YORK COUNTY — Foster families are urgently needed in Williamsburg, Yorktown and Poquoson.
Jennifer Bolden, Assistant Director of York-Poquoson Social Services, has started reaching out to the community in an effort to find foster families. The York-Poqouson area currently has 28 children in foster care and six families that are approved foster families.
Bolden shared that the process to becoming a foster family requires a pre-service training program, called the PRIDE model. Within the training, potential foster families are taught about protecting and nurturing children, meeting and addressing developmental needs and delays, supporting relationships with birth families, connecting children to safe and nurturing relationships, and how to work as a member of a professional team.
The state of Virginia has also recently created a Foster Family Highway program. The program allows potential foster families to create a profile where they can discuss their logistics, family life, and list their hobbies in order to become a potential match for a child in the foster care system.
According to Bolden, common misconceptions about being a foster family include not having enough money, not having a large enough home, and not being able to give the child back.
“Some people come into it thinking that it’s going to be too heartbreaking. People have to come into this with the right frame of mind, as not only a support system for this child but also their birth family,” Bolden shared.
The State of Virginia’s goal is to either reunite the foster child with their birth family or place them ultimately with a relative.
Only after completing PRIDE training do home visits and background checks begin. At any point throughout the training, residents can opt out of being foster families if they feel it isn’t a good fit for them.
“We tell people, you’ll go through this five weeks of training where you will meet other foster parents and people from your agency and sometimes at the end of all this training, you’ll say ‘this isn’t what I thought it was, it’s not for me.’ It’s not like if you go through the training, you have to commit to be a foster parent,” Bolden said.
Ongoing training continues throughout the foster child’s placement. The York-Poquoson Social Services office is always available as a resource for foster families.
Foster parents must be 18 and older and meet all requirements throughout the approval process. There are no restrictions on marital status, home ownership, race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation.
“The saying goes, ‘it takes a village to raise a child,’ and we need people to be that village,” Bolden said.
Potential foster families can reach out directly to Bolden or anyone at the York-Poquoson Social Services office. To learn more, visit yorkcounty.gov/205/Foster-Care.