How Do You Find a Home for a Foster Child at a Time Like This?
When Jessica started to experience intense chest pain in March, she was terrified that she might have the coronavirus. Then her foster son started to experience symptoms too.
The high school in western New York State where she taught had just closed. She couldn’t get a test to confirm that her respiratory illness was indeed COVID-19, and she was confused about whether she should go to the emergency room or just stay home. She is single, and was her foster son’s only guardian. (He has since turned 18.) Caring for him while they were both so sick overwhelmed her. He was afraid of losing her, and it reignited his grief over his adoptive grandmother’s recent death. She didn’t know how to comfort him when the outcome of her illness still felt so uncertain. On some days, she couldn’t even get out of bed. “It was too much responsibility,” Jessica told me. “I felt very helpless.” (Jessica and the other foster parents in this article requested to be referred to only by first name to protect their status as foster parents and their foster children’s privacy.)
As Jessica and her foster son’s conditions worsened, she worried: What if she grew too sick to care for him? The prospect
