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The Parenting Biz: Discover The Joys Of Foster Care
“It Takes A Village To Raise A Child”
Who can be a foster parent? What is the process?
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Feature Story By Jim Murphy
Help the Windsor-Essex Children’s Aid Society (WECAS) find children and families by volunteering and/or fostering. Our community needs your help! Pictured is a group of Windsor Essex foster parents who were featured in a recent billboard campaign to help recruit other foster parents. Photo courtesy of WECAS.
As you have just seen in the pages before this installment of THE PARENTING BIZ, our regular columnist, Joe McParland wrote a special Thanksgiving Cup of Joe column demonstrating his gratitude for family and friends, since recently discovering (after nearly 70 years), the identity of his birth father.
McParland now has connected with his newly discovered brother, Don Martel, and his nephew, Christopher Martel.
This real-life story inspired us to dive into the world of adoption and foster care.
A family is the most important influence in a child’s life. They give one a sense of belonging, provide a safe zone and help a child learn how to interact with others.
Yet, families come in all shapes and sizes. While biological children are a blessing for most, not all children are born to parents that are ready and/ or able to provide them with the love, support, guidance and most importantly, the safety they need.
For this edition, we feature two organizations in the Windsor and Essex County area that facilitate foster care, and interview two local foster parents who have been through the process firsthand and share their experience with us.
Following this article, our Guest Columnist Amanda Baigent, the Executive Director of Beginnings Family Services offers information on private and open adoption.
The Windsor-Essex Children’s Aid Society
Since 1899, the Windsor-Essex Children’s Aid Society (WECAS) has been the local branch of the Children’s Aid Society (CAS) in the Windsor/Essex County area.
CAS provides help and support to children and their families as mandated by the Child, Youth and Family Services Act of 2017 and is funded through the Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services.
Located at 1671 Riverside Drive East, WECAS is responsible for investigating all allegations of child abuse including neglect, while also providing protection services to children, youth and their families in Windsor/Essex County.
When a serious concern about a child’s care at home arises, that child may need to be placed in foster care where foster parents provide a safe home for the child, temporarily. These foster parents work with the local CAS as part of a care team for the child.
Ideally, the child is reunited with their family after all safety concerns are removed; when this is not possible, the care plan may include adoption or longterm foster care.
From 2019-2020 there were a total of 686 adoptions completed through CAS in Ontario. In that same year WECAS completed 29.
Who Can Be A Foster Parent?
Anyone that has the desire to parent children can come forward to care for children.
To meet the diverse needs of the children and youth who come into their care, the WECAS recruits diverse foster families.
They encourage applications from families of different cultural, ethnic, racial and religious backgrounds.
Foster parents include members of the gay and lesbian community, couples with or without children, single parent families, single people, retired (single or married) individuals,
married and common-law couples.
To become a foster parent, you need to complete a Structured Analysis Family Evaluation (SAFE), home study, and PRIDE training.
SAFE is a standardized assessment required for all those interested in kinship care, fostering, and adoption.
A SAFE home study includes application, home safety checklist/ questionnaires, medical evaluations, criminal record check, Children’s Aid provincial and local database check, and references.
PRIDE pre-service is a nine-module (27 hour) training program used to prepare and educate families interested in kinship care, fostering and adoption.
“We require foster homes for children and youth up to 18 years of age, including homes for our youth over the age of 16 that are transitioning out of care,” notes Rebecca Ross, Foster Parent Recruiter/ Trainer at WECAS. “So, if you can’t commit to the process and still have lots of room and time to mentor, consider a room and board arrangement for the older and more vulnerable youth in our community.”
The full process includes a telephone/ email/online inquiry, attending an information session, an initial home visit, PRIDE pre-service training, a home study including an interview, and finally approval and signing the service agreement.
“Here at WECAS we are always looking for foster homes for our older children, teens and sibling groups,” indicates Dorothy Watson, BSW, Resource Supervisor at WECAS. “We can’t stress enough the importance of having a range of culturally diverse homes available so we can make the best matches for our children in care.”
