Supporting Foster Families - S3E4 "A Chance At Life"

Interested in becoming a foster parent? Find info at Every Child Arkansas. Want to support a foster family? In this episode we talk with Darneshia Allen with Zero to Three,
Christen Butler with The CALL, Dr. Derek Brown with Arkansas Baptist Children and Family Ministries, Pastor Chris Massey with Fellowship Bible  Church Searcy, and Dennis Berry, foster parent and The CALL board member.
Hosts Dr. Andrew Baker with Harding University and Paul Chapman with Restore Hope.

Read the SmartJustice Season 3 magazine

Transcript

00;00;06;16 - 00;00;14;15
Paul Chapman
What would you say again to someone maybe that's contemplating becoming a foster parent? What would your advice be to them?

00;00;14;17 - 00;00;39;27
Chris Massey
My advice would be to make sure that you have a team of people around you because you can't do it on your own. Even as awesome as you think you are and you are awesome in doing and even being willing to do foster, but I don't I don't think you can do it on your own. And I think it takes a lot of people for for one family to be able to do it.

00;00;40;00 - 00;01;14;19
Chris Massey
And I know for some people it's hard to ask. And that takes those of us that don't mind like pushing on to say we're here to help. How can we? Or just start helping. Just start moving yards, just start bringing food, just start picking up, you know, whatever it may be. And so that I think that would be my number one hope is that somebody walks into foster care through all the different amazing agencies in the state, that they have a team of people that are willing to walk into it with them and not just on their own.

00;01;14;21 - 00;01;22;16
Narrator
This is season three of the Smart Justice podcast. A Chance at Life.

00;01;22;19 - 00;01;29;02
Paul Chapman
Crime and Punishment are hot topics. Are there solutions different than what we're hearing about at national level?

00;01;29;04 - 00;01;33;26
Judge Tjuana Byrd Manning
Kids find themselves just struggling to survive, doing the best they can.

00;01;33;28 - 00;01;39;18
Paul Chapman
There is a different way to approach justice that has a better return on investment.

00;01;39;20 - 00;01;45;13
Misha Martin
We don't want people to be dependent. We want to help them get to stability.

00;01;45;15 - 00;01;51;26
Paul Chapman
That seems to strengthen both law enforcement and courts. The number.

00;01;51;26 - 00;01;54;13
Jerome Strickland
One goal in most cases, we want reunifications.

00;01;54;14 - 00;02;02;15
Paul Chapman
And tie that together with community resources and then track the impact to communities and better outcomes.

00;02;02;17 - 00;02;06;19
Secretary Kristi Putnam
The best place for a child who's in our foster care system is with a family.

00;02;06;26 - 00;02;10;17
Paul Chapman
And we're calling this approach smart justice.

00;02;10;19 - 00;02;29;05
Narrator
Smart justice is a work of Restore Hope and partner organizations. Restore Hope is a software and services organization that helps communities achieve better outcomes for justice and child welfare efforts. Smart Justice is focused on optimizing the system by improving the relationships among its parts.

00;02;32;01 - 00;02;57;00
Paul Chapman
Hey, in this series for Smart Justice we're talking about the child welfare system and how we can give a chance at life for families that are engaged in our child welfare system. And in this episode, we're really going to be talking about how do we support. That family needs help straightening out the things that caused... that led to their children coming into care.

00;02;57;00 - 00;03;23;21
Paul Chapman
And so let's talk about the children first. So child’s got through some trauma, maybe even preceding the removal, but definitely removal that comes into the home. Why is it important that beyond just caring for the child, but there are some longer term kind of impacts that are needed for that child to have the best experience possible when they're placed into a foster home?

00;03;23;23 - 00;03;48;26
Dr. Andrew Baker
Oh, there's no question about that. And, you know, the trauma that they have experienced to that point, in many cases, trauma that they even experience in utero, they they weren't even here. But we know... “The Body Keeps Score” is a very fascinating, insightful read and a book that kind of lays forth what happens, like whether the pressure on the body.

00;03;48;28 - 00;03;50;17
Paul Chapman
The stress of the mom is going through.

00;03;50;18 - 00;04;08;26
Dr. Andrew Baker
The stress the mom goes through that carries over to the child, and you start to see like the majority of kids who are in the care of the state, which for the record, the state makes a horrible parent. Right. And they're not a good family. Like that's not even their intended purpose.

