Help Build The Beautiful | Foster Care Awareness Month

Growing up, someone very close to me was uprooted from her home and placed in foster care. This pre-teen girl experienced a traumatic event and a family friend stepped up and took her into their home to live.

Imagine everything familiar being torn from you.

The place that you once called home is no longer that, your home. The place where you laid your head where all your stuffed animals slept is now cold and empty. The tree fort and hiding spaces are quiet and lonely. The table where you fought with your siblings over the last bit of chocolate milk remains covered with breakfast dishes. These are the things a child in foster care remembers and misses, the comfortable and the familiar.  

This family friend, now her foster family, moved their home around to give her a bedroom of her own, they brought her to school, helped her with her homework, they fed and clothed her; they loved her.

Their home was disrupted from what was familiar; however, they loved and cared for her despite any inconvenience.

There was also a community of people who helped through the family’s church and school. They carpooled, brought meals, bought clothing and gifts, and they babysat whenever needed. Soon, the family and my friend became more settled, love started to grow, and smiles came back.  

For one moment, I want to recognize the foster parent who has opened their heart and home to a child in need. Sure, you were told it would be an adjustment, but you were not prepared for how you would feel. Your entire world too has been uprooted, changed, and unfamiliar. The gift of love and safety that you so willingly wanted to share with a child in need, is at times, unwelcome. You are held at arm’s length and your home feels a little unsettled, your heart longing to give love. The feelings of longing for the comfortable and familiar may be similar for the child and the foster parent.  

Foster parents can relate to remembering how things were before this child or teen arrived in their home. Yet, nothing was torn from a foster parent.

Foster parents are open, inviting, and willing.

These are feelings a child or teen cannot relate to when placed in a foster home. Their entire world has been uprooted and then replanted in an unfamiliar place.  

Fostering requires a community of love being poured into those who are opening their home to children in need. You and I can be the support and strength a foster parent needs in tangible ways. Bringing meals to a foster family, offering to run errands, transporting kids, babysitting, and providing school supplies or clothing are ways we can work together. Building a community of support for those who open their homes and hearts to children in need not only help the foster family feel love, but the children in their home will see healthy adults working together. If we pour into foster parents, they in turn can pour into the children in their care. The new familiar can become beautiful for all those involved in foster care.

Help build the beautiful.  

Tracy Weber

Foster Care Family Specialist