By Katie Finklea | Instagram
Foster Care is the hardest thing my husband and I ever walked into. Foster Care is also the most honoring thing that my husband and I ever walked into.
In honor of National Foster Care awareness month, I wanted to share some ideas and thoughts I wish would had resonated with me before taking our first of 11 foster care placements.
These are some top principles I would share with you over coffee. I hope you find them transparent, startling, eye-opening and encouraging.
1. It is not nearly as scary as I thought.
When we got our first phone call for a placement, my heart was pounding, and I started scrubbing things in my house that I had never had a desire to scrub in my life. I was searching for control and I was scared. Scared that we would fail and scared that this kid would be terrible and make us not want to foster again. I was scared for my 2 ½ year old and 11 month old and what they would experience. I was just plain scared.
Then he came to the door with the transportation worker. That blond hair and those big brown eyes instantly melted the fear away. He was simply a kid. A kid who liked mac n cheese, and soccer balls, and bubble baths, and hated bed time.
Did he have trauma? Yes. Were there some odd things we came across that we didn’t anticipate? Yes. But it wasn’t scary. HE wasn’t scary.
2. The church as a whole has no clue how to support foster parents.
Two years ago, before I became a foster parent, I ran into a friend who I hadn’t seen in weeks. “How are you?” I asked. She had just started fostering a sibling group of three kids about two months earlier. Tears formed in her eyes and she began to weep.
“You are the first person in weeks to ask how I have been,” she said. I was stunned–partially because this woman was clearly struggling and isolated, but even more so because this woman was an active member of her church and led Bible studies. She was plugged into her church community and it was no secret to anyone she was fostering.
Has anyone brought you a meal or asked to watch the kids to give you a break?”
“No,” she said. “But plenty of people tell me they are praying for me.”
Are you surprised to hear that this family no longer fosters? Fifty percent of families stop fostering after the first year due to lack of support and burn out. Many times the burn out has nothing to do with the children they are bringing in their home, but simply to do with dealing with the broken foster care system, and little support from their community and church.
Unfortunately this is the norm. The body of Christ has a responsibility to be the village to foster families. Not everyone is called to be on the front line, but everyone can do something and rally around a family for the long term.
Mentor the child, offer babysitting, bring a meal, get background-checked according to your state requirements and offer that family respite for a weekend. [Visit Katie’s post about more ideas on how the church can support families who are fostering children.]3. The goal of foster care is reunification, not adoption.
The ultimate goal of fostering is reunification. When a new foster family enters into foster care with the initial thought of adoption, they need to adjust their thoughts and reconsider foster care all together.
This is hard, and I struggle with this as well, but adoption is not the goal. Family preservation is the goal. Not family preservation at all costs, but we need to hope that the biological family can get the help they need to stand up and parent their child. We as foster parents give their child a safe and loving home while the family gets the help they need. That shows Christ’s redemption all over. That is the goal of foster care.
Of course family preservation is not always feasible and when it is not, there is a beauty in that adoption. But beauty never comes without a deep place of darkness for the biological family and the child.
So many times the biological family loves the child more than society can understand, but they simply don’t have the skill set to raise the child. The skill set isn’t there because that biological parent was a former foster child and never experienced normalcy. Then cycle continues and they lose full custody of their child. It is heartbreaking for them and also for the child to digest later in life.
So there is beauty in adoption, but there is a need for homes to truly be foster parents, and pray and cheer these bio parents on in hopes that reunification can happen.
4. The impact is immense.
This may seem obvious, but the ripple effects of offering a stable home to a child can be even more impactful than ever believed. Did you know that up to 80% of those who are sex trafficked come from children who are in the foster system?
According to Case.Org, studies show that 60% to 80% of child sex trafficking victims recovered by the FBI are from foster care or group homes. “Victims are trained to call sex traffickers “daddies” and themselves “wifey” – a perverted reflection of the family unit that these children are seeking. These children long for a family … even if it means being subjected to extreme violence and abuse.”
Gaining awareness and helping sex trafficking victims is vital, but instead of focusing on pulling them out of the river, we must focus on never letting them step foot in the river in the first place. Stable foster homes are one of the major antidotes for curing human trafficking.
Is foster care for everyone? No. But if you have been on the fence about opening your door to a vulnerable child, I encourage you to grab onto that thought and take the first step in going to an info session. The forever impact of loving bravely could be larger than you ever could imagine.
Check out a recent podcast, Mommin’ Ain’t Easy, interviewing Katie!
About Katie:
Katie is the founder of Loving Well Living Well, an adoption/foster care advocacy platform geared toward educating believers in their role in orphan care. She is also a foster mom, adoptive mom, biological mom and passionate for orphan care and promoting the Church’s role in meeting the needs of vulnerable children. Katie has also worked with birth mothers pre and post placement. Follow Katie on Instagram and Facebook.
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I have three books to giveaway this month, so keep an eye out for them! This week, I’m giving away a copy of Long Days of Small Things: Motherhood as Spiritual Discipline. You can read my review here, but it’s a fabulous book to buy for moms of young children who need a breath of fresh air. Sign up for my newsletter by this Friday at midnight (MT) and I’ll send you a copy! Already signed up? Then like the Instagram post I put up on 5/8 and tag up to four friends in the comments section (I’ll enter your name once per friend you tag)! Sorry, only U.S. residents and no bots allowed. 😉
It would make a fabulous mother’s day gift for a mom in the trenches!
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This month on Scraping Raisins, we’re talking about adoption, foster care and children. If you’re interested in guest posting about this theme, shoot me an email at scrapingraisins (dot) gmail (dot) com. The theme for June is “Create,” so you can also be thinking ahead for that, too. Be sure to check back or follow me on social media so you don’t miss the fabulous guest posters I have lined up this month!
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