00;04;08;26 - 00;04;10;27
Paul Chapman
You're right. That's not the role of the state.

00;04;10;29 - 00;04;45;01
Dr. Andrew Baker
But they they are in a way, in every case. And so understanding that the system itself is not ideal. When a kid comes into care, it's an adversarial situation, but also that the majority of the time the kids are not coming into care because they were physically abused or sexually abused. That happens and there are things and there are folks who are heroes in our state who really come up front and personal and deal with that day in and day out.

00;04;45;01 - 00;04;50;20
Dr. Andrew Baker
And the service that they provide to children cannot be understated.

00;04;50;23 - 00;04;52;27
Paul Chapman
That would be, the term is abuse.

00;04;52;29 - 00;04;53;28
Dr. Andrew Baker
The term is abuse.

00;04;53;28 - 00;04;57;26
Paul Chapman
But most of it's neglect, poverty, substance abuse.

00;04;57;26 - 00;05;02;24
Dr. Andrew Baker
And so when you start seeing that it's neglect, then why?

00;05;02;27 - 00;05;25;17
Paul Chapman
So support for the biological family is is vitally important, not only so that can address the issues that led to the child welfare case, but also when the child is ultimately put back into that family and that that bonding can occur and that we prevent kind of future problems so that the child doesn't have to be taken back into care.

00;05;25;19 - 00;05;36;29
Paul Chapman
We had the opportunity to sit down with Darneshia Allen, who works in this space all the time and talks about how we can better support biological families.

00;05;37;02 - 00;06;21;11
Darneshia Allen
I started with Safe Babies back in 2009. Our work happens on two different levels. So there's the work that happens on the direct family level. And there we're looking at things like exploring access to services and the integration of help, scaffolded supports for families. And so we're looking at their trauma histories, particularly where we have parents who have previously been in the foster care system themselves and now their children are entering in that multigenerational pathway that's there, along with the trauma that came with them, be it from domestic violence or mental health issues that were untreated or exposure to substance use disorders and the type of help that is offered to them.

00;06;21;18 - 00;06;48;03
Darneshia Allen
And then we do work on community levels, too. So we're exploring community capacity because you want to help, right? But sometimes you may not always know how to help. So it's our job to kind of come in and dig in with you to figure out how we break down the silos and the way we're working together, and that families actually learn where to go for help without just walking through certain doors to get that help or having to come in to care, just to get access.

00;06;48;06 - 00;07;14;24
Darneshia Allen
But this is a critical space where if a parent is overwhelmed with the stresses of life and lacks what they need in parenting capacity and connections and attachment to their child, you start to see that in a child's life later on with Attention Deficit disorder and behavioral disorders that come into play just because they didn't have the connections early in life that they could have gotten.

00;07;14;27 - 00;07;45;11
Darneshia Allen
I think about the angel Clinic at UAMS, supporting young moms, young moms with mental health disorders that are also combatting substance use recovery. Folks like Our House who not only catch families who are homeless, but at risk of being homeless. And not only do they just give you a place to sleep, but they have job training programs, onsite economic support to tell you that you're too poor not to save $10.

00;07;45;13 - 00;08;11;01
Darneshia Allen
So, partner with me. We're going to save $10. I'm going to show you how to navigate a bank account. And that could have been the difference from a family entering into the foster care system because they were homeless, because they didn't have access to resources. They're right here. By federal statute for families coming into the path of child welfare, their hope is to remediate or remove this journey in 12 to 15 months.

00;08;11;04 - 00;08;49;29
Darneshia Allen
That has nothing to do with the neurobiology of substance use disorders, where recovery begins in a six month space of time, and then past recovery into shaping what their future looks like is a completely separate window of time. And you have to know that and know that you're chasing a timeline that doesn't even match the need. But we still have this obligation because the whole reason why we're at the table is to get this child into a space of lasting permanency and minimize the time that they have to experience the journey through child welfare.

00;08;50;02 - 00;09;11;05
Darneshia Allen
That's the reality. And it's the reason why we have concurrent planning in the process, because we want to keep aiming for how do we work in the best interest of the child and get them home. But how do we cheerlead for this family who's trying to get it together? You have to match the need with whatever your aim is in the journey, right?

