This article from The Atlantic explores the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on foster care in the United States.The article shares the story of Jessica, a foster mother who became ill during the COVID-19 pandemic and struggled to care for herself and her foster son, who was also ill. "As Jessica and her foster son’s conditions worsened, she worried: What if she grew too sick to care for him? The prospect of needing someone else to take him, at least for a short time, didn’t seem unlikely. Social workers seek out emergency placements for foster kids, but, as Jessica put it, 'who is going to take a child that has been exposed to the coronavirus?'”
"The coronavirus pandemic has aggravated the difficult work of finding and maintaining stable homes for the United States’ more than 400,000 foster children," says the article. "Now many local foster-care systems are facing shortages of foster parents and outbreaks in group homes and residential facilities, making what was already an unstable situation for children even more volatile."