There are around 150 Lewis County children in the state Department of Children, Youth and Families’ (DCYF) foster care system, yet only 74 registered Lewis County homes.
Furthermore, only 80% of those homes have fostered kids within the last year.
According to Chisana White, a DCYF recruitment specialist in the area, this imbalance of local homes to local children and youth means foster children are often placed outside the county, sometimes even across the state.
“(It) is super important for our kids to remain in their community, to remain connected to their family, to their community, to their school, to their friends, to their pet, to their teachers, to their coaches. These are the things that really contribute to wellness and better outcomes for our kids long-term,” White said.
The issue isn’t only in Lewis County, but with the tight-knit nature of the area’s rural communities, there is extra incentive to maintain a sense of connection for children and youth. Plus, no matter the circumstances, there is likely trauma around what brought children to the foster care system. If their foster parents can help kids maintain as much normalcy as possible, the transitional period may be easier.
With more foster homes in the county, diversity increases, too, which ups the odds of children feeling connected to the culture of their foster home.
One way to increase the number of local registered homes to provide that sense of community, said DCYF spokesperson Nancy Gutierrez, is through child-specific registration, which the department is currently working to create. She said grandparents or other family members taking in children may be hesitant to join the foster system because they don’t want to foster anyone other than their family members. Through child-specific registration, those families can register just for the children in their care in order to still receive financial support from DCYF.
Gutierrez said work to create this kind of registration was done with racial equity in mind, because relative caregivers are statistically more likely to be families of color.
As a testament to the importance of finding local placements, Brittany Brett, DCYF placement coordinator, told the story of one child from a rural Lewis County community. The child had been adopted by their relatives shortly before both adoptive parents passed away unexpectedly.
“(The child) was coming from an area of Lewis County where there was a severe limitation just in the number of homes,” Brett said. “On top of which, this child had some developmental delays So (they) also needed a family that might have some experience with that. … But, luckily the child came from a very close-knit community and had close ties, and that community was very familiar with this child. … They banded together and ultimately one of them (the local families) came forward and became a home for the child.”
Through this, the child was able to remain connected to their friends and community in the area, which was invaluable for mitigating the tough transition, Brett said.
Gutierrez added that people who have ever even considered fostering should register.
By registering, foster parents are not required to take placements, they can remain registered until they are ready. Or, they can take on placements and decide it’s not right for them after all.
“You tend to see this a lot in movies and shows that something happens to parents and then there's the nurse or the neighbor that says, 'I'll step up and I'll be a parent.' And it's like, that's not how it happens. There's a licensing process,” Gutierrez said.
The barriers are low: registrants must be 21 or older and they must be receiving the majority of their income from a source other than the DCYF foster parent stipend. White said there are very few costs associated with registration, if any.
DCYF hosts a foster parent information session on the first Tuesday of every month from noon to 1 p.m. or 6 to 7 p.m. Sign up or find more information at https://bit.ly/3v4LdtK.
For those interested in being involved but not ready to commit to registration, there are many nonprofits and roles within the system that can act as introductions, including donations to local homes, Big Brother Big Sister mentorship and volunteer groups such as Fosterful.
