LANSING - The state is suffering a painful shortage of foster parents, and part of the problem may be the system itself, says Department of Human Services (DHS) Director Ismael Ahmed.

“The child welfare system needs reformation,” Ahmed said. “We need to take a closer look at it, make changes and garner our resources.”

In any given year, only 2,600 children find a foster home out of the 4,000 in need.

To help find a family for the nearly 4,000 foster children who need a home and provide a strong foundation for the rest of their lives, the Michigan Adoption Resource Exchange is producing the Michigan Heart Gallery, a photography exhibit featuring some of the state’s foster children.

The goal of the exhibit is to help find homes for children that need them, said Heart Gallery director Regina Funkhouser.

“The Heart Gallery hopes to shed light on a group of children we know really need some extra special attention,” Funkhouser said. “The intention of the gallery is to drive people to the Web site to get more information about adoption.”

The Jackson-based organization is “an information and referral service for prospective adoptive parents interested in adopting children with ‘special needs’ and for adoption workers looking for homes for these children.”

Nearly 50 Michigan photographers participated in the project, photographing roughly 60 children.

Robert Hendricks, Lansing photographer and photo adviser for the State News, Michigan State University’s student paper, has shot two photos for the gallery, the latest featuring a 7-year-old in Lansing.

“It’s a good way to cast these children in a positive light,” Hendricks said. “It was also a good outlet for me to get my camera out and take some pictures.”

This is the gallery’s third appearance in Michigan. It kicked off in Grand Rapids and will travel to Traverse City, Lansing, Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, Southfield and Detroit, among other cities. The schedule can be found online at www.miheart.org/2008.

The state’s foster care system came under attack from the New York-based Children’s Rights Inc., alleging in a lawsuit that the system is dangerously understaffed and responsible for the deaths of five children in foster care.

The “national watchdog organization” blamed the deaths partly on the excessive number of foster cases assigned to each caseworker.

“Generally, the hope of DHS management appears to be to stay within 30 cases,” the organization said. “Although DHS is not capable of producing administrative data to show the number of DHS or private agency caseworkers whose caseloads exceed 30 children, it is widely acknowledged that there are many.”

Another major problem facing children in foster care is aging out. Once a child turns 18 or graduates from high school, he is she is no longer the responsibility of the state. Nearly 500 children age out of the system every year.

Funkhouser said that statistically, they are more likely to face teen pregnancy, homelessness and trouble with the law than children who are set up with a family.

“The outlook for children that age out of the system is grim,” Funkhouser said. “It is economically a bad idea for our community. Socially it’s a bad idea for our community, not to mention the personal cost to house these 500 kids who are not connected with a family.”

To adopt a child, prospective foster parents must provide three references and pass both a background check and a home inspection.

“There are no income requirements, you don't need to own your home,” Funkhouser said. “Honestly, there are so many children with so many different kinds of needs that so many different kinds of families are necessary.”

A child like Shae, February’s featured child on the organization’s Web site, for example, would do best in a sibling-free environment with a single female adult.