Open Homes: Foster Care and Adoption – Part 2: Meet the Panel

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Open Homes 2

Welcome to the second part in our month-long look at Foster Care and Adoption.

In part one I talked about the need for foster parents and adoption using statistics about the American foster system and the global orphan issues. – Click here to get caught up – Part One

This is part two – Meet the Panel – I will introduce you to the experienced foster and adoptive parents who are helping with these posts, and share with you some of the common threads that ran through their responses when I asked them about foster care and/or adoption.

Meet the Panel:

Adam and Gena, California. Three biological kids ranging from 6-14, and one three-year-old adopted from China.

Josh and Natalie, South Carolina.Three biological kids ranging from 8-4. Foster parents for nine months with two placements during that time.

Kory and Brenda, Florida. Kory has three biological adult children and together they have one teenager through domestic open adoption.

Brian and Alicia, Minnesota. Five biological kids ranging from 26-16, helping to raise their granddaughter, and foster parents to two kids, ages 8 and 2 whom they have had for 18 months. This is their first foster placement and they are planning to adopt the kids.

Jim and Rachel, Florida. Three teenage biological kids and an adopted four year old. The adoption is open and they also get to spend some time with their son’s biological brother.

Kelly and Channin, Minnesota. Two biological kids, ages 9 and 10. They have been fostering children for about two years and have had four kids placed with them during that time.

For the sake of their privacy and security, that’s all the information I’m going to give you about the families. I know that their biological, foster, and adopted kids’ safety is their top priority, and I want to honor that. If you have questions about foster care or adoption for these six couples, please post them in the comments, or on the Food Shelf Friday Facebook page. I’ll contact the panel and post answers in the coming weeks.

I noticed that a couple of thoughts came up over and over when I asked them about their experiences:

– The children in their homes are not “lucky” to be with them. Foster care and adoption are birthed from tragedy. These kids had to go through terrible struggles, scarcity, and even abandonment to get to this place. They may be in a good place now and thankful for it, but they generally don’t feel fortunate to have gone through so much just to get the same wonderful family other kids are born with.

– The parents see themselves as the lucky ones. This is no different from how biological parents feel. As a mom I have looked at my son and just marveled at him and the fact that he belongs to me. Foster and adoptive parents love their kids just as fiercely as bio parents. From Alicia, “The kids are the blessing! The kids are so much a joy to watch grow and bloom. Our daughter has gone from a little adult – so quiet, reserved, and polite – and burdened with the care of her siblings – to an 8 year old who runs, plays, whines and plays with her siblings! She even slammed a door not too long ago! She is acting like an 8 year old and her baby brother is a pest, not her responsibility to feed, comfort and care for.”

– Sometimes people say dumb things. That’s just how it is. Sometimes that person is me. Foster and adoptive families hear some pretty insensitive things. So when you’re trying to be supportive and caring, just run your words through your head first. These men and women and their other children make tremendous sacrifices. They’re not in it for the money, in fact they generally lose rather than gain financially. They don’t foster as a means of shopping for a child to adopt. They don’t think of themselves as perfect people who take on another child because they have some kind of expertise. In fact, the best description I can think of for parents who foster and adopt is simply, WILLING. As Natalie said, “We aren’t “great people” for doing this, we are just meeting a need because we have an extra bed. There is not this ideal family situation that makes the “perfect” foster home.”

As previously mentioned, if you have questions on foster care or adoption, leave a comment here or on the Food Shelf Friday Facebook page, and I’ll ask the panel to address it. Remember to keep praying for the orphans and foster kids in this world who need loving homes, and the foster and adoptive parents trying to provide that.

Open Homes: Foster Care and Adoption – Part 1: What is the Need, and What Does This Have to do With Hunger, Anyway?

Open Homes Series, , ,

Open Homes

Congratulations to Lisa Landrum Hensen, the winner of Food Shelf Friday’s For the Love giveaway!

During the month of June, I am going to be posting a series of blogs called Open Homes: Foster Care and Adoption. This is part one: “What is the Need, and What Does This Have to do With Hunger, Anyway?”

