Family says Fresno County’s foster workers need more training
FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – Marcel Harris and his family were asked in December 2023 by a distant relative to help care for a five-year-old boy who had lost his father to cancer.
Since then, the family says Fresno County has dragged its feet for five months and “given us the run around so many times.”
Harris is a campus assistant at Phoenix Secondary Academy and, even though he can express his passion for child care through his work, Marcel says being able to foster a child would mean much more to him and his wife. The couple became certified to foster children and Harris says that’s when his wife received a phone call from a cousin through marriage asking for help.
The cousin told them that her brother had passed away. Her nephew (her brother’s son) was taken from his mother’s custody due to her drug issues. The cousin asked the Harris family to help her stay in her nephew’s life by fostering him.
Harris says he and his wife worked with the agency that certified them to contact Fresno County and find out if the child had been adopted yet. Harris says that’s when they found out the child had not yet been adopted and was living in a home that he could no longer stay in.
That’s when Harris and his wife started the process to foster the child – but say they were met with an onslaught of obstacles along the way.
“Before we were supposed to meet him, we were told that our meeting was canceled. Without any real reason why. The only thing we were told is that there were people ahead…who else would be trying to see him?”
Two months later, Harris says he and his wife received word from Fresno County that the child was still available to foster. Harris says foster care professionals warned him that the child would not speak to him once they met, which he says discouraged him.
“They would say little things to my wife like, ‘if you get him’ and ‘we don’t know that you’ll be a good fit.’ you know? Discouraging things.”
According to Harris, staff also another comment he didn’t care for came in response to Harris saying he and his wife had familial ties to the child.
“They would say, ‘You’re not really family,’ and that really hurt me,” Harris said, “because I know his story, and I made such a good bond with him within just an hour.”
The cousin who encouraged the Harris family to adopt the child says she doesn’t understand why Fresno County would not expedite the process of getting the child into a stable home, considering how much the Harris family cares about children. The cousin also says she’s increasingly concerned because she says her nephew is currently in a home without constant supervision.
Marcel Harris is still hoping for the best, despite delays in the process, but says Fresno County foster care professionals should receive sensitivity training so no one else experiences what he has witnessed.
“I think they need to go back and reinvent the wheel when it comes to this,” Harris said.
In response to the allegations, Fresno County says it is never its intention to discourage anyone from fostering, adding that they “follow State regulations and guidelines for the resource family approval process required before individuals can become resource parents.”
