In a March 29 opinion article in Iowa's Press-Citizen newspaper, adoptive mother Marlene Jessop wrote about the great need for more foster parents:

Close your eyes and imagine for a moment that you are 7 years old. Everything you own is stuffed in a black garbage bag beside you. You sit in the backseat of a car as a social worker drives you to a different part of town to new home, and a new family, where you will be expected to learn new rules, attend a new school and make new friends.

If you are one of the nearly 6,000 children currently in foster care in Iowa or a resource family (commonly called foster families) who opened your heart to them, imagination is not necessary. ...

Nearly every community is suffering from a shortage of resource families. Children in foster care feel more secure and are likely to do better in school when they are able to stay in their own community.

The simple truth is that the larger the pool of qualified resource families, the easier it will be to ensure that children will not only achieve permanence in a timely manner but also that they can remain in their own neighborhoods and schools and stay together with their siblings more often.

Labels: foster care, foster_families, foster parents

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Montana's Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Department of Human Resources Development (CSKT DHRD) is hosting a training session for foster parents, adoptive parents and kinship caregivers September 24 at the KwaTaqNuk Resort.

The topic of the training is therapeutic parenting, and the session will be led by author and licensed clinical professional counselor Kate Cremer-Vogel. A Sept. 17 article by Lailani Upham of the Char-Koosta News provided the following information about the training:

Vogel wrote What Every Adoptive Parent Needs to Know: Healing Your Childs Wounded Heart, a compelling real-life story of a family struggling to overcome the effects of early abandonment and neglect on their adopted children. The book addresses essential therapeutic keys that ultimately brought the family hope and healing.

Ms. Cremer-Vogel uses an empathic approach to help parents bond deeper with their adopted/foster child. Cremer-Vogel believes the primary parent and child relationship is vital to the childs development and complete brain growth. In her training she teaches relational therapy to lead the parent and child into a more meaningful connection and understanding, deepening their mutual trust.

The parenting training is offered to foster parents but open to all parents, social workers and child care providers and teachers that would like to gain more understanding and learn how to effectively reach children.

For more information call CSKT Foster Care Licensor Shaunda Albert at (406) 675-2700, extension 1087.

Labels: foster_families, foster_care, education, recruitment, montana

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Children all over the country are in need of loving, stable foster care homes. Young people whose own families are in crisis need nurturing adults to care for them. The ability of foster care to meet this need was the subject of a letter to the editor that appeared in the May 26 edition of the Marshfield (Wisconsin) News Herald:

Most communities are urgently seeking more everyday people to help these youth overcome their troubled childhoods and realize their full potential.

No matter what their age, every young person in foster care benefits from a meaningful connection to a caring adult who becomes a supportive and lasting presence in his or her life.

Written by Liz Stern and Grace Bauer, who serve as foster care coordinators with the Wood County Department of Social Services, the letter also noted that May is Foster Care Month in the state of Wisconsin, and state officials are hoping this designation will encourage adults to explore the possibility of becoming a foster parent.

Labels: foster_families, foster_care

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Wayne, who was born in 1995, lives with foster parents. He loves being outside and being active, and is an animal lover who volunteers with a program that trains service dogs for people with disabilities. What he'd like most of all is to become a permanent part of a family.

"Wayne has experienced many transitions and losses in his young life without continuity or consistency. He has lived in many residential settings and will need some time to adjust to family life. His is fitting into the structure of his current foster home very well."

Wayne is one of over 150 children in the Maine Department of Health and Human Services foster care system that are seeking adoption. For more information about Wayne or other children in the Maine DHHS system, visit www.AFamilyForMe.org. Source: Seacoast Online

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By the age of 16, Deidre had lived with three foster care families, two of which considered adopting her. Neither adoption worked out, and when the second fell through, Deidre said, she closed off her emotions to avoid being hurt again.

"Unknown to her, however, the Hills had spotted her on an ongoing... television news feature, 'A Gift of Love,' in October 2006. The segment prompted them to search the Internet, where they located Deidre on the Heart Gallery website."

