State, County, City, Community Join Together on Coordinated Foster Family Recruitment
You don’t have to be married, under 40, or rich to be a foster parent to a teenager. But it does take 100% heart to start… and Franklin County needs more people to give older children love and stability at a time when they need it most.
In a unique state-county-city-community collaboration around this theme of “It Takes Heart,” Franklin County Children Services is enlisting the help of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, the Franklin County Commissioners, and Columbus City Council - along with more than two dozen foster agencies, local service providers, and community partners including Action for Children - to recruit as many as 100 additional foster parents specifically to support tween- and teen-aged children here in Franklin County.
Placement of children between the ages of 11-17 who come into the care of FCCS has become more difficult in recent years, as evidenced in part by the increasing number of times the agency has been forced to keep tweens and teens overnight in non-residential settings, including FCCS’ own building.
In fact, on 40 occasions last year alone, FCCS had no other choice but to have youth spend the evening in the agency’s Intake/Visitation building for two or more nights because a foster placement was not available. Nearly all of those occasions involved a young person over the age of 11, with most between 11 - 15 years old.
“Fostering is making a child feel safe and not alone. Fostering a young person is fostering hope,” said Franklin County Commissioner John O’Grady. “Fostering is the difference between a child sleeping in an office building that was never intended for that purpose and a child sleeping in a warm bed watched over by a caring adult.”
“A sense of community and continuity plays such a vital role in the mental and emotional health of young people,” added Franklin County Commissioner Erica Crawley. “While foster care is meant to be a short-term temporary solution for families engaged in the child welfare system, it can be a lifeline and sense of stability for young people at a critical time in their lives.”
“There’s a great misperception about who can be a foster parent. The truth is that you don't have to be married or middle-age, you don’t have to own your home or have a graduate degree, and while you do need to have a stable income, you don’t need to be rich. But it does take 100% heart, at least to start,” said Chip Spinning, FCCS Executive Director. “And today, we are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with dedicated partners who want to help us find more foster families through an impressive collaboration that stretches across state, county, city, and community levels.”
To meet this bold goal of recruiting 100 additional foster parents over the next year to work with tween- and teen-aged children, here’s what FCCS and its partners are doing as part of this unique state-county-city-community collaboration:
For more information on becoming a foster parent in Franklin County, call 614.275-2711 or visit https://fccs.us/foster-care. To review the resources available through the State of Ohio, learn about foster and adoption options across the state, and hear more about the “It Takes Heart Ohio” campaign, go to https://fosterandadopt.jfs.ohio.gov/home.
