By Deana Fisher, LMSW, Director of Child Welfare Services, The Children’s Center
Top 5 Things You Can Do To Help A Child In Foster Care
You don’t have to be a foster parent (although more are always needed) to help a child in foster care. Here’s how:
- Mentor: Foster children of all ages need people to help them with homework, take them to the movies, help them participate in sports or clubs. Foster children rarely get to be involved in things that are beyond the basics. Music lessons, being in a play, or on a little league team is often difficult for foster parents to manage. You can help by being an extra support for foster families.
- Donate: Although money is always welcome, kids at The Children’s Center always need assistance with items like school supplies, hygiene products and clothing. Teenagers going off to college need dorm kits, small appliances and other items to decorate a dorm room.
- Provide a holiday home: Many teens from The Children’s Center who go off to college have no place to come home to on the holidays and summer vacation. You can help by providing a welcoming family for them on Christmas and Spring break.
- Volunteer at a foster care agency: The Children’s Center always needs help! You would need Child Protective Services and Police clearances, as well some training, but those are not difficult to obtain, and you would be able to help in so many different ways!
- Lastly, treat foster children like you would any other children: Kids in foster care, especially teens, don’t want to be seen as different from other kids. They don’t want you to pity them or feel sorry for them. They need you to respect them and have high expectations of them, and for them. Don’t expect a show of gratitude from the “poor foster children” for the things that you do for them. Understand they are like any kid, sometimes grateful, sometimes not. That doesn’t mean they are any less deserving.
Whatever you have to offer, do it with an open heart. The rewards may not be extravagant, but the work IS rewarding nonetheless.
For more information visit www.thechildrenscenter.com, email Shereen Allen-Youngblood or call (313) 262-1119.
Recommended Posts
