[Kieri]

I don't know of an iPad that costs $1,000...unless there could be a specialty app for autism. But $400 for a prom dress???

Foster care parents get a very small amount each month for clothing, shoes, etc. It in no way covers what these kids need. And to waste it on a prom dress is just despicable.

Oh, these are state and FEDERAL funds being spent. Isn't that special? And MI has record numbers of kids on food stamps and in foster care.

[cripplecreek]

[svcw]

As someone who was in the foster care system (eleven homes in five and half years) it is completely f### up.

[cripplecreek]

One set of my grandparents were foster parents for a particularly violent classification of teens. My sisters and I never really had a relationship with our grandparents because of it.

[calex59]

They claim they want to give these kids the tools they need to realize their dreams. Since when is anyone guaranteed that they will succeed? Making them dependent on the government to buy things for them isn't giving them tools at all, it is handicapping them, just as millions of black children are also handicapped year after year by their mothers being on welfare.

You want to give kids tools to succeed, teach them how to work and get them summer jobs so they develop a work ethic. Giving people money almost never helps them do better. The old(Christian)saying of "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, but teach him how to fish and you feed him for a life time" is all too true and just as relevant today as it was thousands of years ago.

[netmilsmom]

I have a friend who has fostered many kids here in MI.
She has adopted four of them.

Do you know that when kids turn 18 and are no longer in the foster system they leave with only what people gift to them? SO while they are paying for Ipods and parking tickets, kids turn 18 and are cut free.

If it wasn’t for churches and charities, they would leave their last foster home with nothing but the clothes on their backs. It’s sad.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

“She provided the example of an autistic boy in foster care who was able to better communicate after the department spent nearly $1,000 to purchase him an iPad. The boy’s improved communication led to a permanent placement with a relative, Chaliman said.”

If this is so, it was money well spent. Treatment of autism can easily cost over 50 times that amount per year.