Churches that care about foster care

THE TIE THAT BINDS
Foster care advocates find allies in religion
By Kim Vo, San Mateo County Times, Dec. 29, 2006.

FOR SUSAN KAMMERER, sporting a T-shirt with the names of 100 foster children printed against the green cotton, the math is simple: There are about 500 children in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties who need a home and there are some 1,200 churches in the region.
If just one family from each church became a foster parent, the waiting list of children would vanish.

"We recruit through the Christian community," said Kammerer, executive director of Help One Child, a faith-based group that works with foster families. "We believe these people are called to help people in need."

The Los Altos nonprofit group has launched an ambitious initiative: to recruit 500 foster parents in 1,000 days.

The effort mirrors a national trend as child welfare agencies from California to Texas to North Carolina increasingly work with religious groups to recruit foster and adoptive parents among the faithful. Religious leaders say they are well-positioned to help foster children and their families. Worship houses are often located in neighborhoods and offer programs like after-school care, drug treatment and financial planning.

Plus, there's a long history of caring for others. After all, Joseph fostered Jesus. And the Pharaoh's daughter raised Moses after findinghim in the River Nile.

"The faith community is rich in its tradition of service, taking care of children and orphans," said Beverly Beasley Johnson, San Mateo County's new director of Human Services Agency. In
Kern County, where she previously worked, officials worked directly with Christians, Sikhs and Jews to help children, she said.

"I've never had a faith community say no to anything," she said. "They've always said yes." San Mateo County also recruits among the secular community, everywhere from PTA meetings to the county fair.

Kammerer, who raised the niece of a cancer-stricken friend, isn't expecting each family to adopt a child, but to give them a stable, supportive home until they're reunited with their own parents or are adopted by others. The Christian group is sending letters to pastors asking foster parents to talk with their fellow congregants and is publishing articles in church bulletins. The group held a rally with county officials in Redwood City last month and plans another in Santa Clara County this spring.

In a separate effort, Alameda County preachers, rabbis and American Indian leaders will go to houses of worship starting in January, asking congregants to consider becoming foster parents — or at least support those who do.

"If we don't care for our children, who will?" asked the Rev. Raymond Lankford, with the Alameda County's Faith Advisory Council. "Children shouldn't grow up in orphanages and institutions."

The sentiment, however, butts against the reality: Throughout the Bay Area, foster children outnumber the local foster homes able to take them in.

In San Mateo County, for instance, there are 457 foster kids, but only 74 foster homes, said Sharon Stone, the county's resource parent recruitment coordinator.

The remaining children live in group homes or private foster homes scattered from Santa Clara County to the Central and Sacramento valleys. The practice runs contrary to expert recommendations that living with families in their existing community is better for these children. It's hard enough being separated from their parents without leaving their school, friends and neighborhood, too.

The distance also hampers regular visits with biological parents, with whom the kids may ultimately be reunited.

In some areas, efforts to keep foster children in their respective communities got a boost in recent years from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the influential children's advocacy group. Among its recommendations was that agencies work with faith groups.

Whatever their own convictions, foster parents are instructed to respect children's religion. Stone says foster parents are encouraged to take the kids to the child's own house of worship, if possible.

That's often not workable, said Judi Van Elderen, a foster parent since 1987.

"If you tell a family they have to go to synagogue instead of their own church, that's not practical," the Los Altos Hills mother said. "That's not fair to your own family."

The Van Elderens have routinely brought foster children with them to Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto, where they are members.

We've "always had a lot of people around us praying for us, praying for the kid. That's been a huge thing," said Van Elderen. "Through school-church community, we've gotten teachers involved in being baby sitters."

Van Elderen, and her husband, Dan, are part of Help One Child's recruitment campaign. The couple, who have six children — four biological and two adopted — plan to meet with fellow churchgoers who might be interested in foster care. They're also trying to start a church support program for foster parents, for instance having members available for occasional baby-sitting, so the work seems less daunting.

"It deters people. You don't know what you're stepping into. That's how our faith has helped us, we feel called," said Van Elderen.

Recently, members of Bostic's Bible-study group held a Christmas party for Jessica Artiles and her daughter, Anna, who Bostic cared for while Artiles was in a drug and alcohol treatment.
Bostic cradled another foster child — a baby boy, conceived by incest and abandoned after birth — while the women cooed over the chortling 10-month Anna.

Kay Huber remembered when Bostic brought Anna, then a rigid baby too small for her age, to Menlo Park Presbyterian Church. Members prayed over the child and "asked God to guide her life," Huber recalled.

Artiles still meets with Bostic regularly to get parenting advice or talk about Artiles' own progress in rebuilding her life.

"They're great people," she said of the Bostics. "They supported me even when I was in a program, and they did really good caring for my baby."

Contact Kim Vo at kvo@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5719.