Heidi & Isaac Tucker
Amy Broker has fostered six children and adopted two with complicated medical needs.
Fostering children can be extremely unpredictable, but regardless, Broker, of Lewisberry, always follows one rule.
“They need to be treated as your own,” she said. “So, when they’re here, whether they’re going to stay permanently or not, they need to be treated as though they are staying here permanently.”
Broker said that people often comment that they would get too attached.
“You need to get attached […] in order to give them what they need,” she said.
Many local foster parents commit to these children, who may only be in their lives for a day or a year.
May is National Foster Care Awareness Month, marking an opportunity to highlight the importance of caring for children in the community, as well as the challenges and supports that exist to help kids and families.
Tara Koch, program manager at Harrisburg foster care agency KidsPeace, said that she’s amazed by the many dedicated foster families.
“I am in awe over the cases that I’ve witnessed through the years,” Koch said. “It’s really a demonstration of human spirit to just take these kids in and love them with their whole heart and want the best for them.”
The love that foster parents give also comes with all the responsibilities of parenting—and then some. Children have doctors’ appointments, caseworker visits, court dates and therapy appointments that the foster parent is responsible for getting them to. This is hard work that requires flexibility.
“You are signing up to pour love into someone and get very little back, but hope you did some good,” said Heidi Tucker, a local foster parent.
Advocating & Adapting
Foster families have little decision-making power. Broker noted that you can advocate for a child but decisions about education, medical care and other day-to-day events in the life of a child are not up to the foster parent. Children can enter a home quickly when foster parents get a call for an emergency placement, or they can be considered for a home and prepare for a child to come, and then the child doesn’t arrive. If a child is placed in their home, there’s no guarantee for how long.
“You don’t know what every day or month could bring,” Broker said. “You could get a call, ‘It’s happening; they’re going to be reunified; they’re leaving tomorrow.’”
And reunification is the goal of foster care.
“There are so many studies on familial bonds,” Koch said. “If there’s any chance that we can keep a family unit together, that is always the number one goal.”
Family circumstances vary tremendously. Not all cases are clear cut, and, when a parent’s rights are terminated, that represents a loss for the child.
“It’s not always a black-and-white situation,” Koch said. “When you terminate a parent’s rights, it never comes too lightly.”
Foster care is a complicated environment with lots of moving parts, courts, therapists, doctors, school officials, social workers, biological parents and foster parents. Discerning what the best outcome is for a child, with all these voices, can be very difficult. That’s where a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) enters.
“CASAs can talk to the medical professionals, education professionals, coaches and anyone in this child’s life—bio moms, foster moms, aunts, uncles, neighbors, whoever is in this child’s life—to paint that great picture to see where is the best place for this child to be,” said Kim St. Clair, Dauphin County CASA’s program supervisor.
Each advocate is assigned to one child, providing a consistent presence in a world with little consistency, assuring that foster children don’t get lost in the complexity of their situation.
Need Love
For those who decide to take it one step further and become foster parents, there are some things to consider.
“You have to know your limits,” Tucker said.
It’s OK to be specific about what you are capable of handling as a foster parent.
“By the time we are done working with a family, we feel like we know them pretty well, and we can kind of assess what would be a good fit for them, for a child coming into their home,” Koch said.
While the experience isn’t easy, Broker said that fostering has positively impacted her family, as well. She can tell how the children the family has fostered have touched her daughters’ hearts.
“It has really changed them and their hearts, because both girls express a desire to do it [foster care] as well,” Broker said.
Regardless of how children find themselves in foster care, or how long they’ve been in the system, one thing remains clear.
“These kids need people to love them,” Tucker said.
Learn more about Kid’s Peace at www.fostercare.com/harrisburg.
Find out more about Dauphin County CASA at www.dauphincountycasa.org.
If you like what we do, please support our work. Become a Friend of TheBurg!
