With a mere handful of Cochrane households serving as active foster parents, the Calgary and Area Child and Family Services Authority (CFSA) is looking for Cochrane and area families to open their hearts and their homes.
“There are so many babies under two in baby cottages (orphanages) in Calgary who need homes,” said local foster parent, mother of four and foster mother of two, Colleen Martens. “My (biological) children see what’s out there and that not everyone gets to grow up in a stable home. . .they also learn the responsibility of taking care of younger children.”
Martens said that she and her husband, George, have enjoyed being able to give back to children in need for the last two years and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
“At any one time there are between 1,200-1,300 foster children in our care in our region,” said CFSA program recruiter, Sue O’Keeffe, defining the boundaries of the area surrounding Calgary that they cover as north of Airdrie, south of High River, east of Strathmore and west of Lake Louise.
“We’re seeing a number of our families retiring or moving into adoption, so we are always looking for new families,” said O’Keefe, adding that Cochrane has less than five active foster families and the need for more is only growing.
O’Keeffe, who was raised by a family who fostered children and was also a foster parent herself when her biological children were younger, said that despite the common myth that foster children largely come from high-risk households that they need to have concealed identities from, the truth is more often than not the very opposite.
In reality, very rarely are there issues of concern for the safety of the child, should there be accidental contact (for example, in a smaller community) between foster and biological families. O’Keeffe said usually the sentiments expressed by the biological families are of gratitude.
“Most often there isn’t an adversarial relationship
. . . (biological families) usually love their kids, but cannot provide properly for them for one reason or another.”
She said that new families entering the system aren’t thrown in and left to fend for themselves. These families are encouraged to participate in the mentorship program.
“Every new family coming into our program is matched up with an experienced foster family,” she explained, noting that the Calgary region is the first region to run such a mentorship program — earning good feedback from those who have participated so far.
New families entering the program will generally foster a maximum of two children at the same time, whereas more experienced families will often take in up to four children at a time; this makes the gap of replacing retiring foster families even harder to fill, as it generally takes two new families to fill the shoes of one experienced family.
O’Keeffe said her own experiences of fostering are irreplaceable.
“I wouldn’t trade it for the world . . . My husband and I fostered when our (biological) children were two and five. We fostered newborns, often drug and alcohol-addicted, because I felt comfortable with that, but foster families can choose the age and gender of the children they foster and what they are comfortable with.”
O’Keeffe said the opportunity to truly impact the life of someone else is so rare, that even though many of the infants she cared for at one time or another may not remember her — she knows that she and her family made a healthy, meaningful impact that would stay with them throughout their lives.
Susan Flowers, manager of Cochrane Family and Community Support Services (FCSS) said that Cochrane and area families are welcome to stop by FCSS and learn more about the world of foster parenting.
“Our area is more prevention, so we want to help the CFSA recruit foster families from the rural areas,” said Flowers. “It’s very rewarding to be able to help youth and give them a stable environment.”
Most fostered children are placed within their region, ideally in their hometowns whenever possible; the idea is to avoid further trauma of displacing the children not only from their families, but from their schools, friends and familiar surroundings.
Although the nearby community of Morley has their own foster program, an estimated 68 per cent of children in foster care are First Nations; Aboriginal families who can provide foster care are always welcomed to apply.
To learn more or to take part in an info session, contact 403-297-5957 or visit caring4kids.ca.
