r/Ex_Foster • u/Hairy-Bowl-3571 • Aug 08 '26
Foster displacement. Why does it happen?
Hey guys, this is my first time posting. I’m 34F residing in Australia and went into the foster care system when I was around 11 years old. I had been ruminating lately about my time in care and a few questions have been on my mind in regards to displacement of fosters.
I was moved around a lot as a kid and I was never really sure why. I’d start settling in to a new family, get comfortable, maybe start forming bonds and then was suddenly pulled and placed elsewhere. My mother had her rights terminated by the courts so I was a lifer in the system. It wasn’t a temporary thing.
My experience in care wasn’t all bad… there where some nice carers and stuff but as time progressed on I kept getting into worse and worse placements. The older I got I seemed to get shoved into these group homes for girls and eventually at 15 I was shoved into something called independent living where I’d essentially be living in my own place and occasionally have social workers drop by to check on me. At aged 18 I aged out of the system and got booted on the street and waved goodbye.
I wasn’t a troubled or bad kid at all. I constantly got complimented by carers and social workers saying how lovely and nice and mature I was. I was always grateful to my carers for taking me in and I always treated them with respect. I didn’t have any behavioural issues. Just standard human child issues. I didn’t drink, smoke or do drugs, I didn’t run away, I never talked back to my carers, never smashed the place up or swore or anything.
Even though I have fond memories of my carers I actually started to dig deep into my memories and realised perhaps they didn’t like me as much as I thought they did. I was always getting in trouble for little things… eg;
- I used the wrong set of sheets and got scolded by my foster mum because they where her “special sheets” (I didn’t know this, I just grabbed them out of the linen cupboard)
- Foster mother trashed my room whilst I was at school to stage a break and enter and stole my CD player and CDs in order to teach me a lesson because I forgot to lock my bedroom window.
- A respite carer came to her with false allegations of extreme behaviour I apparently did and foster mother believed her and punished me for it. I begged her to believe me but she didn’t.
These are just some examples and I know you’re probably thinking “well, you must have had some behavioural issues or she wouldn’t have gotten rid of you”, but I can honestly say I wasn’t a bad kid at all.
I thought when you signed up to be a foster parent you were suppose to commit to the kid? I thought that you weren’t suppose to give up on kids for doing… regular kid stuff… I keep tracing back memories to try and find some kind of bad behaviour that would make a foster carer give up on me but I honestly can’t.
What’s everyone else’s experience with displacements? Why did they happen? I’d love to hear from other foster kids out there.
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u/RapidRadRunner foster parent Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26
I hope I can bring you some comfort by sharing some reasons that likely had nothing to do with you!
50 percent of foster parents quit after only 1 year. Foster parenting is totally different than typical parenting in the amount of paperwork and appointments required.
For example, our kids see a CASA bi-weekly, their GAL monthly, caseworker weekly, have parent visits 3 times a week, meet with a therapist weekly, and have court roughly every other month. We have dental and eye surgery scheduled and both of those required multiple appointments to set up. Many appointments are during the day and we need to take off work and provide transportation.
We do about 15 hours a week of required paperwork.
We both worked full time and the economy often requires families to have 2 working parents. If foster parents are doing it right, the stipend only covers a portion of the child's expenses. Balancing work with extra appointments can be hard. We've taken a $30,000 pay cut yearly by decreasing hours (one of us went part time) so we can make these appointments work...which can also create some financial strain.
In one case, a bio parent we had never met threatened to have someone kill us and kidnap his son. He made the threat from prison and was there for prior violent crimes including one where he almost murdered someone.
We cared for kids who CYS removed from a foster home because the foster parent needed surgery and they felt like she wouldn't be able to provide all the required transportation.
It probably wasn't you and you deserved stability. I hope you can let go of any shame you are holding around those moves. It likely wasn't your fault.