Baltimore County, MD Hello Baltimore County, 6 May 2016

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From YouTube: Could You be a Resource Parent?

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Learn how becoming a foster or adoptive parent can change lives.

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Welcome to hello, baltimore county., I'm your host, ellen kobler.. I'm very pleased to welcome to the hello baltimore county studios.

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Judith schagrin, with baltimore county's department of social services. she's, going to explain how you can change a child's life forever. --.

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And yours -- by becoming a resource parent..

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Thank you so much for joining us.. Thank you for having us. sure., give us a little sense. First --. What is resource parenting?.

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Resource parenting is what used to be more commonly known.

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As foster parenting. and many years ago,, we began combining foster care.

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And adoption licenses, and so we have renamed the parents, "resource parents.",.

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So they may foster a child for a short period of time.

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Or may offer the child the permanence of a adoptive home.

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So a resource parent really is an alternative. Caregiver.

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During a period of time that a child is in state custody.

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Or in foster, care.

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And give us a little background. obviously, every child and every story is different..

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But basically,, why are children in foster care?.

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Typically, children enter foster care for the most part.

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Because of their parents' inability to meet their very basic needs for food, for medical care.,.

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And we have to prove to a juvenile court.

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That a child is being neglected so severely.

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That the only alternative is to take them into state custody.

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We have preventive services to work very diligently.

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To make sure that children stay in their own homes or with relatives.

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And when that's not possible,, then they might come into the state's care into state custody.

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And into our foster care system., these may be children whose parents are suffering from severe mental illnesses or have substance abuse, problems.

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And sometimes with our older youth,, they may have some mental health issues that can only be addressed by coming into foster care.

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Okay, and how many children are currently in foster care.

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Or resource parenting in baltimore, county?.

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We have roughly 570 children in foster care in baltimore, county.

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And that number has gone up and gone down a little bit over the past couple of years, but has been pretty steady at 550, 560.

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And are most of those children in place-- placed with parents or are most of them looking for parents?.

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Unfortunately,, we always have a need for more foster parents.

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And some of our children are in group care.

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And some of our children are being cared for in private treatment, foster care programs., and then we have older youth who may be living in their own home.

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Or maybe living in a college dormitory and attending college.

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So kids may live with relatives, with resources, parents, with--.

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In group homes, in their own apartment, or they may be in college.

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Okay, so who could become a resource parent?.

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As we say,, if you're over 21 and you have room in your home.

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And in your heart, we welcome you to come, learn more about.

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Becoming a foster parent., we ask that foster parents be able to meet their own financial needs,.

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That, if they are parenting, that their own children.

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Are willing to participate in this process.

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So you have to be economically stable, free of criminal background --.

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That's significant over the last few years.

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You have to have your own good mental health,, a stable place to live.

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You can be married,, you can be living in a partnership,.

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You can be heterosexual,, homosexual,, transgendered --,.

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We are just looking for people who are willing and able to love our children.

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And they don't have to be perfect. People, right?.

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Exactly! no, they certainly don't.. You don't have to be perfect.. You just have to want to love a child and care for them and work with the department and share that parenting, responsibility. --.

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Along with the biological parent -- that we do ask our foster parents to work closely with the biological parent --, hopefully to remedy what brought that child into care so that they can safely return..

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You mentioned the partnership with the county,, with your department.

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How does that work and is there financial assistance available.

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For the resource, parents? yes., the first thing that happens is a home study.

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And it is, admittedly, a fairly intrusive process.

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after all, we're clearing you to care for somebody else's child.

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As part of that process,, we offer 30 hours of training.

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And we try to prepare you as well as one can be prepared.

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Through training for the experience of fostering.

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All of our resource families are assigned their own social worker.

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The child has their own social worker,, but the foster parents have the support of their own advocate.

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And their own social worker. and each child receives a stipend of roughly 830 dollars.

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To defray the costs of caring for them., we may then pay additional expenses for day care. --.

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Or with older youth, for--, we're always happy to pay graduation expenses.

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yeah.. We may help a family --. We love it when our kids travel.

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If a family is going on vacation,, we may be able to help defray the cost of that vacation.

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So we don't want finances to be a barrier to someone fostering.

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One of our children,, although we do look for folks who are themselves able to meet their own financial needs.

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Sure, that makes sense.

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And how does somebody become a resource parent?.

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The first step is to come to one of our information meetings.

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And that's just a great opportunity to learn more about fostering.

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And whether fostering is right for you and for your family.

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And it's really easy to get information.

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We do have a phone number: 410-853-3170.

