Children who lose their childhoods to the foster care system can tell disturbing stories about lonely holidays and a stranger in every room.

Some foster parents can tell equally harrowing stories of the struggles they face after agreeing to care for children entangled in dysfunction.

They invest emotions and money in helping children whose own parents are struggling and failing to properly raise them. In some cases, they meet with frustration and helplessness in trying to fulfill their promises to the children and the system.

Some believe a foster parents bill of rights would help.

Arlene and Jack Wolfe of Yutan, previous foster parents to 31 children in four years, have seen how fickle the system can be in moving kids around and how spotty the communication.

“You get to the point where you don’t trust,” Arlene Wolfe said.

Camelia and James Rogers of Omaha can tell what it’s like to have two little girls dropped at their home from emergency shelter with no information about their traumatic young lives, just names and ages.

“We didn’t know what they liked to play with, whether the (1-year-old) drank milk or formula, their clothes sizes,” Camelia Rogers said.

Nineteen-year-old former foster child Cynthia Woodbury of Wahoo can tell about a childhood of neglect by her biological parent and of raising her three younger siblings. Then, at the age of 16, finally asking for help, only to end up struggling within the foster care system.

She had found, for the first time, a family that finally felt like home, she said. But she had to fight to stay with them through a couple of failed attempts at reunification with her mother and another incident of removal from her foster family.

“They were the best thing that had ever happened to me,” she said.

James Schreiner, 19, of Yutan, can also tell stories, one of them revealing the effect of being in 12 placements — including Boys Town, a group home and 10 foster families — in 10 years, starting at age 8.

Just this past year, he said, he had three caseworkers in 10 weeks.

He and his two brothers, one older and one younger, grew apart. He lost whatever sense of security he had, and he finds it hard to make friends.

“Love and family? I didn’t have that,” he said.

He developed a good relationship with his last family, the Wolfes, but felt they didn’t get the help they needed.

“If foster parents need help, the state needs to help them out,” he said.

Last year, 452 exit surveys were sent by HHS to foster parents leaving the system. Of the 15 percent that were returned, the top three reasons listed for getting out of foster care were:

*  Disagreement with HHS policy and procedure. The parents said they do not understand their roles and responsibilities, are denied renewal of licensure without written notice or due process, and are licensed and then never given placements.

* Frustration with Protection and Safety workers. They don’t feel like part of the team, are not given adequate information but are expected to sign a form saying they received all information about a child in their care, are not informed of their responsibilities at the time of placement, and phone calls to caseworkers are not returned and face-to-face monthly contact does not occur.

* Adoption of children in their care.

Nobody denies Nebraska’s foster care system has problems. State officials and others are trying to find ways to fix it — slowly. In the meantime, young people much like Schreiner and Woodbury risk psychological damage. And the system loses people willing to be good surrogate parents.

Sen. Annette Dubas of Fullerton introduced legislation (LB461) this session that would give foster parents a list of rights. Those would include rights to training and support; to communicate with professionals such as therapists, physicians, and teachers who work with a foster child; to communicate with the child’s birth family, other foster parents of the child, and adoptive parents.

Sen. Tom Hansen of North Platte also introduced a bill (LB457) that would require a judge who is reviewing foster care placement in court to ask questions of foster parents, preadoptive parents or relatives caring for children.

Bruce Rieker, who adopted two foster children, said at a hearing on the bill that no one can more passionately represent children than their foster parents.

“These children have rights. They deserve to have a voice,” he said.

At the end of January, HHS reported 2,301 licensed foster homes in the state. In addition, 1,837 homes have been approved for particular children, such as those being cared for by relatives, or sibling groups.

The majority of children in foster care enter the system because of parental neglect. Many also have parents who abuse drugs or alcohol, including methamphetamine. Other issues include unsafe or substandard housing, physical or sexual abuse, abandonment and children’s own behaviors.

Many of them come to foster families with special medical and psychological needs. Babies exposed to a mother’s meth use, for example, can have neurological damage, specific emotional problems and physical ills that need treatment.

Foster parents could more easily help the children in their care if they knew more about their problems and life experiences, Rogers said, and why they have debilitating fears or unusual behaviors.

But a lot of information is withheld, she said.

“It’s not a violation of (biological) parent confidentiality to know a child’s life experiences,” she said.

Camelia and James Rogers got married in August 2004 and became foster parents in 2005 after completing 27 hours of training and investing thousands of dollars in bedroom furnishings, clothes and toys and in childproofing their house.

On Oct. 27, 2005, a baby girl two days short of her first birthday and her 3-year-old sister came to their southwest Omaha home.

The couple knew the girls’ names and ages, and that they had been in emergency shelter a month and a half. That’s all they knew about their young wards.

They didn’t know that their home was the fourth foster placement for the 3-year-old, and that she would be traumatized for several weeks when left at day care because she did not trust her new caretaker would come back to get her. No trust even though Camelia Rogers told her every day, I will not leave you.

She didn’t know the baby’s horrible rash was probably an after-effect of meth exposure in the womb, one that needed special treatment.

If the problems of the little ones in her care and the lack of information wasn’t bad enough, Rogers said she had trouble getting the children’s caseworker to return phone calls and e-mails.

“All caseworkers have good intentions. They want to help parents and children get through these problems,” Rogers said. “But (Health and Human Services) as a whole doesn’t help caseworkers do their jobs.”

The Foster Care Review Board says case managers are hindered by layers of bureaucracy that decrease effective communication.

Former foster child Woodbury said her foster parents looked out for her best interests, but were punished for it.

“They were looked down on for being annoying, looked down on for advocating for me,” she said.

Many of the rights that Dubas’ bill lays out are already supported in existing policies, guidebooks and practices, said Todd Reckling, administrator for the office of protection and safety.

Many foster parents don’t know that.

Margaret Bitz, team leader with the office of protection and safety, said HHS policy is to share information.

But caseworkers don’t always have information to give to foster parents, especially when the child is being placed for the first time.

Many of the children are from low-income families and may not have had good health care, said  Reckling,  and so that information is hard to gather and pass on.

A mentor line can answer many questions, he said. But when needed, issues should be addressed by someone in the department if not the caseworker, then a supervisor.

“We’re trying to be as responsive as we can,” Reckling said.

At the early February hearing on the bill of rights, Reckling offered a list of supports offered to foster parents. They included an inquiry line for potential foster parents, annual training conferences, mentors and a quarterly newsletter.

Reckling cautioned that rights granted by law could lead to unintended increased liability for the state.

“Anytime a right is created by law, if that right is violated, a person can sue for damages,” he said in testimony.

He suggested alternate language for the bill that would say the Legislature intends the department do those things listed in the bill, but that nothing contained in the bill could be “construed to create a private right of action.”

Sen. Joel Johnson, chair of the Health and Human Services Committee, said the committee would be cautious in preceding with the bill because of the potential for lawsuits.

Reach JoAnne Young at 473-7228 or jyoung@journalstar.com.