I am personally not a foster or adoptive parent, nor did I grow up in a foster or adopting home. So the idea of adoption and especially foster care seems unfamiliar and overwhelming to me, and I know a lot of you feel the same way. The disruption. The expenses. The physical/mental/emotional challenges that many of these kids bring with them. It’s daunting. And I know a lot of us look at foster care and think, “I could never do that.” Guess what? NO ONE looks at fostering and says, “Sure, no problem, I can do that.” People who agree to foster or adopt don’t have fewer challenges; they do it in spite of the challenges because there are children without stable homes. For this series I invited a number of my friends from around the country to share their experiences with foster care and/or adoption so that people like you and I who don’t have personal experience can understand why they do what they do, and what we can do to help. I’ll introduce the crew of contributors next week. For now, let’s take a look at why this is such a big need.

Food Shelf Friday is all about hunger. I assure you that I have not strayed from my mission. As my friend Sarah said, if a child has spent ANY time in the foster system, it’s not a matter of IF they have food issues, it’s just a matter of which issues and how bad. Scarcity undermines stability and has long lasting effects on children. A big part of what I’m doing with this series will relate to children’s food issues as they move from neglect and scarcity into a foster or adoptive home.

Some facts that illustrate this big need: Over 397,000 American children are currently in foster care. About 30% of them are fully terminated from their birth parents and available for adoption.  The average foster child’s wait for a forever family is 3 years – significantly longer for kids with serious special needs, older children, and sibling groups. Over 23,000 kids “age out” every year, meaning that their time in the foster system is finished as they become legal adults, and they are launched into the adult world without parents to guide them. Worldwide, there are more than 17.9 million orphans living in orphanages or on the streets.

In 2008 there were an estimated 135,800 adoptions in the United States, both international and domestic, open and private (there is no agency that tracks all adoptions, the info is scattered here and there depending on whether the kids are going through private, foster, or international adoption. 2008 was the most recent estimate I could find). In 2012 there were just over 7,000 international adoptions by American parents, a number that has been declining in recent years (it was over 17,000 in 2008), probably due to the depressed economy and the expense of international adoption, as well as policy changes abroad. About 40% of American adoptions involve children from the foster system.

17.9 million orphans. Nearly 400,000 American kids in foster care. These are big numbers. Obviously this is a major issue and a huge need. Begin to pray for the children out there who don’t have parents to guide and care for them. Pray for the families who foster. Pray for the families who are working on adoptions or adjusting to the unique challenges of bringing home an adopted child. In the weeks to come I will be introducing you to a panel of people from around the country who have seen these numbers and declared that they will do something about it. We will be learning from their varied experiences how we can do the most good for the next generation, even if we don’t become foster or adoptive parents ourselves.

Facts about foster care, orphans, and adoption came from The Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, which gathered many of these facts from various agencies and studies and put them all in one place. Other facts came from the National Infertility and Adoption Education Organization:

Head Start 101

101

Head Start

If you’re new around here, I do these 101 looks at government feeding programs about once a month. Check out the other government program 101 posts!

SNAP (Food Stamps)

WIC

NSLP (School Lunch Program)

UN World Food Programme

Meals on Wheels

2015 marks the 50th anniversary of the American Government’s Head Start Program. The program was designed as part of President Johnson’s “Great Society” war on poverty. Essentially, Head Start is a funnel. It establishes guidelines and distributes grants of federal government funds to early childhood programs that meet those guidelines. In theory, although the federal government is handing out the funding, the care of children is still being handled on a local level.

Who benefits from Head Start? In theory, we all do. In reality, the jury is out. Some see this as a vital government program while others are disappointed in the cost and the results. The program is supposed to benefit children in utero through kindergarten with education and nutrition and healthcare services that give them a “head start” or more accurately, keep them from starting out behind, when they enter school.

There is no doubt that infant and preschool nutrition is vital. A child who starts life with nutritional deficiencies may never catch up. And for many families right here in the U.S., that threat is a distinct possibility.  Head Start supports the programs that stand between children and that fate. It begins with programs that educate expectant mothers. Once a child is born, Head Start sponsored programs provide nutrition and parenting education for the parents, medical and dental care for children, and nutritional feeding programs at daycare centers and preschools. As a child nears kindergarten age, Head Start funds preschool education to prepare the kids for classroom learning.

