By Irene Clements
Please join the National Foster Parent Association in celebrating National Foster Care Month by honoring the dedicated foster families across the country and celebrating the amazing children/youth who, through no fault of their own, are experiencing foster care services.
Children and youth who are placed into foster care are there due to significant abuse and neglect and cannot be safe in their own homes. Foster families step up to provide the love and healing these resilient children/youth need and deserve. Foster families and caseworkers, along with educators, therapists, CASAs, judges and others, work as a team to help families reunite when possible and when not possible, they help each child find permanency as soon as the child is ready. Every child deserves a forever family to rely on as they grow and mature.
Congratulations and thank you to foster parents who, according to one former foster youth, Rhonda Sciortino, provide "big-hearted, radical hospitality to each child they welcome into their family." Vera Fahlberg, a well-known child development expert and advocate stated: “Every child deserves an irrational advocate.”
Will you step up and consider becoming a member of this very honorable group of people -- foster parents? Look around in your home town or community and join in the celebrations. Perhaps next year, the celebration will be for you, too.
Irene is the president of the National Foster Parent Association.
