Hit by empty-nest syndrome after her grown sons moved out, Terrie Brown, along with her husband, decided to return to a system she has now been a part of for more than 30 years.
The goal of the foster care system is to reunite children with their birth parents, said Angie Blakeman, who supervises the placement unit at Athens County Children Services. In 2011, the organization played a major role in reuniting 24 children with their parents.
Additionally, Children Services finalized 17 adoptions that same year. Among them was Brown’s now 3-year-old son, Chris.
Besides being adoptive parents, Brown and her husband also care for three foster children.
She’s able to identify with them — Brown entered the foster care system at age 12, first as a foster child before being adopted by her third foster family a year and a half later.
“From the time they picked me up, I knew in my heart I was theirs,” Brown said of her parents, Bill and Betty Lowe. “The first thing I asked them was, ‘Can I call you mom and dad?’ ”
Training sessions help foster families build child-caring skills and prepare for interacting with birth families. The agency promotes visits and regular contact between the children and their biological families, with the ultimate goal being to reunify them.
In 2010, 662,000 children went through the foster care system throughout the nation. As of January 2012, almost 12,000 of Ohio’s children were in foster care. Of those, 1,359 were adopted.
At the end of 2012, Athens County Children Services had 127 children in foster care, Brown said.
That year, Children Services finalized 9 adoptions, and there were 41 licensed foster homes in Athens, Oliver said.
When matching a foster child with a family, Blakeman faces the challenge of finding families who live in the same school district as the child or who are willing to help get the child there in order to avoid disrupting school placement.
When she first started working for Children Services in 2000, the main reasons a child entered the system included domestic violence, neglect because of the family’s economic situation and the inability of developmentally delayed parents to care for their children, Blakeman said. But the reasons have changed.
“Over the past five years, we’ve seen substance abuse become a primary reason for involvement with the agency,” she said.
Blakeman attributes the influx of heroin and prescription drugs to Athens’ proximity to U.S. 33, which law enforcement officials have said is used to transport drugs.
In spite of the sometimes-tumultuous conditions in which they enter the foster care system, many children blossom and do well with the stability their foster families introduce into their lives, Blakeman said.
To make the transition into foster care a smooth one, the agency works with foster families to keep as much consistency for the children as possible, such as after-school activities, religious service, and visitation and contact with extended family.
“They’re giving all of their time, working 24/7,” Oliver said.
Brown rejected the claim that foster families are in it for the money, and challenges those who make that accusation to try diapering two or three children for $30 a week.
For many, including Brown, the rewards far outweigh the fiscal burden. She plans on fostering and adopting more kids.
“I have so much more to give,” she said.
af116210@ohiou.edu
