A Community Look at Foster Care

This past Saturday, the Waynesville Library, Appalachian Community Services, and Haywood Bound hosted an exciting opportunity to learn more about foster care in our area and the huge need for foster parents.  At last count, Haywood County DSS had custody of 98 children.  60% of those children are placed in local Haywood County homes.  However, 40% of those children are in homes outside of the county, away from family, friends, and community.  Over the last 6 months, in recognition of how important it is for children to stay a part of their community, DSS director Ira Dove has made a distinct effort to recruit foster families through collaboration of DSS and private foster care agencies.  This collaboration has come to be known as Haywood Bound.

As a part of the effort to recruit foster parents, Mr. Dove and several other community leaders came together for a panel event on foster care.  These community leaders included Dr. Steve Wall from Haywood Pediatrics, Tara Keilberg, director of Kids Advocacy Resource Effort (KARE), Scott MacGregor, a Family Life Educator and soon to be graduate of Western with a Masters in Clinical Mental Health with a focus on forgiveness, and Pablo and Maria Averza, therapeutic foster parents since 2006.  The panel was preceded by a dynamically honest dramatic interpretation by local actress Barbara Bates Smith of NC author Kaye Gibbon’s novel Ellen Foster.  Ellen Foster tells the story of a little girl, Ellen, and her journey out of an abusive past and into a foster home that Ellen sees as her sanctuary, “somewhere friendly” and where “nothing new bad has happened to me since I got here.”

The panelists used Barabara’s performance as a backdrop to talk about the issues of foster care in Haywood County.  In 2010, 479 children in Western North Carolina were placed in legal custody of DSS.  8,826 children were in foster care statewide, with only 7, 684 licensed foster homes.   Children have been taken out of their homes for reasons of abuse and neglect and placed in relatives’ homes, therapeutic and family foster homes, group homes, etc.  Dr. Wall shared his experiences of how he has seen foster parents make a huge impact on children’s medical stability and ability to socially interact.  A foster parent needs nothing more than patience and an ability to establish healthy boundaries.  For the things a parent doesn’t know, there is a whole team involved to assist both the child and the foster parents.  Ms. Keilberg shared how KARE provides support for foster parents and birth parents through parenting classes and advocacy work.  Truly, though a family is doing the work with a child day in and day out, foster parents are not alone.  Parents are provided appropriate training, regular supervision, and access to services to help support the child.

Mr. MacGregor explained the researched benefits of forgiveness and helped to define what forgiveness is and what forgiveness is not.  Forgiveness is  not excusing the pain that was done, it is releasing the "right to revenge" and recognizing that every person is deserving of respect because they are created human.  Mr. MacGregor discussed how one can practice forgiveness, exercising by forgiving daily the little things (like someone cutting you off in traffic) so that you become strong enough to forgive the big things (like abuse or neglect).  Forgiveness has been medically demonstrated to improve the healing capacity of the body and mind.  Mr. and Mrs.  Averza echoed this sentiment, recognizing that it can be difficult to team together with struggling families.  However, the long time foster parents recognized the need for a child to have contact with their family and know that their parent is safe.  And, though attaching to a child and seeing that child leave again is difficult, the greater reward is modeling healthy relationships for that child and taking responsibility for and acting on a great need in the community.

The need for foster parents in Haywood County is an obtainable goal with the support of the community.  Haywood County needs 20 new foster parents in order to keep all of the children in their communities.  Look for Ellen Foster and Friends: A Look at Foster Care on your local Haywood County Television Channel.