(This story was originally published in The Elevator in June, 2023.)

Foster and Adoption

— Oregon — A beautiful, happy, and healthy home in the country holding a set of adoptive twins and two fathers. Going from fostering to adopting wasn’t the easiest process for them.

The twins were taken away from their biological mother at a very young age. 

These two people who can’t have kids of their own the “traditional way,” but are wanting to have kids by going through the foster system. To give these kids a second chance at having a loving family. 

“It was very difficult,” one of the fathers said. Their names can’t be shared due to confidentiality. 

Between the system, the case worker and biological mother coming in and out of the twins’ lives. It took a long time for them to be granted full custody. 

As time passed where no other relatives stepped up and there was no longer a way the twins could be with any of their biological family. The loving couple, after two years of fostering, were granted full custody over the twins.

Teenagers vs Younger Children

Many younger kids, infants, and babies can be placed in a foster home super quickly because many “resource parents,”  who were previously known as foster parents, want younger children, according to Wendy Coomes, a North Clackamas Child Welfare Certifier.

But only a few of them are open to teenagers.     

Clackamas County right now only has “two maybe three families that will take in teenagers and that’s just not enough,” Coomes said.

Many people have the fixed mindset that teenagers are a lot harder because their views, opinions, or attitudes are already set based on their past experiences. 

Wendy Coomes doesn’t believe “just cause they’re older doesn’t mean they’re harder.”

Right now, Clackamas County has two teenagers, fourteen and sixteen, who are in “temporary lodging,” Coomes said. Temporary Lodging is when kids have to be put into hotels for a short time to be watched over by staff because there are no foster families available to take them in.

Keeping Families Together

Families get split up all the time in the complicated system. But despite this, they try to keep siblings together. It just depends on the open resource parents’ houses and the number of kids they are willing to take in. 

In Clackamas County, there was “a sibling group of four,” and they tried to keep all the siblings together but it wasn’t possible, according to Coomes. 

As well as keeping siblings together, they try to keep kids with relatives. 

“There are a lot of studies that show that kids that are placed with their family do better,” Coomes said. That could be aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. Anyone who has blood relations with the child will try to contact all of them to try to get them a placement. 

But if a relative wants to step up to be this kid’s guardian, they have to go through the same process as any other resource parent trying to get certified. 

“We have emergency certification,” for relatives to be certified temporarily that same day, she said. They still have to do the full certification process to gain their certification. This way they can make sure they are safe but still provide a family’s house for the child as quickly as possible.

Covid

When the question was asked about how Covid-19 changed numbers-wise as well as the work day Coomes said “we made it work.” They did all their team meetings on Zoom, and her six month check-in with ongoing resource families was also over Zoom. The only thing she had to do in person, with masks and social distancing, was new family interviews and the certification process. 

“It was super awkward because you are meeting someone you don’t know and you’re trying to interview with a mask,” Coomes said.

Certifying classes new resource parents had to do also were online and even now they haven’t changed that. All the classes are online. 

There wasn’t a major difference, higher or lower, in the number of kids needing a placement. 

But there were a lot of resource parents who stepped back from being available for placements because of the fear of Covid. 

As they didn’t have many teachers reporting, the kids were home all the time so they would get more neighbors and friends and families reporting more. 

Changes

Coomes was asked about what changes she would like to see, she could not pick any rule she would change because “every case is different,” and you can’t change it for one case because it won’t work for the next. 

But the one change she would like to see is more resource parents, and specifically more that are open to welcoming teenagers. 

“We need more families. Like we really really struggle, especially with our teenagers,” Coomes said.

Do You Want to Become a Resource Parent?

Despite people’s opinions on fostering, there is a massive need for foster parents willing to take in teenagers. Let alone just any kids in general.

Some of the criteria that will be needed for the application process are a criminal background check, interviews, references, and then six weeks of training which are two or three hours per week. 

It takes six months for you to be able to take in kids, normally, some exceptions have been made. 

Despite society’s misconception that it is hard to be certified, Coomes said there are “ no-nevers,” some someone to be a resource parent. The only thing that would automatically be a no would be a serious criminal offense. 

“If you’ve committed a murder,” or “any kind of rape charges or any kind of physical aggressive charges,” even if it’s been a very long time those are the only exceptions for not being able to be certified. 

If you are interested in getting certified you may look on The Oregon Government website under the DHS section to get more information and start the certification process.