May: National Foster Care Month
Foster care is many things: for the kids living it, for the bio family experiencing it, and for the foster parents trying to make it a little smoother.
It can be scary to take a leap of faith to become a foster parent and help a kid in crisis. A kid, who for no fault of their own, entered into an unknown world with no end in sight. Foster kids often get a really bad rep; that they are bad, troubled, and uncontrollable. What “bad behavior” foster children show is really a trauma response to the things they’ve experienced. They are negatively reacting to something because they’re typically in a ‘fight or flight’ mentality which only stability and time can change. Like any child once they learn to trust you, a shift happens showing you that they are just a normal kid like everyone else!
Foster care is not for everyone, and that is ok. There are challenges with being a foster parent that make it difficult for everyone to consider this path, but it is a beautiful choice to help a displaced child feel safe. Even if you can’t commit to becoming a fully licensed foster parent, there are still ways to get involved and offer support to foster children in need.
You could become a licensed foster driver, offering to drive foster kids to appointments, you could be an emergency placement provider taking foster kids for only 1-3 days at a time, or you could become a Court Appointed Special Advocate and be a voice for a foster child as they go through court proceedings, or make frequent donations to a foster care agency near you.
Did you know that there are over 7,000 children in foster care in the state of Kansas? Of the 1.38 million households in Kansas, roughly 3,000 of them are foster homes which is dramatically less than 0.5% of Kansas families helping some of our most vulnerable.
There is no one way or wrong way to offer your help to children who need it most and may have given up that someone out there finds them important.
Ask yourself: can I offer stability, consistency, and support to a child or children experiencing the worst moments of their life to show them that they are capable and deserving of love?
The most important thing a foster child needs…is you.
