Foster Parents ROCK!

I am just back from Baltimore and the National Foster Parent Association annual conference. I was accepted to present two classes - Sexual Behavior in Children and the Stewards of Children training by Darkness to Light, an excellent child sexual abuse organization.

Foster parents are amazing people and I am completely impressed with their dedication, huge hearts and ability to care for some of the most challenging kids ever. I couldn’t do it. Well, I probably could, but right now, I wouldn’t.

The rate of sexual abuse among foster kids is 4 times that of the national average. If kids are in a group home, the numbers are even higher - in part due to the prevalence of child-to-child abuse.

These wonderful people take in kids who have experienced trauma, abuse, neglect and upheaval that many of us can’t even imagine. And, frankly, don’t even dare to imagine. We’d rather not think about it.

But they think about it every day, when they invite these kids into their homes and integrate them into their families. They think about it when the children visit their biological families and come back to them in tears. They think about it when the child has night terrors.

And they think about it when the child goes home to their biological parents, gets adopted by another family or when they adopt the child themselves.

What about you? Could you be a foster parent? Every kid deserves to have a healthy, happy, experience in a family. How about yours?