Some school heads, teachers and day care attenders connive with family members of foster children against staff of Social Welfare and this is according to the head of the Social Welfare department of the Oforikrom Municipal Assembly, Mrs. Juliana Atinaba.

According to Mrs. Atinaba, this act is a worry to the social Welfare since she opined, that attitude does not help with the smooth running of duties by staff of social welfare.

A sensitization forum was held through her leadership to bait parents, guardians, teachers and school heads knowledge of foster children and adopted children.

Speaking on fostering a child, she noted that it is a practice where a child may be taken from his or her parents temporarily for a particular reason of which the child has the right to go back when the problem is fixed.

She however indicated how worrying it gets sometimes when efforts to get the child back becomes fruitless because people do not conform to legality but rather act against the Social Welfare.

:”After a while, we come around to reunite this child with the guardians or parents and this one too is a problem”, she bemoaned.

Child fostering in the country currently is not that high and the public’s participation is very minimal. A child may be taken from parents or guardians for some reasons that could hinder the care of the child in question.

This can be a way of abuse, neglect, when incarcerated hospitalized parents and has no one to take care of them during their absence, a child who has significant medical or mental health needs as well as a child who is orphaned and has no biological family to care for him or her.

Madam Juliet indicated the readiness of his unit to assist people who are interested in fostering a child but was quick to add that, it was paramount things are done the legal way.

In that regard, she noted requirements for children coming into alternative care including foster care is laid out in Ghana's Children's act 1998 (Act 560) and Foster care regulation 2017.

Source: ofmma.gov.gh