00;09;11;08 - 00;09;31;18
Darneshia Allen
If we see that they're not ready to walk through the doors that are available for them, we're still holding the child in the center of this. And we need to make sure in the interim that the child is safe and taken care of. But we’re also in pursuit of opportunities to do that in a place, a shared space between a parent and a child, because ultimately it’s buffering the child.

00;09;31;21 - 00;09;59;22
Darneshia Allen
But we're still meeting the service needs of that family in a different way. So how are we aiming our support and a redesign at resiliency and that point in time help? Because right now we're designed to put out fires. That would look as if they showed up at the hospital, even if they were in the deepest pieces of their recovery from substance use disorder,

00;09;59;24 - 00;10;24;03
Darneshia Allen
no clue what tomorrow would bring. Just this exacerbated need, whether they were lost and scared to say, I have no idea what we're going to eat tomorrow or where we're going to sleep, and what they found were people who said, allow me to walk beside you. And that we actually walked with them and made them stronger, gave them the confidence they needed to parent.

00;10;24;03 - 00;10;46;05
Darneshia Allen
When they themselves weren't parented. I would ask that people looked at folks with that lens and said, I'm here to make you stronger, and I'm hoping this experience makes me stronger because whatever I learn from our exchange is going to feed the next one. We're just paying it forward.

00;10;46;08 - 00;11;04;13
Paul Chapman
So in a previous episode, we got to meet Christen Butler, who's the executive director for The Call. And the call has many of these spaces around the state that are kind of support centers that provide support not only for biological families, but also for foster families that are serving with children that are in care.

00;11;04;15 - 00;11;14;04
Paul Chapman
Christen, can we talk about kind of the history of The Call and how it's moved from back in 2008 or seven?

00;11;14;04 - 00;11;20;08
Paul Chapman
I can't remember any longer to an idea to now the scope of what you've got right now?

00;11;20;16 - 00;11;40;28
Christen Butler
Um, hm. So it began much like what you said before. It started with a movement and it was within a few local Christian families and they encountered the foster care crisis firsthand. And so The Call began with this movement of concerned Christians. And they met together and they met with different church leaders, and they said, we have to do something.

00;11;41;01 - 00;12;01;29
Christen Butler
And so they met with the state in kind of a new partnership way and The Call was born. And it's a bridge organization. And so we work to bridge the local Christian churches with the government agency, with DCFS. And we want to support both really well and kind of translate between the two, because they speak very different languages and operate in very different ways.

00;12;02;01 - 00;12;20;08
Christen Butler
And so The Call began really in one county in Pulaski County, and that momentum just caught. And then other counties would say, hey, what's happening over here? And we'd like to support families that way. And how are you gaining new foster families? And so it launched in Lone Oak Prairie and then in northwest Arkansas, and it just grew until now

00;12;20;08 - 00;12;43;07
Christen Butler
we're in 63 of our 75 counties looking to launch statewide this year. And so we've really worked to be that bridge organization to make the need accessible and realized to the Christian community and then to be good partners to the state and DCFS to support them well, to help bring good, solid Christian foster families to the table to support these families and children.

00;12;43;09 - 00;12;51;16
Paul Chapman
One of the things that I've seen you do in some communities is you have a you have a site in which visitations happen. Can you talk a little bit about that?

00;12;51;17 - 00;13;11;19
Christen Butler
So that's been an amazing thing that we've grown into. And so we started off just to kind of this recruitment and training, and then we realized there's so much support that's needed for retention of foster families and then to help with reunification for the bio families, the goal of every foster care case until a judge deems otherwise is reunification.

00;13;11;22 - 00;13;29;21
Christen Butler
And so these families are able to have visits with their children up to 4 hours at a time, once a week. And a lot of times as it is, it's more not in ideal places. It could be in a McDonald's playground, it could be at a cold DCFS office. And so we have opened over 24 support centers across the state.

00;13;29;24 - 00;13;49;00
Christen Butler
And in these these bio families are able to come in and they can play a board game with their kids. They can make crafts together. One of our favorites in one of our support centers, we heard laughter and we walked in and it was someone in the family's birthday and they had brought in a Pillsbury cake mix and they were in the kitchen laughing as a family unit.

00;13;49;02 - 00;14;06;18
Christen Butler
Celebrate a birthday. And that's what it's about. We want to reaffirm and we want to build up those bonds with the bio families and those kids and we believe that starts first with reunification. And so we're so happy to provide those support centers all across the state.