Two years later, with the adoption complete, Deidre is helping other members of her Kiwanis Club to create an adoption exhibit in conjunction with "Why Not Me?," a Texas campaign to raise awareness about the adoption needs of older foster care children. Source: Longview (TX) News-Journal

Labels: foster_families, awareness

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Doug and Michelle have been foster parents for half a dozen children. Now, two of those children can call him dad.

"[Doug and Michelle] adopted Cameron from foster care when he was 2. In April, they adopted Breanna, who is 2 and has lived with them since she was 9 months old."

The transition took some time for Cameron, who used to call Doug "Daddy Doug." But now he's just "dad." Source: The Journal-News, Hamilton, OH

Labels: foster_families, foster_care

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Circuit Court Judge David Gooding cheerfully wished Catherine "Happy Mother's Day" at the completion of her adoption proceedings last Friday. Catherine's adoption of her 17-year-old grandson marked the 400th adoption in the state of Florida since July 1st of last year.

"[Florida Lt. Gov. Jeff] Kottkamp said statistics show Florida has made great strides when it comes to placing foster children in homes. 'We have shortened the average waiting time it takes to find a home for a child from 14 months to 10 months,' said Kottkamp."

The adoption ceremonies on Friday (40 of them in all) also marked the unveiling of the state's new website "Explore Adoption: Finding Families for Florida's Kids." The website it part of Governor Charlie Crist's new initiative to promote public adoptions.

Labels: foster_families, milestones

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On Friday, April 25, New York Law School's Justice Action Center (JAC) will host a one day conference on adoption. The JAC is working in conjunction with the Center for Adoption Policy to gather some of today's leading adoption experts.

"This year's conference will focus on the structural, legal and societal barriers that delay adoption for children in the American foster care system who need families, and suggest measures to address problems that impede the formation of adoptive families for children in care."

Issues to be discussed include navigating the child welfare system, special needs adoptions, and choosing between international and domestic adoption. A $25 registration fee is required for the event. Source: PR Web

Labels: foster_families, foster_care, adoption_experts

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This week in Jacksonville, Florida, the adoptions of 69 children were finalized in a Duval County courtroom, making it the largest single-day adoption in the state of Florida.

"The children were in the foster-care system, but were given a fresh start just before the new year. One adoptive mother said the ceremony made official what she has felt for a long time."

Florida's Family Support Services also stated that, though it has yet to be verified, this could have been largest one-day adoption in U.S. history.

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Labels: foster_families, foster_care, adoptive_families

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Many people consider adopting a child, but stop short because the process seems overwhelming or drawn out. But Chrystal Main, social services chief for Nevada's Child and Family Services, says it's better than most people think.

"'I know there's a stigma about the paperwork and the background checks,' she said. But we have streamlined the process. We certainly like to say to adopt, it can take under a year - and could be faster than half a year. It doesn't take nearly the length of time people think it does.'"

Currently, in the rural counties of Nevada, more than 470 children are eligible for adoption. They range in age from infants to seventeen-year-olds who are about to "age out" of the foster care system.

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Labels: foster_families, foster_care, adoption_process

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The Dave Thomas Foundation has awarded a generous grant to the Children's Home of the Wyoming Conference. The grant will allow staffer Linda Pipkin to devote herself full-time to the business of finding adoptive parents for the children in the home.

"She'll look first at foster families who have grown close to a child in their home. Maybe adoption is a possibility? She'll also determine which adults may have been significant in a child's life at one point or another. Perhaps those adults are able to commit to adopting the child. Actively recruiting families, she hopes, will result in more stable situations for those 89 children who desperately need stability and permanency in their lives."

The grant comes from a program called Wendy's Wonderful Kids. The program's specific vision is to help foster care and adoption agencies hire full-time recruiters who can devote all their time to matching children with adoptive families.

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Labels: foster_families, foster_care, permanent_adoptive_homes

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