Together--for the Kids

By Kathleen Kingsbury

Frustrated foster parents in Washington State are seeking strength in numbers. The 600 families of the Foster Parent Association of Washington State have formed an unprecedented alliance with the state's largest union. They hope the power of the union, the Washington Federation of State Employees, will spur the Children's Administration to improve oversight and provide better training for foster parents. (State officials declined to comment.) The whole system is "in crisis," says Mary McGauhey, foster mom to two children with special needs. "Families are asked to care for children they just aren't trained to handle."

Unionization is expected to lead to collective bargaining. Will the foster parents strike? Probably not--less than 3% of labor talks end in strikes. Plus, says Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary who is a public-policy professor at Berkeley, "when they agreed to take on foster kids, they took on a moral obligation to parent them well."

The lack of that bargaining chip doesn't seem to daunt the new union members, given the toughness of their everyday task. They're ready to do whatever it takes, says executive director Greg Devereux, "to get better care for these kids."