00;14;06;20 - 00;14;34;01
Dr. Andrew Baker
So it's great what Christen shared with us about The Call. And you got some folks in some specific communities in Searcy, the Foster Care Boutique, who are doing some great stuff to support folks. You also have those at Sparrow's Promise and what they're doing in the Sharing Shop in Searcy, all working again towards this support and resource to foster kids and families and bio families as well.

00;14;34;04 - 00;14;45;01
Dr. Andrew Baker
And really some neat stuff that's happening through the Fellowship Church. And Chris Massey kind of is running lead point there for Fellowship in Searcy in ways that they're helping in the community.

00;14;45;01 - 00;15;11;14
Chris Massey
My name is Chris Massey and I am the operations pastor at Fellowship Bible Church up in Searcy. And it's heartbreaking to go to Chick-Fil-A or to McDonald's and see a biological parent trying to bond with their kids to show them their love and their care. We knew that we could be a part of something and giving a space that would allow them to be able to just to be.

00;15;11;14 - 00;15;36;20
Chris Massey
And not a bunch of people staring at, a bunch of people looking on. And so as we took on what to do in a new facility because we were growing out of our space, we found this old Kohlar warehouse that made sinks and had closed ten or 12 years earlier and had just been vacant and wondering what we could... or how we can make something new out of something old and really make an impact in our community.

00;15;36;22 - 00;15;59;05
Chris Massey
Some of the heart behind some of the space that hasn't been used yet is we want to do a big indoor kids play area with space for visitations to happen that could be private for those families and really encourage and push them to be able to reunify earlier and sooner. That hasn't happened yet. And so we're opening up some of our preschool areas.

00;15;59;13 - 00;16;25;14
Chris Massey
We just want to be available. We have enough space to be available for anyone in the state that needs to have a visitation in White County to be able to use our space. And so we took an old warehouse and made it into a church. And it's just really exciting to see that because there's also a coffee shop in the lobby that the doors of the church are open from about six in the morning to about ten or 11 at night.

00;16;25;14 - 00;16;52;05
Chris Massey
And so if a visitation needs to happen at eight in the evening, the church is open to be able to accommodate that as well. So it's really amazing to see. We saw a great need as we were having more foster parents come along, the need of wrapping around them in such a way to be able to support them in respite, a meal here and there, to pick up a child if they can be at a meeting or whatnot.

00;16;52;05 - 00;17;31;24
Chris Massey
And so early on we saw that as some of the needs that that we could help. And then all of a sudden these families started adopting a lot of these children as as reunification wasn't happening. And so then there are some greater needs with that. And then we started rolling out some other ways to be a part of the different areas in the state to help bring in more foster parents into our church so that we could help in our local area meet the need with the amount of foster kids that are in White County. Some other specific things that have started is a ministry called Shoulder to Shoulder, where people in the church just

00;17;31;24 - 00;17;55;01
Chris Massey
make meals. And we realized like we can't... We’re a church that can't just help our own foster families, but we can help all the foster families in the in the city. And so our church became the casserole church or whatever. And so if you got... if you picked up a kid in the night or in the morning and you didn't have time to get a meal together, you could stop by the church and get some soups or casseroles or whatever.

00;17;55;03 - 00;18;31;24
Chris Massey
And so those are some just like easy needs that a lot of people can help with. After spending some time with our local 100 Families in Searcy realizing just the amount of resources that they were giving, what they were doing for our community and wanting to be a part of that. And so because of the resources we have as a church like marriage ministry, children's ministry, student ministry, things like that, those are a way that people can we can meet some of the needs for folks in the spiritual, the emotional and those areas that maybe 100 Families might not be able to.

00;18;31;27 - 00;19;03;07
Chris Massey
So when when we were able to bring somebody on staff as 100 Families case manager, the ideas just kind of went wild because, you know, they're coming in and they're experiencing not just our case manager, but our front desk assistant. Any pastors that are on staff right there. It's just been really, truly amazing to see somebody like walking out groceries and, you know, it just is it's not just the case manager these folks are getting to meet and and see and be loved.

00;19;03;07 - 00;19;25;20
Chris Massey
But anybody who's in that front office at any point is going to offer some water or a candy or whatever. It is just to show love and respect and for people to feel seen and loved and heard. The question when we started in that direction, and even today, bringing on somebody like Jasmine from 100 Families, the questions are always the same.

