"This is a Demonic Situation" | Official Preview
Actress Jen Lily discusses the dark realities of the foster care system, including financial exploitation by bad-faith foster parents, the disappearance of children from foster care, and their vulnerability to trafficking. She also highlights potential solutions, including church involvement and new legislation like the Fostering the Future Act.
Summary
Jen Lily, an actress known for Days of Our Lives, shares a disturbing encounter she had while attending a National Foster Parents Association class. She describes meeting a woman who openly explained how to financially exploit the foster care system by intentionally causing children to fail in school and be placed on medications to increase their monthly 'D-Rate' payment — a reimbursement tier tied to a child's difficulty level. This woman claimed to make $28,000 per month from foster care through this method.
Jen reflects that while the intention behind tiered reimbursement rates was to incentivize caring foster parents to take on more challenging children, it inadvertently attracted people motivated purely by financial gain. She and her interviewer suggest reversing the incentive structure — for example, rewarding foster families when children achieve academic success like making the honor roll.
The conversation shifts to the scale of the crisis: approximately 344,000 children are currently in foster care in the United States, while there are roughly 350,000 Protestant churches in the country. The point is made that if every church fostered just one child, the foster care backlog could theoretically be eliminated. Jen acknowledges she wasn't an obvious candidate to foster — as a traveling actress — but argues that if she could do it, others can too.
Jen highlights a particularly alarming statistic: 63 children disappear from foster care every single day. She explains that many run away due to ongoing abuse in foster homes, repeated placement disruptions, or paradoxically, because a good placement feels too unfamiliar and they self-sabotage. These runaway children are highly vulnerable to sex traffickers who target them through social media and other channels.
The segment ends on a hopeful note, with Jen mentioning the recent bipartisan passage of the Fostering the Future Act in the House, which addresses a different stream of children than the Family First Prevention Services Act, which focuses on preventing children from entering the system in the first place.
Key Insights
- A foster parent Jen Lily met openly described deliberately causing children to fail school and get on medications to increase their 'D-Rate' reimbursement, claiming to earn $28,000 per month from foster care through this method.
- Jen Lily argues that the tiered reimbursement rate system, while intended to incentivize good foster parents to care for difficult children, instead attracted bad actors motivated purely by financial gain rather than love for the child.
- 63 children disappear from foster care every single day, often running away due to abuse in foster placements, repeated placement disruptions, or because a stable home feels too unfamiliar — making them highly vulnerable to traffickers.
- There are approximately 344,000 children in foster care and roughly 350,000 Protestant churches in the United States, leading Jen Lily to argue that if every church fostered one child, there would be no children left in need of foster placement.
- The Fostering the Future Act was recently passed by the House with bipartisan support and addresses a different population of foster children than the Family First Prevention Services Act, which focuses on preventing children from ever entering the foster care system.
Topics
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