I never thought we would have an only child. When we first got married in 2012, my husband and I used to discuss whether we would have three or four children – he wanted three, and I wanted four. Now, looking back on those dreamy, doe-eyed “arguments,” they feel silly. We’re 12 years into marriage, 10 years into parenting, and I’m reminded daily that contentment and longing can go hand in hand.
There is value in waiting, praying, discussing, considering, and drawing nearer to one another. It’s okay to mourn regularly while counting our blessings. Life in a broken, hurting world demands this rhythm – this balancing act. My husband and I are choosing more often to look up and say: “Thank you” instead of looking around, comparing ourselves to others, and asking: “why?”
If we did humbly ask “why,” though, one of the answers may be foster care. Over the past four months, we have gone through the process of becoming a licensed foster care family through One More Child. I’ve learned so much about the need for families to come alongside hurting parents and children and be a resource and support for healing. Over the years, my husband and I talked about adoption and foster care – and finally made the decision to get licensed after a month of praying and research as a family. The ultimate goal of foster care starts with reunification, as research shows it is best for children to be with biological family or close friends/kin with whom they already have a relationship. The process of opening our home was significant and uncomfortable, though it has already been accompanied by great blessing.
As we sifted through mounds of paperwork and began our classwork, we were encouraged by a One More Child trainer and foster parent, Laura Wells. The Wells have been a foster family for six years and have had 24 children placed in their care. They have had children for as little as one night to as long as 18 months. The Wells family recently moved into the One More Child home in Fort Myers to be able to take in more sibling groups, as the space was originally designed to serve as a group home. Laura shared her story with us. “My dad was a foster child, and he didn’t get to stay with his sibling. His story is one of continued abuse, dysfunction, and neglect. But from ages 5-10, he was in a functional foster home, which profoundly impacted the trajectory of his life. Because of foster care, my dad met and married my mom. Foster care saved me from generational dysfunction, and now we’re a foster family.”
I asked Laura when she and her husband decided to become a licensed foster family. “We have five biological children. When we were in the hospital for my third, I asked my husband, ‘Why are we waiting? There’s never going to be a perfect time to start.’ And we started the process. Foster care is such an important part of my story. It’s always been in me to be a foster parent. I look at how my dad was welcomed by a woman who didn’t know him. I’m saying yes to my dad and his siblings every time I welcome a child into my home.”
Our training opened my eyes to the idea of trauma-informed care. As we enter situations and assess behaviors of children joining our family, we must ask, “What happened to you?” and “What do you need?” instead of “What’s wrong with you?” Laura shared with me about the need for trust-based relational intervention, which was a focus of our training. “Physiological change happens because of trauma. Children have to feel safe; we can’t just tell them they’re safe. It takes time and quick thinking. Our biological kids can handle small disappointments, but we must recognize that children coming into our homes are fragile. And so, we demonstrate consistency and fill their buckets with drops of love and consistency. A lot of behaviors are helped through tiny routines; traumatized children require slow healing over time.”
Janelle Hanaburgh directed our training sessions and continues to serve as a resource for us at One More Child. Thankfully, because of the pandemic, the entire foster care training process takes place online now, which theoretically makes it easier for families to obtain licensure. Hanaburgh noted the immense need for families to pursue licensure. “In the month of August alone, there were nearly 17,000 children placed outside of their homes in the state of Florida due to abuse, abandonment, or neglect. Fostering children from your local community makes a huge impact on the children’s ability to stay in their school, keep important connections with teachers, friends, and family, and have access to other familiar parts of their life, only improving their academic, mental, and emotional outlook, and overall wellbeing during their time in care. Becoming a safe home for a child in crisis can truly save a life and allow you to be a part of putting families back together whenever safe and possible.”
As we completed the training, we were often reminded about the goal of foster care: reunification. Foster families provide necessary care while biological parents complete court-mandated activities and receive support. “Most biological parents DO love their children,” Hanaburgh reiterated. “Their ability to care for their children and meet their needs in a way that would be considered safe and satisfactory to the Department of Children and Families has been impeded often due to substance abuse issues, mental health challenges, not having had proper and safe parenting modeled for them, or lack of resources and support. Foster parents can encourage, cheer on, and model proper parenting for biological parents.”
Unfortunately, though the process of becoming a foster family is easier and more seamless now, there has been a significant drop in the number of licensed families since the pandemic in 2020. “We lost families during COVID due to their valid concerns about the virus and children or workers being in and out of the home, possibly increasing the risk of exposure,” Hanaburgh explained. “Some foster parents were impacted personally and significantly by the virus – either through illness or loss of a loved one, requiring them to shift their focus and efforts. Others still were impacted financially by loss of jobs or wages through direct or indirect fallout. Now, fewer people think about stepping into the space of fostering for these same reasons. With so many other stressors, both from COVID and other challenges, such as economic downturn and [hurricane damage], it can be hard for families that would have otherwise considered fostering to imagine spreading themselves, their resources, and their families even thinner.”
Laura and I talked about the decrease in the number of foster families – and the growing need for foster families. “I hear it a lot,” she shared, “people say things like, ‘I would do it, but the system is so bad. I would have a hard time letting them go back to a bad situation.’ My response is to remind them that our call is to love them for a moment, to show them what a healthy family looks like, and to get them involved and help them discover their gifts and abilities.”
The need is so great. Laura encourages families, “If you have a spare room, take someone in. The impact on your own children, to foster children, to people you meet along the way is so great – it’s a ripple effect. You can change the whole trajectory of someone’s life. My foster grandma had no idea the harvest that would come from caring for others in their time of need. There are generations beyond what we see today in which we are investing.”
Becoming licensed took a greater investment of time and energy that we originally anticipated, but our file has finally been approved by One More Child, Children’s Network of Southwest Florida, and DCF. And, the training was also much more informative and valuable than I ever thought possible. I’ll be sharing monthly about our journey as a foster family in the magazine and on neafamily.com. For more information on becoming a licensed foster family, visit onemorechild.org.