Ever Thought About Fostering?

Foster Care. The term makes you cringe, doesn’t it? It conjures up images of burned out bureaucrats and abandoned kids. You picture loveless homes crowded with the ones nobody wanted. You’re reminded of the gaping holes in our social fabric.

There’s no doubt that foster care as we know it needs a serious makeover. I’m on the staff of Angels, a nonprofit independent foster care agency that turns your image of foster care on its head.

No mother gives birth expecting to put her perfect newborn baby in harm’s way. Every mother expects her child to grow up healthy and whole. But when things go wrong children may need to be removed from their homes for their protection, usually from drug abuse or physical danger.

A disproportionate number of these kiddos are infants and toddlers whose needs are more demanding than those of older children. They need to be fed and held. They need consistent, loving care with lots of touch, eye contact, and cooing so their little brains can grow and make healthy neural connections. This isn’t touchy-feely emotional stuff, they need it as much as they need air to breathe.

If they don’t get it, and get it early, their brains will develop abnormally. They will be at grave risk for reactive attachment disorder, which will rob them of the ability to form healthy relationships as they grow. They will be many times more likely to abuse their own children, commit crimes, and become part of our expanding prison population. If it doesn’t happen for them by the time they’re 3, it doesn’t happen. Once that window slams shut, it’s closed forever. Get the details about RAD at http://www.mayoclinic.com.

More than 80% of the incarcerated population in the U.S. did time in the foster care system when they were kids. 80%. Shocked? You should be.

Today, or any day, there are more than 500,000 of our children in foster care. On average, they will be placed in 4 different foster homes in the first year. Is there any likely possibility of healthy bonding along the way? No. Just imagine those brain cells shrinking right now as you’re reading.

Now the good news … and there IS good news. We can fix this. We know how, and it’s a pretty simple formula. If we give a child — a tiny one between birth and 3 — attention, care, and a big dose of LOVE, we can help him attach to his caregiver and help that little brain to grow.

Gaze into his eyes. Talk to him. Feed him when he’s hungry and comfort him when he cries. Even if it’s temporary, just for 6 months or a year, it’s enough to make a permanent difference. Kids are resilient. Give them the basics and they run with it.

We can save these little guys, and we must.  They are OUR community and OUR future. It is OUR responsibility. If not us, who? There’s an old Jewish saying that goes, “When you save a single life, you save the entire world”.

Angels screens foster parents carefully. We require psychological testing and 8 weeks of training. The rule is one child, one home, with the exception of siblings. Our families agree to care for that child for as long as they’re needed, until the family court makes a decision about final placement. The result is parents who are truly committed and babies who thrive, their brains soaked in the neurochemicals of love.