Head Start is a controversial program because it is expensive and it’s nearly impossible to nail down what role it has in ensuring that children succeed. In recent years, the federal government has been cracking down on the accountability of programs that benefit from Head Start. From the Atlantic: “Operating under authority from a 2007 law signed by George W. Bush, the Obama administration has started requiring Head Start providers that perform poorly on federal audits to compete against other local providers—and win—to keep their grants for the next five years. If all goes according to plan, by the end of 2014 the federal government will have reviewed every Head Start program under new performance criteria. So far, more than 350 of some 1,700 Head Start grant recipients have been forced to compete for their funding, and many more will be required to do so in the years ahead.”

So how much money are we talking about here? In 1966, the program first full year, Head Start cost $198,900,000, and benefited 561,000 people (average cost of $354.55/person). The cost of Head Start has increased steadily over the last fifty years, as has the enrollment. In 2012, Head Start had a price tag of $7,968,544,000 and benefited 956,497 people (average cost of $8,300/person). With that large of a price tag, it’s good to see that the government is cracking down on underperforming programs.

I’ll admit that I am personally torn over the value of Head Start. It seems so very expensive, and the benefits of this costly program are unclear. I have an easier time supporting programs like SNAP, WIC or the National School Lunch Program which actually provide food directly to those (mostly children) in need. In my mind that seems a lot more concrete, obviously effective, and overseeable (is that even a word? It is now…) It has been eye-opening to research these programs and discover the way the federal government doesn’t “do” things, it funds things the states do and loosely oversees them. I have been both pleased that these programs are available for those who need them, and fearful of the opportunities for abuse of the system.

As with all of the programs I have covered in the 101 series, I encourage you to do some homework and evaluate the benefits and drawbacks before you take political action. We are responsible for the votes we cast and the political action we take, so let’s make sure we have all the facts straight and let that guide our consciences and our political actions.

Do you have additional information or resources about Head Start and/or government feeding programs? Enlighten us by sharing in the comments, but remember to be respectful. Both sides of the political spectrum care deeply about this country and its children. They just have different ideas about how to best get there.

A couple webpages that I used in my research for this post:

The Atlantic – http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/04/the-accountability-revolution-comes-to-head-start/361161/

Head Start website – http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc

Washington Post – http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/03/05/does-head-start-work-for-kids-the-bottom-line/

Finding Community: Dauntless Grace Ministries and For the Love by Jen Hatmaker

Book Review, Ministry, , , ,

dauntless grace and for the love

Gather ‘round kids, and let me tell you a tale. It’s a tale of being wrecked in a good way, finding your tribe, and learning what it means to be real…

Like a lot of Christian women of my generation, I am a big fan of Jen Hatmaker. I follow her blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc. A few years ago I bought her book 7, and absolutely devoured it. I highlighted half that book and have read and reread passages. Here is one of my particular favorite parts:

In Chapter 3, Jen is offloading possessions (the theme of the book is “an Experimental mutiny Against Excess”), and she does it in a very personal way. First, she cleaned out her closet and gathered everything she didn’t need. Then she personally gave the things to people who need them. She didn’t dump her rejects at Goodwill or hold a garage sale, she actually went out and handed things to the people who needed them. This is a time consuming way to unload your excess possessions, but she got to see with her own eyes how God used her stuff to provide for others. On Easter, the Hatmakers’ church was doing an outreach to the homeless, and Jen brought her purse collection for the ladies to take what they want. At the end, there was one little, cute, impractical pink purse left, one she almost didn’t bring because it wasn’t practical, but she included it last minute because she felt like she was supposed to.

So I stood there with my one little purse, when its rightful owner, the one for whom I daresay that purse was stitched together, made a beeline for me.
She had on her Easter finest, tights included, though it was ninety degrees. Flouncy dress with – what else? – hot pink flowers. Hair done in sections with matching beads, pink floppy hat on standby. Leather dress shoes polished to a sheen. Dainty ribbon necklace and rings on four fingers.
She was six-years-old. Her name was NeNe.
Never has a purse better matched its owner. She slipped that hot pink number over her arm and never put it down, not even to eat. Her mom looked at me and no words were necessary; mothers speak a silent language. I took her picture and fussed over her beauty and breathed a thank you to Jesus for the nudge.
I serve a Savior who finds a way to get pink purses to homeless six-year-old girls.

