Before Maddie Lemay went to prom, she had a checklist of adults she needed to ask for permission.

Her caseworker from the Division of Children, Youth and Families was the first to sign off. Then she needed a staff member from her group home to take her.

She’d transferred high schools after being removed from her parents care at 17. To go to prom with her childhood friends at her old high school, she also needed the green light from the administration to come back for the tradition.

As an older teen, Lemay felt foster care was a non-starter. Now, at age 24, she still wonders how her experience would have been different if that time was spent in a home instead of an institution.

“You also have a sense of normalcy. You’re going to a house and not a building. It’s filled with people, but it’s so lonely,” she said. “At home, you have that sense of, ‘I can go to school, I can go to prom, I can do whatever,’ and it doesn’t require as much approval or hoop jumping.”

New Hampshire currently lacks licensed foster homes, particularly for teenage children like Lemay.

Across the state, the Division for Children, Youth and Families is making a public pitch to parents: “We need all of you.”

“We really need foster parents in New Hampshire,” Heather Hall, a recruitment and retention specialist for the state, said at a public event in Concord. “How great would it be if every foster child that entered care, they went to one foster home and then they were reunified with their parents? We know that’s not always the case, but that’s a goal of ours.”

Needs in New Hampshire

The first and foremost goal in child protective cases is to place juveniles with other family or friends.

“We’re actually a kinship-first state,” said Hall. “We’re going to do our due diligence to see if there is a blood relative that is willing, able and appropriate for that child to be placed with.”

Less than half of children in care get afforded that opportunity, according to state data on foster placements.

Of the 1,200 youth in care, nearly 450 are in placements with kin. Another 450 are in foster homes, while 300 children are in congregate care settings that include residential treatment facilities, group homes and youth detention centers.

The state’s needs don’t match the preferences of prospective foster parents, according to survey data.

About one-third of children in state care are teenagers over the age of 14 years old, while infants make up just five percent. Yet most families expressed a desire to provide care for a baby or young child. For example, over 60 percent of parents indicated they preferred to accept an infant, and those numbers steadily decreased with older children. Just 22 percent of respondents said they would foster a teenager, according to the results of a state survey.

That means older youth like Lemay are often left with limited options for care. For children with disabilities, available placements are even more scarce. A current lawsuit accuses the state of unnecessarily institutionalizing older teens with disabilities due to the lack of foster families.

Last year, the state put out a request for contracts to create a therapeutic foster care program, where families would be reimbursed at higher rates with more severe needs. No bids were submitted from providers.

As a result, the state is also looking for families who will accept children with special needs, including autism, as well as wheelchair users and youth with diabetes.

To Hall, an ideal starting point for finding a placement for children in care would be a comprehensive list of foster families she could call. She’d have options to see what is closest to the youth’s community and be able to meet the specific needs of the child.

“We know when we’re able to do that and we’re able to match needs of the child with the specific skill set of foster parents that’s going to help those children,” she said.

‘Nobody wants a teenager’

As a child, Lemay was no stranger to case workers from the Division for Children, Youth and Families.

Her mom had cycled in and out of prison and drug use was frequent among family members. When she was a junior in high school in the Lakes Region, a case worker dropped by her house for a surprise visit.

At 17, she was removed from her family’s care and placed at the Chase Home, a group residence for youth, in Dover.

She says she’s lucky her experience was marked by one stable placement, where she was able to complete her high school education and remain close to family and friends.

Still, the experience was atypical.

Living in a group home meant being subject to constant rules and supervision, she said. Everything was scheduled, pre-approved or earned.

After a few months, Lemay was allowed out of the house unsupervised for an hour. Soon, that was upped to four hours. The ultimate reward was a weekend visit back home.

But at the same time, these were thought of as privileges. They’d be gone in a moment’s notice at the staff’s discretion.

“The ability that they have to just be like, ‘you’re not going to your families this weekend,’ that is such a horrible punishment,” she said. “You’re taking away their normalcy, that’s their family at the end of the day.”

A foster home placement was never a consideration, she said.

“There were just no foster homes available. Nobody wants a teenager either,” she said. “Everybody wants the shiny new baby.”

When she aged out of the system at 18, she wanted nothing to do with the state. After a few months experiencing homelessness, she picked up the phone and called her case worker for help. Today, Lemay advises state leaders on policy changes through the Youth Success Project, so that kids in the system can avoid what she experienced.

Lemay would like to see better support for foster parents through higher reimbursement rates and trauma-informed training. When case workers change, she’d like a warm handoff between personnel, giving kids the chance to build a relationship with their new point of contact at the state.

To Lemay, these changes come with sharing her story publicly. Through the Youth Success Project, she’s led training sessions for child protection staff and tried to put a face and a name to the scenarios lawmakers hear about.

After a conference, Lemay got an email from a foster parent. The state had called her about a boy who had a checkered history but needed a placement. Without the foster family, his next option would have been a residential program.

The parent admitted she was going to pass on the case. After hearing Lemay’s experience, she changed her mind.

“The fact that we’re already seeing change,” Lemay said, “even if it’s just one person, we’re touching people.”

Michaela Towfighi can be reached at mtowfighi@ cmonitor.com