Society’s view of the foster care system, for the most part, is negative. The media is all too quick to report on those foster care families that for one reason or another hurt the children, neglect them and sometimes kill them. There are those foster care families that will take in a large number of children, in order to support themselves. They take the assistance the state provides for the children, and will use it for their own monthly bills and selfish needs. This is likely to leave the children in worse conditions than they came from.

The media reports on these families fail to show the huge number of great foster care families that give well beyond what is asked or required of them. You have to remember, these children come into the foster care system because they have been neglected and abused.

It is no small task to take these children, many of whom have behavioral problems, into their homes. Sometimes bringing these children into their homes puts their own family are risk. They must take care of emotionally and sometimes physically fragile children. They must also deal with the families that these children come from if the child tells them where they are currently residing. These children need all the love, support, guidance and sometimes medical care that they can get.

It is all too easy to take care of, love on, and provide for a well-disciplined, healthy, joy filled child. However, children do not often come into the foster care system that way. The very same people that were expected to love them have hurt them. They have been neglected and abused, both physically and mentally. Some have hurts that may never heal in their lifetime.

Foster care families take these children into their homes knowing that these children come with “a lot of baggage,” so to speak. This is, by any means, no easy task. Luckily, these trained foster care families can help with the issues that these children come with. These children do not trust and for the most part, expect to be hurt, neglected, abused and/or abandoned. They come into the foster care family’s home with mighty big walls that the foster care families must try to gradually and lovingly knock down, thus allowing the children to feel the love, support and care that they so desperately want to lavish upon them. For most children this is much too complex for them to understand. They have been accustomed to their parents and others only hurting them.

Foster parents are warm, nurturing, people that have the desire and ability, financially and emotionally, to take in children that so desperately need care. Foster care parents must be mature, flexible and have an enormous amount of patience and love. The foster families that we know put the children first. Their “needs” are always met well before any family “wants” are sought.

The state assesses each child’s needs on an individual basis and places these children in the most appropriate home which they feel best meets the child’s needs. Foster care parents are educated in assisting these children with their various medical and emotional needs.

Foster care homes are thoroughly investigated by the state and must meet the state’s criteria as an approved foster care home. Home studies, medical backgrounds, education, references, etc. are all investigated by the state before a license is issued to the foster care family.

All foster care parents must successfully complete training from a certified instructor in child/infant cardiopulmonary resuscitation and first aid prior to licensing. Foster care parents must be willing to give the love, time and energy that is necessary for the care of any child, regardless of race, age or background, that is placed in their care. They must have the best motivation and commitment to the total and loving care of these children. They must be ready to meet the physical as well as the emotional needs of these children.

When the time comes for the child to be placed back in their biological home or to be adopted through the state’s adoption program these foster care parents must have the ability to “let go” and allow the child to move on. Some of these children are in foster care for hours and some for years. It is an amazing ability that these foster care families have to put the child’s “needs” above their own “wants.” Sometimes the families will stay in touch if the child is adopted, but there is never a guarantee of that happening. Each family takes in these children knowing that they could leave at any moment, and they must be prepared for it. To be able to love so freely and to let go at a moment’s notice is such a remarkable thing. These families are to be commended and appreciated for the loving sacrifices that they lavish on these foster care children. They should be supported through prayer and emotional support by our society. They are to be blessed for taking care of what many in society consider as the “lost and hopeless” children that are scarred beyond hope and feel that they have no bright future. Foster care families have an amazing ability to see the potential and hope in each child that they so loving take into their homes. God bless them!!!