00;19;25;20 - 00;19;44;28
Chris Massey
Like, Oh, you're going to be bringing a different demographic of people into the church. You're going to be bringing kids that are rough and tough into the church, and you're going to be bringing families that are rough and tough around the edges in the church. And I really have zero patience for because I'm like, that's what the church is for.

00;19;45;04 - 00;20;08;17
Chris Massey
It's not for us to be polished up and have it all together, but the church is for everyone. Everyone has a story and no one is really as polished as we think we are. I think when we can pull ourselves out of this like tunnel vision that is just this church or just that church and look at really, truly what God calls us to do.

00;20;08;20 - 00;20;27;07
Chris Massey
And loving people. It really is a why not, you know, and that's where we that's where we started is why not, you know, when 100 Families came in, it's like, why not? You know, And the questions came down to who's going to be coming in the doors of the church. And the question and the answers were were really quite simple.

00;20;27;10 - 00;20;39;06
Chris Massey
It doesn't matter like we're going to love them, just like when you came in the church doors and we're going to serve them just like we would serve you if you were in a crisis or if you were doing really well. We're serving you just the same.

00;20;39;08 - 00;21;02;18
Paul Chapman
Yeah. So, you know, resources are also needed for foster families. We talked to in this episode, previous episodes about the critical role they play for the children. But it's a tough role. And frankly, it's it's one of the things that's hard to continue to do to where you can get to be where you and Amy are and and which is a veteran.

00;21;02;22 - 00;21;21;18
Paul Chapman
You've been around for a while. You actually know what the job is. But there are just some ways that you need support that maybe your community could give that. So what are some of the... some of those things, Andrew, that that would help keep y'all in the game?

00;21;21;21 - 00;21;45;17
Dr. Andrew Baker
Well, I think one is the littlest things can make the biggest difference, right? And if you realize the stress that's on a foster family and support and so when someone shows up and says, Hey, we're just going to bring you dinner, don't call and ask me for permission. If you know it's good, then do it. If it's dinner, it's, Hey, we're going to come take the kids.

00;21;45;17 - 00;22;01;11
Dr. Andrew Baker
I mean, one of our closest friends just show up and say, Hey, we're taking them to the park for a little bit. Or a family. A newly married couple who just signed up to be a respite family. And they were doing that for us. They wanted to be able to, and it's a process. It's

00;22;01;16 - 00;22;02;08
Paul Chapman
What is a respite?

00;22;02;15 - 00;22;04;28
Dr. Andrew Baker
Respite means that a family.

00;22;04;28 - 00;22;11;04
Dr. Andrew Baker
They're not of foster family in that they're taking kids. They're actually taking kids from families who are doing foster care.

00;22;11;04 - 00;22;12;27
Paul Chapman
They’re serving foster families.

00;22;12;27 - 00;22;28;23
Dr. Andrew Baker
Serving foster families by giving them a break. Usually within holidays or weekends or if something, you know, a major life event of the family was to come and they had to leave the state for whatever the case may be. You don't have to worry about finding that person. You know who they are. This is this is our respite family.

00;22;28;27 - 00;22;53;26
Dr. Andrew Baker
There's also just people checking in and asking, because sometimes it can seem like a really lonely place to be. They have community. Searcy is an example of a community as a great network of foster parents supporting each other. But often in when that group gets together, you hear stories about, yeah, well, but they don't feel that support at their church.

00;22;53;28 - 00;23;14;02
Dr. Andrew Baker
And I think churches working collectively to what we just heard from Chris Massey, what's going on at Fellowship. Churches working to make sure that their families and their church who are involved in foster care are getting the things that they need. Resources can take a whole lot of different forms. I know a family who not too long ago

00;23;14;02 - 00;23;35;02
Dr. Andrew Baker
they were telling me that there's an older couple at their church who's adopted them and they're just paying their Walmart bill. That's that's their role. Can I tell you how significant that is? And it's a big deal, right? And now they have Walmart delivery, so the stuff just shows up on their front porch and that's the family’s participation..

00;23;35;02 - 00;23;50;13
Dr. Andrew Baker
Man, what a blessing they're not just being to the children, they're being to that family. So again, there are opportunities. There's opportunities that every community but you can't over resource a foster family and you can't overcommunicate with them.

00;23;50;15 - 00;24;06;05
Paul Chapman
I know, Christen, that in many of the locations that y'all were in, if if kids came into care and they didn't have maybe clothes or or backpacks for school where they came with very little, that there are places that you could go and ya’ll help with that.

