May is Foster Parents Month, and there’s never been a greater need for families that offer a safe haven for kids taken from a troubled home. Jerry Foxhoven heads the Iowa Child Advocacy Board. Foxhoven says drugs make some of the problems of these kids even more serious, and can make it more difficult for foster parents to cope with the number of kids coming in to the system. Still, he has only praise for the foster parents who “step up to the plate.” He says they can always use more, though it takes special people to be foster parents. He points out they go through quite a lot of training, put up with thorough background checks, and after that must be willing to “open up both your home and your heart to these kids.” He’d like to convince more people they’ve got what it takes to become foster families. He says anybody can take the training, learn about what it involves and talk with other foster parents to find out the minuses and pluses. Foxhoven says even as foster parents see how birth parents cannot or will not step up to the plate for their kids, they’re also realizing how much difference they can make in their life. The Child Advocacy board includes both Iowa’s Foster Care Review2 Board and CASA, the Court-Appointed Special Advocate program in which volunteers shepherd young clients through the legal system when the events in their lives involve them with the courts. Foxhoven says the board looks at the system to determine what barriers there are to getting new foster parents, and keeping the ones who are in the program. To start, or get more information, see the Iowa Foster and Adoptive Parents Association at www.ifapa-dot-org or phone toll-free (800) 277-8145
