Parent Talk / February 2007
Home Town Love
Over 3100 children are under the care of the WV Department of Health and Human Resources Some have been placed outside the supervision of their parents or caretakers because of abuse or neglect. Some are removed from their homes because of parental substance or incarceration. Some simply need temporary respite from troubled families, others may require a permanent solution.
Depending on their age and situations, the children are in a variety of settings. Some babies, toddlers or tweens are cared for in emergency shelters for a brief period. Teens may be part of a single group home or live in one of several different kinds congregate living arrangements, from campus-like dorms to multiple nearby cottages.
Over 1600 of those 3100 children are in family-based foster care settings, in homes provided by caring adults that are carefully recruited, trained and monitored by agencies overseen by the DHHR.
The numbers actually indicate some good news-in 2003, over 4000 children were in the state’s child care system. And in the past few years, a twenty-first century trend of declining numbers of foster families has been reversed. But, that’s still a lot of children looking for a home.
Both public and private agencies are involved in the solution. Private agencies working diligently to pair kids with the best people and places can be nonprofit, like Try Again Homes, incorporated in 1976, with offices in Fairmont, Parkersburg and Pennsylvania, or for-profit, like Braley and Thompson, established in 1979, with offices in Parkersburg, St. Albans, Virginia and Florida.
In their search for a physically safe and emotionally nurturing environment supervised by responsible, caring adults, the agencies always look first for something close to home.
But, in October of 2006, 343 West Virginia children in the state’s custody were living out of state. Some are just across the river, but many are in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia.
According to Merena Melott of Try Again Homes, “Children are often placed away from their communities, schools, churches, friends, and family. They are placed in foster homes in other areas of WV due to a lack of foster homes within their own communities. Our goal is to keep children in their own counties and communities. However, there simply aren’t enough foster homes in some regions to meet the needs of the foster care system.”
She says it’s disturbing because, “Children in foster care have already suffered the loss of being removed from their birth families; in addition they are losing the familiarity of their own communities. It is important to realize that any consistency that can be offered at such a difficult time will make the transition into a foster home a little easier for children.”
The search for potential foster families goes on in all areas of WV.
Patty Clark of Braley and Thompson, says, “Foster parenting can be extremely rewarding. Usually, reunification of the family is the goal, but not always. Sometimes a return to the natural parents isn’t possible and the children are adopted. The parents might originally have wanted to foster a child, but the relationship evolved. The need for foster families is critical. We could place a hundred children each year if we could find a hundred new foster families each year.”
Foster parents are people willing and able to provide a safe, nurturing environment to children who have very limited options. Along with a monetary stipend, they will receive training, support and practical assistance like positive, sensible discipline techniques. Foster parents can be married, single, divorced, working full time or working part time, with their own children or with no kids. The children they take in range from newborns to 18 and foster parents can select the number, gender, age and race of children they will welcome to their home.
To learn more, contact Merena Melott, 304-422-3159 or 1-800-242-7213 or call Patty Clark, 304- 295-5175.
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