As an agency, our responsibility is to support our foster parents, so that they can support the children entrusted to their care.  It has been repeatedly demonstrated that the more support we give, the stronger and better equipped our parents are to manage difficult situations and support a child’s healing process.  Here are is Part 1 of JRI Foster Care and Adoption’s key supports:

Foster Parent Support Group

Ten times a month in four different locations, we

You do an online search.  “Foster Care Agencies Near Me.”  Four or five names pop up on your screen.  You pause and start to wonder.  Does it matter which you choose?  Don’t they all do the same thing?  How do you know which program is right for you?

Interview Agencies

Just like anything, every agency has its own personality.  Call a few agencies.  Do they answer your call right away?  Do they sound friendly?  Do

The sound of my mom’s voice is just the most soothing sound in the world.  It hits a different place in my brain, has a physiological effect on my body.  One of the most amazing things she did when I was a little girl (and there were just so many…I am so fortunate that I was placed in her capable hands when I entered this world) was reading to me and my sisters. 

Every night

He ran out of the classroom.  Again.  He got sent to the office.  Again.  He growled at his foster mom.  Again.  He shoved a kid on the playground, broke a girl’s crayons, and ripped up his worksheet.  Again.

He missed his mom.  Again.  He got stuck thinking about the word “Adoption,” and how his social worker said he wasn’t going to live with his mom.  Again.  He thought about living in Maine and making bonfires

You’ve taken the classes.  You’ve been fingerprinted, interviewed, reference-checked.  You’ve watched the “Removed” movie fourteen times.  You’ve read blogs and are part of foster parent support groups on social media.  Your agency calls you and says, “Congratulations, your home has been approved.  You are open to provide foster care!  We will call you when we have a match,” and they hang up the phone.

Now what?

New parents, seasoned parents, it makes no difference.  Welcoming

A New Year’s Wish

Midnight ushers in the promises of crisp, fresh pages, uninked and ready for the next chapter.  The year reaches in front of us, a road untraveled, offering adventure, promise, a new start. 

I wish you peace in the New Year.  I wish you wisdom, accrued from every year you’ve lived, to guide you on your path.  I wish joy, to greet the new day.  May you dance in golden rays of

He won’t sit still.  He shifts in his chair constantly, folding a leg under himself, then unfolding, folding the other leg.  His backpack is a whirl of chaos.  There is always something forgotten, either at home, at school, on the bus, or whereabouts unknown.  He looks up with giant eyes, a blank expression on his face, as his caretaker repeats herself for the seventeenth time. 

“Go clean up your room before dinner,” she says.  He

There is a whole lot of good happening for our kiddos and families!  The tough stuff sometimes bogs us down and takes center stage, but we need to work harder to shift that focus.  Let the sun shine, as they say.  So here it is, our listicle of positives:

1. A gentleman who has been growing before our very eyes is in college full time and just got a part-time position in his field of choice

There are so many wonderful people out there who want to support the children and families with whom we work.  Many want to help, but aren’t in a place in their life where foster care is the right choice.  We are often asked, what else can I do?  How can I help?  Well, friends, here are some ideas!  Hopefully one will be right for you.

• Hire a foster youth for an internship or job
• Organize

Back to School  

There is an energy that flows through school hallways on the first day.  So many new things all at once.  New teachers, new classmates, new lockers, new notebooks, new markers, new shoes.  Students haven’t seen one another in weeks, so there is much to catch up on.  Trips to Storyland, getting drivers licenses, beach weeks, going shopping for new clothes, summer sports, camp outs, first jobs, and on and on.  Summer is