Our local newspaper is covering the desperate need for foster parents this month. As Jenna pointed out yesterday, May is National Foster Care Month. The national slogan for the month is “change a lifetime,” referring to the lives of children who enter foster care. It is a change all right. While the final results of living in foster care, usually outweigh the initial horror children experience when entering foster care, they rarely consider throwing a party over the whole experience. The best analogy I have heard to describe what is it like for a child to enter foster care is this. Imagine that the police came to your home and took just you, to another family, in a different home. Once in your new home, you were introduced to your new family, new rules, shown your new bed, new pets, given new clothes, and toys. You were not allowed to bring any of your stuff, or speak to any of your original family, for over a week.

Then, for the next year, you were allowed to see your family for one hour a week. When you asked when you could go home you were continuously told, “I don’t know by everyone.” As you can see from this analogy, the new home might offer more amenities and be safer, but what a horrific shock to a child. As you are aware, many of these children never go home. Either they age out of foster care, over 20,000 a year, basically homeless, or they are adopted. The foster parents, people they have at least gotten used to and possibly learned to love, adopt some of these children. Other children must wait until an adoptive family can be recruited to adopt them. Again, they are told, “I don’t know,” then they move to a new family, new rules, well you get the picture. While the adoptive parents celebrate finally having a forever child, it is rarely a celebration to the child, at least initially.

There are over 513,000 children in the American foster care system. Almost any adult can be a foster parent. You don’t have to be married, own a home, have a certain income, or have a stay at home parent. My mother is 68 years old, a widow, and has been fostering teenage girls for almost a decade. While foster care isn’t perfect, research indicates that children who have a caring adult, who stays in their lives, are more likely to be successful as adults.

For more information about National Foster Care Month, planned community events, and the many ways in which you can make a lasting difference for America's children and youth in foster care call l-888-799-KIDS (5437) or click on the link.

Source: BattleCreekEnquirer.com



Photo Credit: 2007 Julia Fuller.