00;24;06;14 - 00;24;23;06
Christen Butler
There are. There's a lot of places across the state. There's a lot of resources to help. And so you're right, when kids come into care, they usually come in with very little, very little clothes. Maybe the clothes don't fit, things like that. And so in our support centers and in other places all across the state, there's resources available.

00;24;23;08 - 00;24;39;26
Christen Butler
And so those families, when they come in, they get to shop with their kids. And it's really nice because those children in care get to pick out what they like and they get to shop and get a coat or a backpack or maybe the family needs a booster seat because now they have a child, a young child that they didn't have before.

00;24;39;28 - 00;25;02;04
Christen Butler
And so now they need to transport this child. So The Call has a lot of tangible resources to help equip these foster families with those immediate placement needs. But there's also a really valuable resource, and that's the Resource Family Support System. And so every foster family can connect with local friends. My husband and I have served for friends at church, family members, and you are their support system.

00;25;02;05 - 00;25;18;25
Christen Butler
So you're supporting that foster family just as much as you're supporting their child in care. And so that could be you're taking them meals and giving them maybe a little break for the day. And so there's two ways that you can support. One is respite care, and then the other is Resource Family Support System.

00;25;18;27 - 00;25;40;17
Derek Brown
The Resource Family Support System, once approved, they can actually stay with the child for up to 72 hours. And so it provides really a short term respite if there's an overnight trip or something like that. And ideally these are people who are already involved, as Christen has described, with the child. And so it's just like going and staying at an aunt or an uncle’s house or at grandma's house, that kind of thing.

00;25;40;17 - 00;25;53;28
Derek Brown
And so those that support system really is the most valuable resource for the foster family. But then to be able to add that where needed to to the respite tool, I think it's really helpful.

00;25;54;01 - 00;26;09;26
Paul Chapman
We're at a point now where about... if you look at the number of foster families that are in Arkansas in the next 12 months, at least half of them will probably stop being foster parents, some of them because they've adopted, but some just because...

00;26;09;28 - 00;26;10;14
Dr. Andrew Baker
They're tired.

00;26;10;18 - 00;26;33;27
Paul Chapman
They're tired. And so one of the ways that we can help keep foster families serving and refreshed is to be able to look at how is it that we go and get their back? Mm hmm. So in a previous episode, we got to meet Dennis Berry, who he and his wife have opened their their home to over 150 children at this point.

00;26;33;29 - 00;27;01;13
Dennis Berry
Well, we've it's amazing when we tell our story about fostering the support that we get from our church, from our civic groups in the town, from friends and family. We have friends that have gone through the foster family support system preparation, which is they get a background check done and a driving record check done, and they have DCFS do a walk through through their home and they'll actually watch the children for us if we have to go out of town or can't take them.

00;27;01;15 - 00;27;19;05
Dennis Berry
They'll watch kids over the weekend. If we have an out of state trip where we can't take the kids, they'll keep those kids for a week or whatever amount of time we're gone from. You know, it's amazing when we we've had some kids that have left us to go back home. We will give them the bed that they've been sleeping in.

00;27;19;07 - 00;27;38;07
Dennis Berry
They get their pillows, they get their mattresses that they've been on. And so then that leaves us with no mattresses, no pillows. We've had friends give us mattresses and pillows and bedding for the kids, for the new kids that we're going to have. In cases where we didn't give the kids the beds they were in, we've had other people donate those items.

00;27;38;09 - 00;28;10;27
Dennis Berry
They've donated dining room tables. They've donated dressers, they've donated lamps. So those kids, when they go home, have a set up to where they can be... feel supported and they can be prosperous and it benefits the parents to get the kids back because we're setting them up for success. It shows that the community cares about their kids and it shows that the community cares about them and we want to support them as they continue to do well and be on the good path of getting away from whatever reasons the kids came into foster care.

00;28;10;29 - 00;28;37;11
Dennis Berry
I think for a family to go the distance, for a family to really stay engaged in foster care is you have to take ownership. You have to really step into the role and trust and believe that DCFS will allow you to do everything you need to do as a parent to take care of that child. You don't need to get DCFS permission to take them to the dentist, to take them to therapy, to take them for an additional consult for any medical conditions.

