There’s no question foster families need more support. When half of foster parents quit within a year of starting, something isn’t working. When about a third of children experience placement instability, that’s not OK.
But in the face of such a serious challenge, there’s a temptation to go right to the fix. What do they need? A meal? A mentor? Respite? A support group? A volunteer?
Fostering Hope took a different approach more than 20 years ago by asking foster parents themselves.
Listening and Learning
Foster parents described with remarkable consistency the same challenges. Practically, their calendars were just too full. Court dates and family visits. School meetings and activities. Doctor’s appointments and therapies – lots of them. All on top of the ordinary responsibilities of raising a family. They desperately wanted quality time with the children, and they knew the position they were in to help the children heal. They just didn’t have bandwidth.
But even heavier was the emotional toll. They felt isolated, noting that friends and family came around less often in part due to the chaos. Not only did these relationships fade away, sometimes family or friends, well-intentioned and misguided, tried to dissuade them from their work. They lacked a voice in the decisions made about the children they cared for. And, of course, they grieved the losses and experienced the hardship of the behaviors. They talked about the guilt they felt when their biological children didn’t get the time with their parents they deserved.
From a desire to a design
What took shape through these conversations was a theme that would become the Fostering Hope model. The foster parents described the desire for an extended family. People who would show up, without judgement, ready to serve or even just be. Not something else to manage or be responsible for. Not a revolving door of well-meaning people with their own ideas. The parents described a group of friends whom they could trust to help with whatever they might need in a given week and could be there through the ups and downs. They didn’t need parenting advice. They didn’t need fixers. They needed loving helpers. They needed friends.
Fostering Hope formed by methodically addressing each of these needs and concerns, one-by-one. In order to address these things, it was clear professional facilitation was needed. A coordinator who could prevent this from becoming “work” for the family while ensuring that it was not too much for the volunteers. Training was needed, not only for safety, but so volunteers understood what loving service looked like and did not do the things that might be harmful like providing unsolicited advice.
We knew that this was not about the parents, or the children, but the entire family. Volunteers could provide child care for the foster children so that foster parents could give their biological children some quality time. Date nights could help couples manage the stress wedging itself into their relationship. And sometimes just having a group of people listen patiently as a parent shared their frustration or sadness was as important as any given task that week.
Out of listening came healing
When foster parents got the kind of support they knew they needed, the impact was immediate. Their overwhelm went down. Children’s behaviors improved. Home started to feel like home again. Children began doing better in school. Foster parents became more capable of attuning to their children’s needs. Volunteers became good friends. At some point, it was a program that didn’t really look like a program anymore, just a healthy family.
This principle of asking those we serve what’s needed most continues to be Fostering Hope’s process today. Whenever a new challenge surfaces, a new idea emerges, or an anticipated change is coming, foster parents are the first place we go.