Hey, everyone! We wanted to take some time to talk about foster care, as May is foster care awareness month. We want to share a few pieces of our story to illustrate what God is doing in our hearts, and in our lives. Our foster care journey is not yet over. Like most things in life, it is open ended with no knowledge of where our path will lead. We cannot speak to each element of foster care, because we haven’t been through it all, but we can share our story. For the purposes of knowing what to expect – we are not sharing the stories of the kids in our home. Their stories are not ours to share. This week, we are focusing on our “why,” and what our experience has been like for us.
The idea we had was to share our story in pieces – 3, to be exact. Each week this month, we will share on another part of our story. We want to open up this opportunity for you to ask us questions. We want to build awareness about what it is really like to be a foster parent, and possibly encourage you consider it for yourself. We understand and agree that being a licensed foster parent is not for everyone, but we do believe there are more out there. And for those that cannot foster, that’s okay, because we can all play our specific parts in it. If you are interested in getting involved with foster care in one way or another, we can, together, explore ways that you can still get involved and help those families that are able to host children in their home. So please, ask us questions, look for ways to get involved. Let’s chat.
We recognize that there are many of you who may have a small understanding of what foster care is and why it exists, so before we go any further, we felt it’s important for us to give a high-level description. Foster care is a governmental system that exists to ensure the safe and temporary placement of children (18 years or younger) from their homes. There are a number of reasons this may be deemed necessary. The goal of foster care is to reunite these children with their biological parents and/or family members. This process involves many parties (foster agencies, case workers, licensing workers, foster parents, and of course the biological parents and/or relatives). and is ultimately progressed and ruled by the courts.
To give you a little background, I (Erin) worked in the foster care system for three years. I trained and licensed new foster parents, provided ongoing support, and placed children in their home. After almost exactly three years, I took a position at a different social service agency, working directly with Early Childhood. This position was intended to end my work in the foster care system. While I knew I was doing good work there, I experienced, like many others – burn out. Did you know that the average burn out rate for social workers is only 2 years? Foster parent I’ve talked with both professionally and personally are often frustrated by the staff turn over of those in the field…as have we. But the job is hard, there is an incredible amount of responsibility for the well-being of so many families! Keep that in mind, moving forward, if you ever do decide to foster. Remember to pray for your case managers, appreciate them, and support them, as they do you!
Anyways, when I left that job, I knew that I was not done with foster care. I knew it would come back into my life at some point. And it did…only six months later! See, Kyle and I have both always been driven by the mission of God to serve others. Even in our dating years, we had discussions about what we saw in a future family and we both desired adoption. Now, I said that adoption was always on our hearts, not foster care. When I worked in the field I thought – I could NEVER do what these foster parents do, it’s way too stressful! The thing is, I knew the stress involved, but I also knew how huge the need was for foster parents. I knew how many kids I was personally unable to place into homes because there were not enough foster parents to take them in. To this day, I think about the phone calls, the emails, the photos, and the stories I received every day at work of sibling groups, older kids, and sometimes even babies, that due to their age, sibling size, level of trauma, or just due to a lack of homes, I could not find homes for. There were not enough licensed foster parents! Not only at the agency I worked at, but in all of Michigan! I remembered the calls that I would get on the after hour placement work phone with workers asking us to find a home for a child they were currently sitting with that had just been removed from their parents. I would call foster parent after foster parent, but their beds were all full. They didn’t have the physical or emotional capacity to care for any more children, even when their best of intentions wanted to. They had to choose what was right for the family they currently had; they were not in the wrong for saying no. But, this was a regular occurrence, to not be able to find homes for kids primarily due to a lack of beds. To this day, when I hear the specific ring tone of that on-call phone, it’s a trigger to me – to know that I have responsibility to find, or not find a child a home. That ringtone instantly make’s me tense up, even now, being three years after taking those calls. It broke my heart then, and it breaks my heart now. And Kyle was often with me when I got those calls, I brought the burden of those children home and the sadness that came from the lack of homes for the children affected him too, understanding the brokenness of our world and the need for an increase of foster parents.
In fall of 2017, Kyle and I were 2 ½ years into our marriage and wanted to be parents, we had the time, the space, and the love to share. I knew Kyle would be an amazing dad, and we wanted to build our family. God was putting foster care in our hearts, but I still had feelings of bitterness and frustration with the system. I knew what the kids and both biological and foster parents had been through, the imperfection of the system, and I didn’t know if I was not ready to say yes to that yet. We were reading books on social orphans/orphan care ministry to better understand the depth and beauty of how God see’s orphan care. We took the fall season to read those, pray, talk to each other and others, and truly decide if it was right for us. We did not put a time limit on it, we just wanted to wait on the when and how God guided us to proceed. I knew it was going to happen, but not when. Given all of my fears and concerns I had, I was still hesitant. But, I surrendered to the idea and told God that if and when he wanted us to proceed in the process, I was willing, but Kyle needed to be the one to say yes. And he did, unprompted, the next day after I said that prayer.
I (Kyle) held out for a while, I had questions and concerns about what this looked like for us financially. I needed time to process through. We were talking about the idea of foster care throughout Fall of 2017. I read books, talked with my sister, prayed, and felt confirmation in January. Erin quickly signed us up for the next orientation in February at the agency she had researched and we went from there.
