More than 16,000 children are part of Ohio’s foster care system – a number that has increased nearly 30 percent since 2011, according to a fact sheet from Gov. Mike DeWine’s Ohio Children’s Initiative. But the state has only about 7,200 families licensed to serve them. In the United States, a child is removed from his or her home every two minutes and placed into foster care.
St. Vincent Family Services of Columbus is looking for families and single people of all ages who feel a calling to be foster parents for children who need the nurturing, security and love a family can provide while the children wait for their own families to settle stressful economic, behavioral or other situations.
St. Vincent Family Services began offering foster care in 2013 as the most recent addition to the help it has provided to children from its family center at Kelton Avenue and Main Street on Columbus’ east side since 1875, when it was founded as an orphanage by religious sisters. It served its original purpose for nearly 100 years, and in the past half-century has evolved into a residential and daytime behavioral health treatment center for children and young people.
Its 24-hour, seven-day-a-week residential program includes children from across central Ohio and sometimes from other parts of the state. The impact of that program led nine years ago to the center’s decision to offer people the chance to be foster parents.
“Some families from distant areas of Ohio who had children in the residential program did not want to take them back. We had a need for people who would accept those children and provide an environment favorable to them,” said Theresa Van Dootingh, program director for foster care at St. Vincent. She has been at the center for about a year and has spent about five years in social service work with Franklin County Children Services (FCCS), Nationwide Children’s Hospital and other institutions.
“Adding foster care became a natural extension of the residential program and the many other ways we try to help families build bright futures by increasing positive behaviors in children and strengthening family relationships,” she said.
“We currently are the sponsoring agency for 27 foster children who are living in 28 homes,” Van Dootingh said.
“We know from our contacts with other agencies dealing with children that we could place many more children if we had more foster parents available, especially in Licking and Fairfield counties and other parts of central Ohio beyond Franklin County. We’re trying to expand our reach to serve more children in those areas. Having foster parents there would be a great help.”
She said one of the advantages for foster parents aided by St. Vincent is that because the center works with children all day through its residential program, there’s always a trained professional on-site to help parents deal with unexpected situations.
“We offer an intimate, family-centered approach to supporting foster parents,” she said. “We are by their side every step of the way. Our foster parents are provided with expert training, one-on-one coaching and access to all of our emotional health services and a staff of more than 150 pediatric behavioral health specialists who offer the support needed to foster a child.”
Anyone interested in becoming a foster parent through St. Vincent can start by applying at its website or calling the center. Prospective foster parents are sent an information packet, and an informational session is scheduled at their convenience. Anyone 18 or older, single or married, may apply. Van Dootingh said St. Vincent’s current foster parents range in age from their 20s to their 70s.
The next step is attendance at 24 hours of parent training classes. A set of classes is to begin in January 2023 after a pause for the holiday season. The classes clarify the expectations, responsibilities, challenges and rewards of foster parenting.
Families also must undergo a background check and be fingerprinted and complete an assessment that includes three or more home visits from a licensing coordinator. In addition, documentation related to a family’s financial ability to care for a child and its residency (a foster family must have lived in Ohio for five years) must be submitted to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, which coordinates the state’s foster care programs.
Van Dootingh said it takes from two to 18 months for a prospective foster parent or family to receive state approval. “It all depends how quickly they want to obtain a state license,” she said. “Also, it’s important to know that the process to become a foster parent is different than for an adoptive parent. Anyone who wants to adopt a child should seek help from another agency.”
She said references of children needing foster care must come from FCCS or similar agencies in other counties, or from a foster home. Foster parents can care for as many as five children at a time.
“Those who want to be parents have a strong love for and dedication to the welfare of children,” said Sara Russell, community engagement director at St. Vincent. “Another key is patience. Even in cases when children have not been abused or neglected and have been removed from the family for other stress-related reasons, it’s traumatic to the child. It’s important for foster families to know that we and other agencies are here to support them.
“A key is to never give up on a child. An example of that is one of our single parents who currently is taking care of three boys ages 8 to 15 and has worked with several others over a number of years. He was in foster care when he was a child and is a special-education teacher, so he saw the need to help.
“One young man in particular who is in permanent custody of the county was difficult to deal with at first, but this foster parent kept being positive, and now the young man says he doesn’t want to be adopted and hopes he can stay with his foster father until he reaches 18,” when foster care generally ends. The age limit can be extended to 21 in some cases.
“This man is providing a positive role model and is willing to take teenagers, who sometimes are difficult to place because not all families can take them,” Russell said.
Van Dootingh said the hardest children to place in foster homes are those ages 8 to 13 or in sibling groups.
Russell said that because the COVID pandemic added to the stress on many families, “we’re seeing the results of that now, with the need to place children in good foster homes becoming perhaps greater than ever.
“The ability to provide temporary help and support and enable families to heal while they work out problems provides a great opportunity for people of faith,” she said. “Being able to help the children of today and their children who come after them by ending a cycle of generational trauma can bring benefits now and help an untold number of people in the future.”
For more information on St. Vincent Family Services’ foster care program, go to its website, www.svfsohio.org or call (614) 743-5856.