If You’re Reading This, You Can Foster!
“It takes a special person to foster.”
“I don’t know how you do it; I sure couldn’t.”
“I could never give them back.”
“I’d get way too attached.”
“My spouse doesn’t want to.”
“My kids are too young.”
And on, and on, and on.
When people hear that we are foster parents, I usually get at least one of the responses above. And time and time again, I feel disheartened at just how little people actually know about how foster care works and what it means to foster.
We’ve chosen to be foster parents, which means we’ve committed to welcoming children into our home for however long they need to be with us. That part of fostering isn’t for everyone. Perhaps you don’t have the bedroom space for another child. Maybe your spouse is adamantly against it. Or, maybe you aren’t in an emotional state to endure the rollercoaster that comes with each child.
Guess what? You can still foster!
Serving children in foster care goes so far beyond having a child move into your house. And when I step back and look at what our life looks like as foster parents, caring for a foster kid is just one item on a very long list of 24/7 to-dos.
While we’re wrestling with the physical and emotional weight of caring for a child that’s not our own for an extended period of time, we’re also:
Doing their laundry (and our own).
Driving them to mandatory doctor and dentist appointments.
Participating in weekly (sometimes more) therapy sessions.
Coordinating parent visits multiple times a week.
Facilitating video calls with parents.
Documenting everything.
Attending court hearings.
Filling out so much paperwork.
Regularly welcoming caseworkers into our home.
Preparing 3 meals a day, oftentimes for picky eaters who have food insecurities.
Keeping our home clean and up to code for licensing.
Participating in required trainings, emergency drills, and inspections.
Talking on the phone to attorneys.
Emotionally attaching ourselves to children who will likely leave our home.
This isn’t meant to build us up or make us look better than other parents. What it’s meant to display is the fact that without a support system, we will drown. Parenting is already quite the undertaking, but fostering parenting? It’s a whole new level.
So yeah, being an actual foster parent might not be for you, and that is totally okay. But you can be a foster person—that is, someone who serves foster care in small but essential ways other than being a licensed foster parent.
These are kids’ lives at stake. Breathing, growing, beautiful children who have been uprooted from their homes and placed with strangers. There is no reason why you can’t be a part of foster care, even if it just means serving a foster parent once a month in a small way. Each of the extra tasks listed above takes time, energy, and resources—most of which we’re running low on already.
That being said, here are a few ways you can serve foster families and become a foster person:
Bring them a hot meal once a month.
Offer to babysit for an afternoon or evening so the foster parents can go out without kids.
Clean their bathrooms. They’re the most ignored room in the house but usually in need of the most attention.
Provide transportation to visits.
Mow their lawn!
Grocery shop. They provide the list and the cash, and you do the shopping!
Make birthday cakes for their foster kids. Bring balloons!
Become a CASA volunteer (more info on this here).
Take their kids back-to-school shopping.
Make a photo book for their foster kids (Google photo sharing makes this super easy!).
I firmly believe that a huge reason why the foster care system is so broken is that foster parents aren’t getting the support they need. Caseworkers and agencies are overloaded—that’s a known fact—but what they lack in support can and should be made up for by the community. And that community is you!
Just because you aren’t able to become a licensed foster parent doesn’t mean you should avoid foster care and all it entails. It’s literally never too late to get started, so start fostering … today!