MARLBORO COUNTY — For Kristy Crowley, foster care is in her blood. As a teen, she received an opportunity to learn about being a foster parent up close and personal when her aunt sponsored a fellow child, and from there, Crowley caught the nurturing bug.
“Through my aunt I didn’t just get to interact with the kids she fostered, I got to know them and hear from them personally. It affected me,” Crowley remembers.
Many people admittedly don’t know much about foster care and fewer stop to contemplate the actual young lives affected by the mysterious process. Have you ever considered being a foster parent? Have you ever wondered what it means, the responsibilities expected, or the character needed for someone to voluntarily make a commitment to providing 24 hours around the clock care for a child not their own?
Crowley, who has been a foster parent for roughly 20 years and works currently with the South Carolina Youth Advocacy Program (SCYAP), has a lot to say when it comes to answering those questions and more on the topic of foster care.
Pulling back the curtain
She knows firsthand the amount of hard work and emotional upheaval going into fostering a child that she is aware at the outset is expected to eventually return to the biological family home, but she says she personally knows the trade-off breeds a lifetime of rewards as well.
“The goal of foster care should always be about returning the child to their biological family home. No one should get involved in foster care with the goal of adopting the child they foster,” Crowley says, pointing out foster care and adoption are two vastly different agencies with entirely opposite goals.
“Adoption agencies are out there available to those looking but foster care is not focused on adoption, it is focused on one day reuniting children with their biological family. When you foster a child, you have to go into it knowing a child may be with you anywhere from two days to two years, but they are anticipated to one day go back and you have to be ready for and OK with that eventual outcome,” Crowley cautions interested foster parents.
An in-depth process, she says candidates for foster care are subjected to background checks, SLED checks, fingerprinting, DSS interviews or interviews with a similar agency, as part of the extensive measures taken by the state when attempting to vet a potential foster parent. According to Crowley the process can typically take three months, depending on the speed at which candidates file their paperwork.
“Physicals and backgrounds checks were also required for every member over the age of 18 in my household and everyone was also interviewed,” Crowley said.
Things to know
Crowley says one of the most frustrating things about fostering is not having access to all the child in your care’s information.
“Sometimes the case workers cannot give you all the child’s information, for example, medical history. This isn’t because they don’t want to, they may not have that information available yet themselves. You must remember when fostering a child to be patient with the system,” Crowley adds.
When fostering a child, Crowley says parents should focus on inclusion, acceptance, empathy, and keeping things lighthearted and fun.
“The first thing a child in my care does when coming into my home is turn right around and go shopping for a new comfort set. I want them to pick out something that is all their own and it goes with them when they leave because it is theirs,” Crowley says, adding she and many other foster families send their foster children back to their biological families with needed personal and toiletry items to assist the families in getting their fresh start.
“Children should be happy to go home. We should all want to go home,” Crowley says.
Since being a teen and having her aunt develop in her a passion for fostering, Crowley says she has learned a few things along the way.
“First, you should never lie to a child—they know it, they can sense it. Second, no one should ever talk ill of a child’s biological family. It doesn’t matter if you think it, the child should never hear it or know it,” Crowley cautions.
She points out that many of the children in foster care have been through a lot in their young lives and she says you cannot just go in with the mindset of “laying down the rules.”
Crowley explains, “If you do that, most of the time you are going to meet resistance. Most of these kids are not used to following rules, having a set bedtime, or brushing their teeth, they are used to doing what they want, when they want. Those are hard habits to break and come with time, commitment, structure, and most importantly, patience. The child has to know you still accept them.”
According to Crowley, foster parents should focus on providing a stable home environment for the children they foster, with an emphasis placed on individual attention.
Reaping what you sow
Adopting three foster children of her own, Crowley says the reward for fostering a child can stick with a parent for the rest of their lives.
“I still see and hear from many of the children I have fostered. I believe in staying involved in their lives because consistency is key with many of these children who are not always used to people remaining stable fixtures in their lives. It is so important to work with biological families along the way so when your foster child ultimately returns home, a consistence structure and dynamic of continued acceptance remains in place for that child,” Crowley continued.
Twenty years in, and Crowley says she is still finding fufillment in fostering.
“I absolutely love being a foster parent! I love helping children and getting to know them and all their individual differences. My foster children are often wildly different from my biological children and that’s great—one may be good at swimming while the other likes to read. You just got to accept and respect children for who they are,” Crowley says.
Information on the SC Youth Advocacy Program
The SC Youth Advocacy Program is a non-profit organization that has worked closely with the South Carolina Department of Social Services (DSS) for 30 years. The program assists SCDSS by finding safe, loving foster families they then train to be fully equipped as a Therapeutic Foster family for children who have suffered with significant traumas in their lives.
DSS and SCYAP don’t just train foster families, hand them a child, wish them well, and walk away. Case workers and SCYAP work in close partnership with the foster family, always with the goal of making sure the child’s physical, mental, and medical needs are being met while their biological family works towards preparing a home for them to return to.
And right now, SCDSS has identified at least seven children in Marlboro County in need of a nurturing home, though more children are added to the list every day in Marlboro County and across the state.
John Connery who works with SCYAP says needs cover all age ranges but points out it is most difficult to find homes willing to accept preteens and teens. This is worrisome because Connery says social science research studies show “Every child needs a safe loving family, and they do better in family environment as compared to group homes situations.”
More information about SCYAP and how to get involved can be found on the organization’s website www.scyap.com