told Children’s Administration officials in a May 12 letter obtained Thursday by The Spokesman-Review.

The foster parents group said it is establishing “joint membership” with the 38,000-member Washington Federation of State Employees. The federation is the largest state-worker union.

Officials for both groups were hesitant to offer specifics Thursday, saying details are being worked out. They plan a joint announcement at the end of the month.

The alliance is intended to improve the lives of the children in foster care, Foster Parents Association of Washington State co-President Steve Baxter said.

“Foster parents are interested in having a system that works,” he said in an interview. “I’m not sure that we’re looking at compensation. What we’re looking at is support and training and having the best outcomes” for foster children. “That’s really what this is all about.”

In the three-page letter, the foster parents association describes a system straining under the weight of increasingly serious behavioral problems among foster kids and high turnover among both social workers and foster parents.

Across the nation, many support services for foster parents have been squeezed from tight state budgets, said Karen Jorgenson, executive director of the Gig Harbor-based National Foster Parent Association. Among them: transportation service and respite care, intended to give foster parents a break.

Unionization, Jorgenson said, “is a step toward respect and recognition for the work they do with these traumatized kids.”

Washington has about 6,000 licensed foster homes, according to the Children’s Administration. The state provides health coverage for the children and a monthly stipend of $374 to $525, depending on a child’s age.

At any given time, there are 9,500 to 9,700 foster children in Washington, although nearly a third of those are placed with relatives rather than foster homes.

The state has been trying to improve the system after a lawsuit by Jessica Braam, a former foster child who grew up being shuttled among 34 foster homes. In 2004, the state signed a settlement setting goals of better stability, mental health care and foster parent training and support, among other things. But the association says in its recent letter to the Children’s Administration that kids cannot wait for badly needed reforms.

“Foster children quickly grow up to be citizens of our state,” the letter reads. “Their lives are in all of our hands.”

Tim Welch, spokesman for the Washington Federation of State Employees, said the union can bring its lobbying skills to bear on behalf of the foster parents.

“We have common interests and we can advocate for each other’s issues,” he said.

Over the long term, he said, the foster parents will likely want full collective bargaining rights as “quasi-state employees.” State-paid home health aides and child-care workers both won collective bargaining rights recently. The home health care workers did it by passing a citizens initiative; the child-care workers by an order from the governor and subsequent legislative approval.