OPINION: North Carolina’s foster care system is in crisis. It doesn’t have to be

For the past 15 years, I’ve opened my home — and my heart — to more than 40 children in North Carolina’s foster care system.

I’ve welcomed toddlers still trembling from trauma. I’ve celebrated with teenagers as they crossed high school stages in caps and gowns. I’ve held the hands of birth mothers during supervised visits and stood silently behind protective glass in jails, watching families shattered by addiction and incarceration. I’ve waited in emergency rooms and ridden in the back of ambulances with children I love like my own.

This is what foster parenting looks like — not just for me, but for thousands of caregivers across our state. It is beautiful. It is exhausting. And too often, it is done alone.

North Carolina’s foster care system is in crisis. Today, over 11,000 children are in state custody, but according to the most recent data from “Who Cares,” there are only about 5,600 licensed foster homes. As a result, many children are placed in counties far from their schools, siblings, and everything else familiar, simply because there aren’t enough foster homes to meet the need. The children who enter care are not broken — but the system that holds them is.

Caregivers are asked to do the impossible every day: navigate bureaucracy, support families in crisis, and provide healing to children with deep wounds — all while being underpaid, undertrained, and overlooked.

And yet, despite everything, foster families show up. They stay up all night with newborns withdrawing from substances. They learn new ways to parent children with developmental disabilities. They drive hours to court hearings and therapy appointments. They stretch to meet rising costs while waiting months for reimbursements.

At Foster Family Alliance of North Carolina (FFA-NC), we believe this system must — and can — do better.

As a statewide nonprofit led by foster parents for foster parents, we work to change the experience of caregiving in North Carolina. Our real-time support, training, and advocacy makes a difference for  the people doing the work on the front lines of child welfare. Moreover, we elevate caregivers’ voices so that policy is shaped by lived experience, not guesswork. It is our mission to challenge systems to see the humanity, the child, behind every file folder and placement report.

What we’re witnessing across the state is a perfect storm: a growing number of children in need, a shrinking pool of licensed caregivers, and a revolving door of caseworkers without the resources to keep up. The result? Delays. Disruptions. Deepening trauma for kids who’ve already endured too much.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

We can start by recruiting and retaining more foster parents — giving them the tools to succeed. That means better communication. More respite options. Quicker licensing. Easier access to mental health care. It means treating caregivers as partners, not placeholders.

It also means ensuring that reunification — the ideal outcome whenever safe and possible — is supported by wraparound services. Parents working toward reunification need housing, treatment, job stability, and hope. Without that, we’re setting families up to fail.

North Carolina’s government has a long legacy of caring for children, and this year, FFA-NC marks 50 years of advocacy. But milestones aren’t enough. We need movement.

Our children deserve more than a bed in a stranger’s house. They deserve stability, community, and belonging. And the adults who step forward to provide that deserve to be seen, heard, and supported.

If you’ve ever wondered whether fostering is for you, I urge you to take the first step. If you’ve ever wanted to help but aren’t ready to foster, support the families who do. Donate. Volunteer. Show up.

Because while the system may be broken, our children don’t deserve to be. And together, we can build something better.