Foster parents needed across Illinois
ROCKFORD, Ill. (WIFR) - Registered foster parents can help the more than 21,000 children currently in Illinois foster care system.
Children enter foster care for numerous reasons, often dealing with emotional issues at the same time. Some would say foster parents are the heroes helping children deal with big life changes.
Kristen Cottrell and her partner have welcomed 23 children in to their home over the last eight years as foster parents. The kids coming into Cottrell’s home are subject to stay in foster homes until their family situation improves. If it doesn’t, the children are put up for adoption.
“The children need a chance to be children, and really just be able to play and be together and have that sense of family,” she told 23 News.
Loni Wilson is Director of Children’s Home and Aid. She says there’s numerous steps parents have to take to be able to reintegrate their children back into their lives.
“Parents have to prove that they can provide a stable and safe environment for their children, and that’s really what we’re looking for. So our responsibility is to really help build their support that maybe they didn’t have growing up,” Wilson said.
Wilson says it takes a community to raise a child and foster parents are key, but they need more of them. DCFS offers financial and emotional assistance for caregivers and biological parents.
“We know that reunification will be much more successful if everyone works together,” she said.
That’s something that resonates with Cottrell.
“This is about families taking care of families, this isn’t just about the child. And that starts as banding together, and when we have families or communities who commit to the families and not just the child it really makes a difference,” Cottrell said.
Wilson thinks it’s vital we prioritize the partnerships between ourselves, our families and the community, in order to get more kids back home.
“One of the cool things that we’re going to be doing is hiring parent partners. So we’re gonna be hiring people who have successfully navigated the foster care system and will be able to work alongside our families to help them and show them that there are success stories out there and they can do it,” she said,
She also wants to see more resources since outlets drastically decreased during the pandemic. Children’s Home and Aid desperately needs volunteers and access to mental health services for kids in the system. That takes a community effort.
Copyright 2022 WIFR. All rights reserved.