Types Of Foster Care
Many do not realize there are several different types of foster care.
Regular foster care is the most common; this is where you provide a safe, stable, and nurturing home environment for children and youth.
Relief care are homes that welcome foster children on an occasional basis to relieve full-time foster families.
This provides the regular foster family time away from care giving. These placements are usually for a matter of days and may appeal to those families wishing to consider fostering part-time.
“If you are new to fostering, this could be a great way to get your feet wet!” Ross comments. “Right now we are in a great need for relief homes. This could also be a great opportunity for teachers or professions that have time off on a regular basis.”
Customary care is alternative form of care provided to Indigenous/First Nations children by Indigenous/First Nations communities. These arrangements allow children and youth to maintain important cultural and family ties.
Kinship care occurs when the child or youth are cared for by members of the immediate or extended family, family friend or someone in the community. The care provided here is like regular foster care.
“Foster care in Windsor Essex provides our children and youth with a safe temporary family setting in a time of crisis; it can provide essential support while allowing the birth parents time to address issues that are putting their children’s safety and well-being at risk,” says Ross. “Most of the time, children that are placed in foster care are reunited with their birth families once their parents’ parenting skills have been strengthened with support from CAS’s community partners. In other situations, foster care can open new doors to safety, permanency and well-being for children whose parents remain unwilling or unable to meet their needs.”
Sometimes interested applicants may not be able to commit to the demands of fostering. However, WECAS is still in need of volunteers.
“We want the community to know that we need their help more than ever,” stresses Tina Gatt, Manager of Community Outreach at WECAS. “While our pillar volunteer programs continue to need support, particularly in transportation, it is also a critical time to reach out to our diverse communities to engage their volunteer participation in new and inclusive ways that aim to provide equitable opportunities and support to children, youth and families across our region.”
WECAS has several volunteer programs including tutoring, mentoring, volunteer transportation and special events.
The Volunteer Transportation Program uses volunteer drivers to support children, youth and caregivers in getting to school, counselling, appointments, visits with family members, and recreational opportunities.
“Prior to the pandemic, we were seeing a decline in the number of volunteer drivers as this has generally been an older group, many of which have traditionally been retirees,” says Gatt. “Coming out of the pandemic we have lost many volunteer drivers for various reasons: feeling they were ready to retire as a volunteer, fear of the lingering impact of COVID-19 and potential health risks, shifting family priorities and returning to work. We used to have over 100 and now we are down to approximately 50 percent capacity as the rising cost of living and transportation costs have hit the program hard.”
Meggie Bergen and her husband Rob currently have two foster children, a six month-old boy and a two month-old boy.
“Growing up I have always wanted to adopt, and my husband and I knew we wanted a big family,” Bergen comments. “We have five children aged seven to 14 and as my youngest child became more independent, foster care became an option for us. Now we want our home to be a place for children to come, specifically infants — as we are an infant home — to have a loving and safe environment to be in while their parents get ready for them.”
Bergen tells Biz X that besides the lack of sleep, the hardest part is saying goodbye to the little ones they foster because she treats them and cares for them like her own children. However, the benefits outweigh the challenges.
“The benefits are you get to love a baby as you watch them thrive and develop,” states Bergen. “For me, I am living my dream and that alone is a huge benefit. Knowing I am using my skill set to help comfort and love a baby and that baby is learning to attach and feel safe in the process is the best part for me.”
For more information on volunteering or becoming a foster parent, visit: WECAS.on.ca.
Five /Fourteen Foster Care
Located at 3640 Wells Street in Windsor, Five/Fourteen Foster Care provides services and supports tailored to Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Transgender, Queer,
Interested in learning more about fostering or volunteering? Then get in touch with Dorothy Watson, Resource Supervisor (left) and Tina Gatt, Manager of Community Outreach for WECAS. In this photo, Gatt holds a Volunteer, Eat, Sleep, Repeat booklet, which is included in a gift bag given to participants during April’s National Volunteer Week. Watson displays a shirt with the #1 morehome tagline for their current foster family recruitment campaign. Photo courtesy of Paul Medved/WECAS.
