Monday, July 28, 2014

Foster Children - Sibling Foster Kids Now Have Chance at a Permanent Home with Relatives



The foster care statistics above say it all. One of the worst things that could ever happen to a foster child is for him/her to age out of foster care with no family connections. And yet 24,000 foster children in 2014 will be forced out of their foster home environment and into the street. Many will have absolutely no family support because no relatives were found by foster care agencies.


Now imagine that you are in a foster home, and your older sister has been sent away. Both of you are alone, separated, and you are so upset because you know your sister is out there somewhere trying to find food and a place to live.

Fortunately, foster children can move out of the system and into a permanent home with loving, caring family members. The challenge is that sometimes relatives can't be found through normal means.




CASA of Travis County, Texas brought us a case involved two siblings. Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) for Children is a national organization with a network of 951 community-based programs that recruit, train and support citizen-volunteers to advocate for the best interests of abused and neglected children in courtrooms and communities. These children are often foster youth.


By the time we got this case, the older sister had already aged out of foster care and was on her own. Child Protective Services, CPS, has not been successful at finding relatives of these children. The fear was that in several years the brother would also be forced out of foster care, and both would spend the rest of their lives with no family to help them other than each other.

CASA had some information on relatives possibly living in Mexico and hoped that Find Families In Mexico could find them. Anjuli Barak, CASA Family Finding Specialist wrote,

"The child... has had no contact with family members for a number of years and has suffered greatly because of it."

If we were successful and found at least one adult family member, it would change the lives of these two siblings forever.





Within a few weeks, CASA was able to call and talk with the children's birth father as well as with several other adult relatives. CASA also learned that these foster children have two aunts living in Illinois and has passed that information to CPS.

Some people wonder if, with so many foster youth already in the system and hundreds of thousands more coming in yearly, finding family members is worth the effort. I understand the frustration and maybe the sense of helplessness against overwhelming numbers. However, I think that Ms. Barak counters that concern with her comments,

"We feel confident that we will be able to reconnect these siblings with their relatives and instill hope in a hopeless situation."

Moving foster youth out of the system and into permanent homes with relatives benefits the children, the foster care system and society. Supporting an organization such as Find Families In Mexico is a smart move because we are the reason why many foster kids are now safely out of foster care and not homeless or turning to crime for food and money.

Not helping these children is simply not an option.

Do it for the children,

Richard Villasana
  Richard

Richard Villasana
Find Families In Mexico
760-690-3995

PS. You can help foster children by sharing this post with others.



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