Every time I read that passage I tear up. 7 sits like a rock in my shoe, poking me whenever I think my comfort is the key to happiness. So after 7, I read Interrupted. They actually go in the other order, but that’s how they came to me. Both books were beautiful, authentic, funny, and unsettling in a good way. In the end they led me closer to Jesus and more focused on serving others.
So imagine my enthusiasm when Jen opened the launch team for her new book, For the Love, to her fans. I applied. I figured why not. The fans selected got a free advance copy of the new book. I love free books, Jen Hatmaker, and social media. My entire life is changed because I took that shot.

First of all, I got rejected. I know that doesn’t sound like a life-altering moment, but for me it was, because in not being selected for the 500 member launch team, I found a tribe of 4500 other rejected fans. One woman tweeted about us with the hashtag #the4500, and we started finding each other. Soon we had a Facebook group. Then we had spin off groups reading books together, doing scripture journaling, and more. And what we discovered together was real, authentic, supportive, Christian community – the kind many of you have in your church and the rest of you wish you did. My church’s women’s ministry is great, but my work and school schedule have often kept me out of the loop. I miss it. This group brought all of us together on social media, where I could interact with the ladies when it worked for me.

We began to have really great conversations about faith and family and even things nice church ladies just don’t talk about at mother-daughter teas. We decided that we can’t just keep this authentic community of support to ourselves, so we’re launching a public group called Dauntless Grace Ministries. DGM is still in the embryonic stages, but overnight (literally) we had 400 people on board. If you’re looking for honest, supportive Christian women who are not afraid to talk about real, complicated, messy things, like DGM on Facebook and join the conversation.

So in addition to this life-altering new tribe of women, Jen and her publishing people gave the #4500 the gift of four chapters (and later a fifth) from the upcoming book. It’s called For the Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards. It hits on that uneasiness we all have trying to balance work and home life, “Pinterest perfect” and “good enough.” The four chapters we got to sample were on fashion, school, the supper club that the Hatmakers and friends started, and the church. The fifth chapter we got via Facebook later and it is about balance. Each chapter can stand alone, so it’s going to be a great bible study book. It’s witty and true, cover to cover. You will laugh for sure, and you might cry. Here are a couple of gems…

“A good parent prepares the child for the path, not the path for the child.

“I am suggesting this, pastors: Offer less, empower more, validate nontraditional ministry, and set a new standard from your pulpit. Preach this, teach this, celebrate your unconventional servants from the stage, band the drum for simple missional lives, and if the machine is killing you, stop feeding it.”

“I think many church folks feel this way about pastors. We perceive them as experts in everything, superspecial and somehow different (better) than us; and we suspect they are always certain when we sometimes doubt.”

The point of this book is to tear down the superficial junk that we put up to look good: the fashion, the fancy school lunches, the church day façade, etc. and to get back to the basics of grace and authenticity. I know that you will love this book. If you think bible study has to be fussy and proper, you’ll be surprised by the humor and imperfections revealed in For the Love. I’m even going to put this out there – I commit to hosting a women’s bible study where we read this book together.

If you want to preorder For the Love, you can find it at For the Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards” target=”_blank”>Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Books a Million. And this week if you like Food Shelf Friday on Facebook you can enter to win a copy. I’ll have it delivered to your house the day it comes out.
So let’s get real, people. Let’s live in authentic community instead of hiding behind our facades. If you don’t have real life people that you can be real with, come find us on DGM. However you get there, just go. Find a place where it’s safe to be real and honest and imperfect and loved anyway.
Thoughts? Leave a comment!

Service Project – Blessing/Homeless Bags

Service Projects,

Blessing Bags

Let’s see if this is familiar: You’re driving down the highway, observing the speed limit (close enough…), never tailgating (I obviously think highly of my readers), and listening to some great music. You see your exit approaching, slow down, and merge into the exit lane. As you glide down the ramp, you see him. Standing there at the intersection by the highway overpass. He’s ragged looking. Unshaven. Needs a haircut and some clean laundry. He’s holding a sign that says, “Will Work for Food” or “Homeless Veteran – Anything Helps.” Instantly your mind races. Thoughts whip back and forth from judgment to compassion and back in under a second. You know they want money, but you don’t know what they’ll do with it, and you don’t want to enable someone’s drug or alcohol problem. Maybe your mind flashes to the scene in Trading Places where the police catch Eddie Murphy’s character conning people by begging for donations while pretending to be a disabled veteran. Coming face to face with someone begging is a helpless, conflicted feeling. I have often wished there was something helpful I could offer them.