Fast forward to how we began! Kyle said yes, and the next chance I got, I called the agency I was interested in licensing through to sign up for their foster care orientation. The licensing process is typically very long and frankly invasive process that takes on average 6-9 months to complete, sometimes longer. The reason it is such a grueling process is because they want to ensure that kids are placed in safe, secure, and stable homes who understand trauma and will support reunification. Due to the process of licensing homes having been my job just six months prior, our licensing process went incredibly fast. I provided all necessary paperwork and completed all requirements immediately. We did the first step of attending foster care orientation in February 2018 and we licensed by mid-May.
We are going to pause our story there, we will talk about accepting placement of our beauties in the coming weeks and all that came along with that. Now, we want to highlight a common question/comment we hear a lot, and is common in the world of foster care: “I would get too attached.”
With the best of intentions towards applauding our “good works,” we often hear, “I could never do that, I would get attached.” The thing is, yes, you would get attached, as we have; and as I trained foster parents, I would tell them – that’s exactly what you are supposed to do. Yes, we are completely attached to these children! And yes, if they go home, our hearts be broken into a thousand pieces! To be totally transparent, I don’t let my mind go there, because whenever I envision saying goodbye to them, it physically hurts my heart and I ugly cry. I cannot fathom the idea of them leaving, because of how much we love them and how much we will miss them. But what we have to remind ourselves is, this is not about us! If the possibility of heartbreak is the only reason why we would not allow ourselves to step forward in faith to help children and their families, and consequently cause more children to be moved from home to home without security, then that is acting out of a selfish heart. If I prevented myself from not accepting the joy and laughter that God has graced us with through these children, then I would be foolish. These kids that we are incredibly attached to, they are perfectly designed! That’s not to say they are perfect or that we do not have any developmental or medical concerns with them, but they are God’s masterpiece! And they ALL are – all 13,000 children that are currently in Michigan foster care system. God wants us to care for His children, even when we get too attached. He loved his son… he was attached, yet he did what he needed to for HIS children.
In reality, “attachment” should really be on the sign up waiver for foster care. We believe it’s part of the job description, especially for those who aim to love these children through a gospel-centered lens. So whenever, we hear the phrase, “I can’t do it, I’d get too attached”, we inwardly chuckle at the irony because you’d actually probably be the perfect candidate for the task! These children need self-sacrificing adults in their lives who are willing to attach themselves in order for them to experience the unconditional love they deserve (and honestly may have never had the opportunity to experience elsewhere). Are you able to get past the potential of your own heartbreak for the sake of their chance to encounter the loving heart of God?
To bring this closer to home, my fears were not that we would get to attached; I knew that would happen, I knew how important it is to their development! What I feared, relating to attachment was the hurt of our family may have to endure. Our family has loved these children no different than their grandchildren of their own flesh and blood. As the relationship grew between these kids and our family, the more I feared the hurt our family would feel, if they are returned home. This is an on-going concern. These kids LOVE, absolutely love their cousins, and they are loved back. I remember the first time we told the cousins that we were getting a baby boy – they were so excited! When I think about these two going home, and the pain and confusion that these little cousins may feel, and the consideration of us showing up to family parties without these adorable little ones to fill their hearts and arms with love… it hurts! I don’t want that! They did not sign up to be foster parents; they should not have this (potential) pain! What I love so much about our family is that they are amazing and they love these kids, they love God, and they will support us, each other, and the family kids, to know that they all played a huge part in the lives of these two beauties. Having a social support in being a foster parent is ESSENTIAL. I love that everyone in our family is doing “their part” in foster care. Not only have they loved these kids dearly, but they have provided us babysitting so we can run errands, go to events, and have date nights. They have picked up the kids from daycare during time crunches, sacrificed time away from vacation homes to care for our newborn, brought us dinners in difficult times, provided SO MANY hand-me downs and clothes, and provided so many gifts of clothes and toys for special occasions, or for no reason at all. And this, is how you too, can support foster families you know. If you don’t know any – reach out to a local agency and ask how you can help their licensed foster parents who need more supports. Back to the point, yes – I am scared of loosing these children. But I know that my fear of our hearts breaking, or for those of our family, cannot stand in the way of loving these children the way the deserve to be loved. Yes, we are attached, yes we are scared, but we are giving all of these concerns to God and allowing ourselves to not be in control. We are learning to trust, to believe these children will receive a beautiful life God wrote for them, whatever that looks like. We will do what we need to do love and advocate for the best interest of the children, because that’s what foster care, and God’s message to us, is all about.
One of the books we read in preparing for this journey was Reframing Foster Care by Jason Johnson. To close out this first session we thought we’d share a quote that has been a challenge and encouragement along the way:
“While it can be said that foster care is the means by which we may bring about change in a child’s life, it’s equally true – if not more so – that foster care is a process which God radically transforms our lives as well. Their story changes ours, not with easy and light things but with hard and heavy ones that expose the faultiness in our own stories and begin to produce new and better stories together as a result.
Reframing Foster Care by Jason Johnson
This is the heart of God decisively demonstrated through the gospel: He stepped into our brokenness to be broken by it so we wouldn’t have to be broken anymore.
The beauty of foster care is showcased against the backdrop of the brokenness that surrounds it. In light of the gospel it’s our privilege to crawl into the story of others, to wrap ourselves in their brokenness and willingly be broken by it – to exchange our normal for theirs and so began to craft an entirely new and better normal together.
In the end everything changes – you change them, but perhaps more importantly, they change you.
Nothing can, will – or should – ever be the same again.”
Wholly Home 
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