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But people forget phone numbers.. All you have to do. Is google "baltimore county foster".

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And I think our ad is the first one that pops up.

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It's really easy to find from there the dates of our next information, meetings, and they're, held every month.

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All right. give us a success story or two without obviously naming any names. anybody spring to mind?.

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I'm thinking about a woman who started as a --.

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Actually she was an attorney.. She was one of our court-appointed special advocates and she was a single woman,.

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Had always wanted to parent and had been thinking about.

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In vitro fertilization, -- doing this on her own.

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And I kept saying, "oh,, but we have wonderful children..

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We have wonderful children.". She finally listened to me, became a foster parent.

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And what she really wanted to do was adopt,.

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But we tell people if what you want to do is adopt,.

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You have to be willing to foster and appreciate, fostering and temporary care as a greater good.

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So she came to us, had a couple of children in her home briefly,.

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And finally, a child came into her life, who didn't return, home.

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And this was probably seven, eight, nine years ago, and today they are a very happy family.

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There have been other children who have returned home.

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Who have been in a resource family who worked very closely with the biological parent who have returned home and that foster parent continues?.

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To very much be a part of that child's life., he coaches, the child's baseball team,, the child spends weekends with them..

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So when children return home,, it's not uncommon for them.

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To continue really to be sort of the extended family for that child.

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So it's not --, I'm hearing from you. It's not necessarily a contentious,.

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Like a custody battle between the foster parent, --.

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Because I think that that might be something that people would envision is that they would accept a child into their home,.

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Love the child, and then feel that the child is taken away.

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There's no doubt that what we're asking is very difficult because we're asking folks to take a child into their home and their heart as though they were their very own....

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...And, then, to give them back.

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and we hope, through training and support.

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To help people through that process.

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and when a biological parent and a foster parent.

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Can work closely together, children are best served.

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It's sort of like in a divorce situation where the mom and the dad co-parent.

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we really value, fosters and bios co-parenting children.

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Children fare best when the adults in their lives get along and work together., and then it's not a surprise to the foster parent.

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When the child goes home., we really work hard to involve the foster and the bio.

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In team planning and family team meetings.

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So that we're all working together, -- the agency,, the foster parent, and the biological parent --.

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So there aren't any surprises so that the foster parent has the opportunity to teach.

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And engage the biological parent.

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and in the long run, we all stay focused on. What's really important,.

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Which is that child and their interests and their needs.

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And talk about the ages of the children who are in the system.

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And in need of foster parents.

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We receive children from the hospital at birth.

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We really need folks who are willing to foster --.

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Which means temporary -- to foster babies,.

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Especially on an emergency basis, -- that we could call you today and say we have a baby coming into care later. Today.

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wow. and some of those stays are short term because we're going to be looking really hard for maybe there's a relative,, a grandmother who can step up.

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Some of them are a lifetime..

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We have a need for families who have enough room in --.

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Not just in their hearts but in their homes, -- to foster siblings.

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You can imagine... yes.. I wondered about that. ...if. You have siblings, what it's like to grow up without a sibling.

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We have a camp that brings siblings together every year.

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Who were separated, and we really see the poignance of what it means to be separated..

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We ask kids to write a message to their brother or sister on a pillow.

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And some of the things they write are the things you and I take for granted.

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"I really wish. I could spend the night with you." "I know I really irritate you, but I'm so glad to be with you. This week.".

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One of my favorites is "I know I'm going to throw up after I say this, but I really love you. A lot.".

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So our kids -- sibling relationships are the longest.

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Any of us will ever have and we love to be able to keep our sibling groups together..

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We also have a need for our teenagers.

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As one of my teenagers once said, whose younger sister was getting adopted,.

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"Sometimes people forget that even 16-year-olds want to be adopted.".

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And even when they're, not --, adoption is not the route --.

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Our teenagers very much want to be part of families.

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And one new ask we have is for families who might be willing.

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To take a young adult into their home as a young, adult --.

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Sort of a room, rental situation, -- and consider working with.

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That young person past the age of 21., so that what we are doing is looking for families willing to open their homes,, go through an abbreviated home study process, and be willing to work with a young adult towards transitioning..

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Very nice. so, foster parents are needed for kids.

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From infancy all the way up to adulthood., that's right.! Well! Thank you. So much for sharing this opportunity with us.

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Thank you for giving us this opportunity.

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sure, and thank you for watching hello, baltimore county.

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Don't forget,, you can find out more about resource parenting right on the county's website and by connecting with baltimore county government on facebook and twitter., we'll see you next time.

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