00;28;37;13 - 00;28;54;28
Dennis Berry
You are the parent. DCFS wants what's best for the children. And as long as you're doing what's best for the children, they want you to do that for the child. They want you to enroll those kids in the Boys and Girls Club. They want you to enroll them in volleyball or baseball. As long as it's what's best for the children.

00;28;55;00 - 00;29;16;09
Dennis Berry
We're going to get the support of DCFS. Even last year, not taking kids for about 60 days in the summer and early fall, we still kept 30 kids last year, and that's a lot of kids in a short amount of time. Even taking two months off. But that's how great the need is. Just recently, we were out of town for a couple of weeks.

00;29;16;09 - 00;29;40;06
Dennis Berry
We've come back. In two weeks we've had three kids. It it never stops. There's always a need. And it's hard to say no, especially knowing we have an extra bed or we have a couch. That would be a great place for a child to sleep, knowing that DCFS will let us keep that child just for the night so they don't have to stay at an office somewhere around the state.

00;29;40;08 - 00;30;03;15
Dennis Berry
On Christmas night this year, we got a call at about 9:00 at night on Christmas night to take in a child who was coming from Warren down in South Arkansas. And we had that boy for two nights and we got him at 1:00 in the morning, the night after Christmas, the morning after Christmas, even on Christmas, there's a need for more foster families.

00;30;03;17 - 00;30;35;25
Paul Chapman
So what I hear from many people who are considering fostering or maybe even a fear that they may have and doing something like what you and Amy do is kind of the the fear of becoming emotionally attached and of entering into kind of these hard things. It's just truly a fear of entering into these hard spaces and not knowing how really to kind of handle that and then being afraid that that they wouldn't be able to do that for very long.

00;30;35;25 - 00;30;48;02
Paul Chapman
So, you know, what are... what's your response to that? Is the emotional ups and downs, the the caring too much or being maybe emotionally hurt and the fear of that which is real pain?

00;30;48;04 - 00;31;16;18
Dr. Andrew Baker
Well, it's the essence of love, right? Like all of that's true. It's hard and there's tears shed and there's pain, but you can't have love and experience love without that being present. It's it's just the reality of life. Why is love such an important feeling, an emotion. And love’s not some ooey gooey feeling like, you know, you know, the love you have.

00;31;16;21 - 00;31;38;17
Dr. Andrew Baker
And so to look at any kid who's come to our home. So you want me to look back and say they didn't deserve to be loved. Because of poor decisions that were made by moms and dads and... What now makes them not deserving of love. Now, does that hurt and has everything that we have tried to do or wanted to do or attempted to do

00;31;38;23 - 00;32;05;17
Dr. Andrew Baker
all been received favorably? Oh, no, absolutely it hasn't. But again, that's humanity. We're all just people who want to be loved. And I'm motivated quite often by if I'm going to be able to experience that love, I got to be willing to experience the inconvenience. If I want to be able to experience that love and for a child to know that love, I got to be willing to experience the pain.

00;32;05;20 - 00;32;22;03
Dr. Andrew Baker
They don't get to be mutually exclusive for me, for one to be present, the other opportunity must be present as well. And so I don't want to sugarcoat or make it sound just all roses, because it's not.

00;32;22;05 - 00;32;22;23
Paul Chapman
But it's worth it.

00;32;22;29 - 00;32;36;03
Dr. Andrew Baker
But it's worth it because love's worth it.

00;32;36;05 - 00;33;04;05
Narrator
Thanks for joining the discussion about resourcing biological and foster families. Next episode we discuss the role of the juvenile court and the realities of kids waiting in hope of adoption. Smart Justice episode hosts are Paul Chapman and Dr. Andrew Baker. Thanks to our guests Darneshia Allen, Christen Butler, Derek Brown, Chris Massey and Dennis Berry. Our Season three theme song, “A Chance at Life,” is written and produced by Arkansas artist Jason Truby.

00;33;04;07 - 00;33;23;28
Narrator
Musical credits include “Future Memories” by Caleb Etheridge, “Time, the Healer” by Cloud Wave, “Glorious” by LNDO, and “In Love” by Moments. Smart Justice is produced by Restore Hope. To learn more, visit www.SmartJustice.org.

00;33;24;00 - 00;33;31;19
Music
Two broken Pieces made a brand new design

00;33;31;21 - 00;33;33;05
Music
and gave this soul a chance at life.