Feature
TRICIA, NATHAN AND ANNABELLE STOUDER
Foster families needed in Story County, even as COVID-19 creates new challenges By Kylee Mullen Gannett
18 | FACETS | JULY 2020
I
t takes a village to raise a child, and for one Story County foster family, being a part of someone’s village is “the most rewarding experience.” And while being a foster family is no easy task, especially during a pandemic which causes additional challenges, Nathan and Tricia Stouder, of Huxley, are encouraging area families with a little extra room in their homes and hearts to consider stepping up to the plate. “Can you love on them? Can you support them? Can you give them some encouragement and guidance … to make their life a little easier while they’re going through something hard? I think most people think it takes extraordinary feats, but it doesn’t,” Tricia Stouder said. “We are extremely ordinary people, we just figure out ways to say yes.” The Stouders became foster parents in 2018, and “caring for kids is something that has always been on our hearts, and it’s something that’s been important to us for as long as
we’ve been together,” Tricia Stouder said. In some ways, the process of making it a reality started when they adopted their daughter, Annabelle, through a private agency, she said. “We learned through the circumstances of our daughter’s adoption a little bit more about the legal process of caring for kiddos,” she said. “I think we both became very aware of sort of the privileges of our own upbringing. … With that, we wanted to make sure we were doing the best we could to help kids and do whatever we could to sort of be a stability point for (them).” They attended a no-obligation orientation in 2016 through Four Oaks Family Connections, an organization contracted by the Iowa Department of Human Services to recruit, train, license and support Iowa’s foster and adoptive families. Emily Easton, a recruiting coordinator for Four Oaks Family Connections, said the orientation gives prospective
