Fostering love
By SARAH PAEZ
spaez@lockhaven.com
WOOLRICH — Woolrich Park was filled with childrens’ squeals, laughter and water gun fights on Saturday for the annual Foster Care Family Picnic thrown by Clinton County Children and Youth Services.
There are 19 foster and kinship families in the county, and 15 children and youth are currently in the care system. Most of the families are foster families and four are kinship homes. Kinship care means the child has a relationship with the family or person fostering them, whether it be a grandparent, close family friend or trusted neighbor.
With the amount of children and youth in and out of the foster care system in Clinton County, Rebecca Sanford, the resource care coordinator for Children and Youth, said they are constantly in need of new foster families.
This year’s picnic drew current and past foster care families and caseworkers and their families. Sanford said the gathering builds relationships between the families. Meeting other people going through the same challenges of dealing with the foster care system can really bolster the support network for parents and children, she said.
“The water guns were not my idea,” she said with a chuckle.
Many of the families who attended had fostered many children. Jessica Walizer, a mom of two, said she and her husband Brian fostered eight children over this past year.
“It’s the most challenging, most rewarding thing,” she said of being a foster parent.
Right now, the couple is fostering two children, and Jessica recently gave birth to her second biological child.
“We wanted a big family,” she said. “But we didn’t want to have all biological children, and we knew there were so many kids out there that needed a loving home.”
Though they haven’t adopted any children yet, Jessica said she and Brian would love to adopt one day.
Jessica said having foster siblings around has been great for her 2-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Emelia.
“She loves having extra friends around,” she said.
Sometimes it can be hard, she said, because Emelia doesn’t always know when her foster siblings will go back to their biological families. One day, they will leave for school and won’t come back to the house because they have been placed back in their original homes, and Emelia doesn’t have time to say goodbye.
But Jessica said they have good relationships with a few of the biological families, so Emelia can still see her “siblings.”
For their safety, children in the foster care system cannot be named publicly or have their pictures featured in the newspaper. But on Saturday, there were several foster children who attended with their placement families. Many were running around and playing with all of their friends. There were also children who had formerly been in the foster care system but who have since been adopted by their former foster families.
To become a foster or kinship parent, Children and Youth must complete a study of your home. You must also be 21 and older, be financially stable, be emotionally stable or have marital stability, be free of any criminal record and have Childline, Criminal History and FBI clearances.
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