I think I have a solution. Like most solutions these days, I found it on Pinterest. They’re called “blessing bags” or “homeless bags.” Basically it’s a large Ziploc bag filled with toiletries and healthy snacks that you keep in your car and hand out in those situations when you want to do something. Some months after I saw this on Pinterest, I was talking to my friend, Cathy, about it, and she told me about her experience doing this just last year. So I used Cathy’s insights and experience as well as the Pinterest ideas to put together three of these bags.

First of all, J was totally not into it. “Mom, why are we doing this?” “Mom, are you going to make us go out looking for homeless people to give them to?” “Can I go play video games now?” It sounds like my son is totally self-absorbed. He’s fourteen, so that’s pretty much accurate, although he has his moments… But Cathy had warned me that creating the bags hadn’t kept her much younger son’s attention either. “(My son) did help me put them together, and I told him they were for people who don’t have homes. He didn’t really seem interested or try to make sense of it until he went with (his dad) to hand them out. I supposed their reaction was a memorable experience for him.” This led to a series of good discussions with her son about homelessness, and he was only three at the time! It’s never too early to make kids aware of the needs of others.

What to put in the bags: First of all, remember that you are going to be keeping these bags in your car, so avoid things that will melt or freeze. Be mindful of the nutritional value of snacks, as well. If a person has gone without food for a while, they don’t need junk, they need real nutrients. So here are some of the items I put in my bag, ideas from Cathy, and suggestions from Pinterest:

  • Shampoo
  • Soap
  • Razor
  • Washcloth
  • Lotion
  • Sunscreen (I had skin cancer, so this was top of my list!)
  • Toothbrush
  • Toothpaste
  • Deodorant
  • Kleenex
  • Comb
  • Mirror
  • Hand sanitizer
  • Antibacterial wipes
  • Pre-packaged healthy snacks like granola or granola bars, crackers, dry fruit/raisins, trail mix, nuts, jerkey, mints, etc.
  • Gift card to Subway or another healthy and alcohol-free restaurant
  • List of local resources, shelters, food banks, etc.
  • A small book or bible

I always snag the little travel sized products when I’m staying in hotels, so I had a stash from which I picked my shampoo, soap, and lotion. I also had some travel size toothpaste and unopened toothbrushes from the dentist, and an assortment of prepackaged snacks. So I gathered all of that together and divided out three of each item I wanted to include in my bags. Then at lunch last week I grabbed some $5 Subway cards along with my sandwich. Currently my bags each contain a travel soap, a travel bottle of shampoo, a travel lotion, a $5 gift card to Subway, and some healthy snacks. I should point out that I put the toiletries into a smaller zipper bag inside the big one, because I didn’t want the scents form the hygiene products to affect the flavor of the snacks.
20150512_195735

Still on my shopping list are antibacterial wipes, one more mini sunscreen (I had two), three washcloths, purse packs of Kleenex, 3 gender neutral deodorants (or one woman’s deodorant as I have two men’s travel deodorants in my stash).

Altogether, I think it will cost me about $30 out of pocket to put together these three bags, and the Subway cards are the single biggest expense. The cost will vary depending on what unopened stuff you already have on hand and what you choose to include.

Thoughts on delivery: The idea behind these blessing bags is that you would open your car window and hand them out to homeless people begging at intersections. In theory, that is. Cathy found that sometimes she would be in the wrong lane, or the light would change and it made it hard to pass them out that way. She tried pitching the bag out her window, but felt that was undignified and came with the risk of the bag being mistaken for trash or not getting to its intended target. After that she took to parking her car and walking to hand deliver the bags.

However you make your deliveries, be safe. While many homeless people are just down on their luck, others are mentally ill or addicts. Don’t put yourself or your kids in a dangerous situation by going out in the dark. Choose well-lit public places. If you’re worried that you can’t safely deliver the bags yourself, take them to a shelter where they can be handed out by the staff.

Comments? Questions? Additional suggestions? – Leave a comment!