Foster Care - a specific outcropping of the Privilege/Disadvantage discussion

Jessica posts:

Not really a link so much as information relayed to me after discussing this project this past weekend:

Andrew's cousin, Wes, and Wes' wife, Carol, work with foster children in Oklahoma. It is a group home setting, almost like a small town, and it is heavily regulated. The boys are housed separately from the girls, and there is at least another site on the property for the elderly. There may be other houses or multiples for each set; I am not aware of the particulars in that regard.

The picture painted to me was provided by Andrew's aunt (Wes' mother). Brenda has spent a good deal of time visiting the foster home. The home is not owned by Wes and Carol. They are full-time foster parents in the home, and there is a rotational basis provided for vacations on a small level. They typically have around 8 boys at the home at a time. All meals need to be provided on site, and leftovers are severely limited or disallowed altogether, based on the type of food. Nearly every boy has been "diagnosed" with some sort of condition (mostly ADHD), and has medication that must be given from a box that is kept locked and checked with Wells Fargo-like security on a very frequent basis.

There are scrupulous and strict regulations that must be maintained, and the meals must be planned and approved. As caretakers of these children, they are responsible for taking them to all necessary doctor visits and court dates--for all 8 children. Regular inspections occur to ascertain whether proper care is being attended in the home.

The children, as one might imagine, are not from wealthy families, and so the foster home receives a large number of donations from locals in the town. The home is inundated with the latest in technology and toys, from iPods to skateboards to whatever the latest new trend is, to a level over and above that of the average middle class home.

The reason that I am portraying this, as you might imagine, is because of the suggestion that the school be a boarding school. Wes and Carol do not hold any other jobs beyond being the foster parents of all these children. They do not homeschool them. They do not have time.

It is a serious and complicated undertaking to house a number of foster children. To add their education to the pile is yet a further considerable burden. While I do believe it is something that could be achieved, I also believe that it would be a sincerely complex web of entanglements that would require the work of nearly as many adults as children in order to accomplish such a task.