Do You Have the Heart for Foster Parenting? 

Foster families provide a stable and loving environment to children who await reunification with their own families (the ultimate goal), or placement with relatives, or adoption. Fostering not only benefits the fostered youth, there are also many benefits to the foster families.

The 63 currently licensed foster/adoptive families in Anne Arundel County know why. “They’re “changing the trajectory of a child’s life,” says Tracy Madera, recruitment and retention specialist with the Anne Arundel County Department of Social Services. With 103 youth in the foster care system, there are lots of opportunities to inspire local youth. If you’ve ever thought about fostering, consider these facts about this life-changing good deed:

• The kids who need your kindness the most are teenagers. While 75% of foster families in our county request a child between the ages of 0-12, 55% of foster care youth are between the ages of 12-21. 32% are between 0-5 for which there is also a rising need, according to Madera.
• It’s not uncommon to maintain relationships built in foster care even after the youth have been reunited with their birth families. #ittakesavillage
• The average child in foster care gets re-placed (a sadly accurate word choice) three times and you have the power to be a temporary haven from that turbulence. “You can truly change a child’s life,” says Madera.

Things to Consider

• “Could our family share love?” and “How will my children accept another child into their lives?” are great questions to ask. According to Madera, most foster parents in Anne Arundel County have kids of their own.
• The whole licensing process can take anywhere from 6-7 months, but much of the process is up to you and your turnaround time.
• Imagine being involuntarily taken from the only family you’ve ever known and then being assigned to a new family…again and again and again. To help navigate this kind of trauma and other aspects of foster parenting, our county provides 24-hour PRIDE (Parent Resource for Information, Development and Education) training.

“We need families that have the heart and understanding and want to collaborate with the biological families to promote those reunification efforts,” says Madera. If you’re interested in learning more about how you and your family could start benefiting from fostering, Anne Arundel Foster Care hosts monthly informational meetings.

For more information you can contact Tracy Madera, LCSW-C at (410) 303-0459 or at tracy.bowen@maryland.gov.

Like what you just read? This article originally appeared in Issue 1 of The Motherlode. Check out the full issue here and sign-up for our newsletter here to receive our weekly newsletters and all the exciting updates from Annapolis Moms!