DCS launches foster care initiative to find more support
Tennessee Fosters, an initiative to increase the number of foster families and establish a network of support, launched in West Tennessee Monday and was presented to about 200 local partners at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis.
The initiative by the Department of Children’s Services looks to the faith community, businesses and others to help find foster families and establish support teams within those agencies to bolster those new fosters.
“We intend to deliver a solid set of results. And we may be ambitious, but we believe that’s the only way you accomplish anything,” said DCS Commissioner Bonnie Hommrich.
The department plans to recruit a minimum of 100 forever homes for children, increase the number of foster parents by 10 percent and engage 5 percent of the faith community to support foster families, Hommrich said.
“We want to be the first state in the nation that has no children who do not have a forever family,” she said.
Although Tennessee in many areas ranks among the highest in the nation for child welfare, including the length of time it takes to adopt, there are still 350 to 400 children waiting in state custody to be adopted, said Crissy Haslam, wife of Gov. Bill Haslam.
Not everybody can foster or adopt, but everyone can help make a meal, mow a lawn or perhaps fix a car, she said.
“Fostering isn’t an easy job, but it doesn’t have to be lonely,” Haslam said. “We need more foster families and we need more helpers.”
In Shelby County, there are 194 foster homes and 894 children in state custody. The county is in need of more families willing to foster teenagers, teens with conduct disorders, sibling groups of three or more and Spanish speakers, said Merlene Hyman, DCS regional administrator for Shelby County.
“Sometimes families, as they come into the system, need immediate resources, support in terms of finding larger housing, beds or tangible goods,” Hyman said.
DCS will work with nonprofit agency America’s Kids Belong to assist in the Tennessee Fosters campaign. AKB has campaigns in Oklahoma and Tennessee and less intensive programs in Colorado Virginia and Kansas.
“We are convinced that already good things are happening in Tennessee, but this cause is not only worthy, it’s solvable when we all come together,” said Brian Mavis, a co-founder of AKB.
This is the kind of work Cathedral of Faith Community Church, 2212 Jackson, has done for a decade, said Connie Booker, who attended the rally with her husband, Pastor Calvin Booker.
“We get referrals from children’s services. We have a clothes closet, a food pantry, a supply closet. We recruit for foster parents. So we’re already doing this work,” Connie Booker said. “Outreach is what we have always done.”
If every church in Memphis found one member who wanted to become a foster parent and then wrapped that family up with support, DCS could run out of children, she said.
“If every church identified just one member and you had your aunts, your uncles, your grandmommas, your granddaddys, your cousins, your other little friends, everybody right there in the church, DCS would be saying ‘what happened to all the children, where did all the little children go,’ ” Booker said.
For more information on Tennessee Fosters, got to tnfosters.gov.