Reply #27: No-as someone who works in the FC system, that's not necessary [View All]

There are hair and skin care issues that come up, but unless the foster parents have no friends or associates who are black, that can be addressed.

Mainly, the issue is braiding little girls' hair. We have workers who will go out in those situations to help, but this is Detroit, where we have salons that specialize in black children's hair.

This issue comes up every decade or so-when I was a new worker, we only placed black children with black foster parents, and vice versa, unless there was a special reason. It didn't work and it wasn't fair. It led to a disproportionate number of black kids in residential placements, instead of family homes. There are already more black children in the foster care system than there are black foster parents. It is better for those children to be in a home with white foster parents than in an institution.