Another Sad Foster Care Story

Houstonist writes about fostercare. We think the lack of suitable foster parents is one of the biggest, saddest issues facing society today, and we want you to pay attention. But even we've never seen anything like today's sad story, reported in the Chronicle, of two Fort Bend County-area brothers, ages 14 and 13, who were so mistreated and starved in their foster home that they ended up weighing less than 60 pounds each (at ages ten and nine) when they were finally removed in 2002, after around three years of mistreatment.

The boys testified that they had been whipped, starved, and forced to spend mopst of their time in a swelteringly hot garage with only a small airhole when they were under the care of the boy's great aunt, Barbara Dean Baldwin, and her husband. They were placed with these fosterparents because their mother was in jail on drug charges: she has since been released and they are living with her. During the time of their placement in the foster care system, they were removed from school and "homeschooled" and nobody checked on their progress or visited--it took an anonymous tip to finally get a social worker to investigate and remove the starving boys, who had been eating dogfood when it was avaliable because they were so hungry.

The trial is expected to last 'til next week: you can do something now. There are meetings for potential fosterparents (who can be anyone, single, married, or in a same-sex relationship, who is over the age of 21) twice a month. You can also get information about how to mentor fosterkids. Also, click here for a report on the Texas foster care system.