Two-Spirited (LGBTQ2S) youth, and their foster families, adding to the services WECAS provides.
This includes foster services to teenagers in CAS care that provide an alternative to group homes. These youth are not looking to be adopted so much as supported, as they transition from foster care to independence and adulthood.
“Many foster parents and indeed CAS workers, still hold personal beliefs that make it difficult and even traumatic for LGBTQ2S youth to come out and be their authentic selves,” comments Chad Craig, Co-Founder and Administrative Director of Five/Fourteen Foster Care. “These youth come to us so they can live in a supportive and affirming home, which lets them focus on regular, everyday life — rather than fighting to just survive.”
In 2012, a report on the Youth Leaving Care hearings titled “My Real Life Story” was released by the Office of the
Provincial Advocate For Children and
Youth (OPACY). This report highlighted discouraging outcomes for young adults raised in foster care, due to what was evidently a broken foster care system.
From that report was born the Youth
Leaving Care Working Group’s
“Blueprint for Fundamental Change to Ontario’s Child Welfare System,” which, along with reports from Egale Canada Human Rights Trust and the City of Toronto, plus data from UCLA’s William Institute, the Child Welfare League of America and Lambda Legal, helped indicate the need for improving foster care for LGBTQ2S youth.
Lucas Medina, now Executive Director of Five/Fourteen, was all too familiar with the stories in the report, being a former crown ward himself.
He contacted OPACY to find out how he could get involved and was invited to join You Are Not Alone, a joint committee that would meet with LGBTQ2S foster youth to develop solutions. Out of this process, Five/Fourteen Foster Care was born in 2016.
“Five/Fourteen connects Queer and Trans Youth to their cultural community,” explains Craig. “This cultural connection allows them to build their confidence and life skills, which helps them build a sense of identity while reducing the likelihood of suicide attempts or involvement in human trafficking.”
Craig suggests that any Biz X readers currently fostering Queer, Trans, or gender-diverse youth can reach out to them to access supports available only through their agency, including an up to $70 per diem rate, additional funding for clothing and hair care, and $35 per week allowance for the youth, and of course, LGBTQ-specific programming.
One such foster parent who utilized the services of Five/Fourteen is Michael Cardinal, Owner/Operator of
Mike Cardinal Counselling Services
(MikeCardinal.com) and Cardinal Place retirement home, 3140 Peter Street in Windsor (CardinalPlace.ca).
“I met my foster son near the beginning of the pandemic,” Cardinal tells Biz X. “For him, it meant the protection of a
stable, safe home to clear his mind, be and become himself and achieve his high school diploma. For me, it meant an opportunity to parent, have a home and family-life that I had wanted for a long time. For two-thirds of my life, until 2000, it was illegal for gay people to foster or adopt children.”
Cardinal knew that despite the pandemic, the time was right and he was able to connect to his foster son, thanks to Five/Fourteen.
After 27 months, Cardinal’s foster son is now in college. He was able to witness him grow in confidence and become independent.
“His cooking skills blossomed,” Cardinal mentions. “His cleaning skills, as most parents of teenagers will say, still need work! (LOL). And I also grew, especially in the letting go part; while I offered guidance and witnessed drama, I learned to smile and accept that life will be the greater teacher.”
Cardinal is very grateful to the support of Five/Fourteen and to the experienced guidance of his family and friends who are parents. And, yes, he “would absolutely do it again!”
To access Five/Fourteen Foster Care enhanced services and supports, LGBTQ2S youth in foster care and their foster parents should contact Medina and Craig via their website: Fostering.ca.
Family Forever
When you foster a child it’s a huge responsibility and often a lifelong commitment. Essentially you are becoming their family, sometimes the only family they’ll ever know.
Make sure your heart is in the right place when making the decision to adopt or foster a child or youth.
