As certified foster and shelter parents in Utah, Robert and Kris Weeks have taken into their homes and hearts the survivors of heart-wrenching dramas. They have loved children from broken or drug-plagued homes. They have seen the results of abuse and neglect.
Most troubling to the Weeks — members of the Crescent 21st Ward, Sandy Utah Lone Peak Stake, where he serves as bishop — is that many of the more than 60 children who have lived in their home during the last three years don't know much about love.
This May, National Foster Care Awareness Month, the need for families such as the Weeks is getting national attention. Currently, there are more than 568,000 children in foster care in the United States, with only 142,000 licenced foster care families, according to Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System data.
Last June the Church's Utah North and South Area presidencies reiterated a 1995 statement by the First Presidency encouraging Church members to consider providing foster homes for these needy children.
However, more LDS families are still needed as foster parents, said Mark Duke, an LDS Family Services counselor who works closely with the Utah Foster Care Foundation — a private, non-profit organization that contracts with the Utah Division of Child and Family Services to find and educate foster families statewide.
In the Utah foster care system, there are currently 2,100 children with only 1,300 licenced foster care families. That need is greater in the Salt Lake Area where there are only 400 foster families to help approximately 1,100 children in foster care, said Jeff Bryant of the Utah Foster Care Foundation.
The Weeks have seen that need first hand — not in statistics but in the lives of the children they have taken into their home.
A 10-year-old girl watches cookies bake at the Weeks' home, where she has been for the past three weeks. When the doorbell rings the girl puts some cookies in a bag; she will be leaving with her new foster mother. Sister Weeks hugs the child; Bishop Weeks tells her to be good. They try not to think of the heart-breaking question she asked days earlier: "If you didn't have so many kids would you take in all of my family?" The child has four siblings also in state custody.
"People are desperately needed," said Bishop Weeks. "There are so many children in the system — LDS and otherwise — who need some place to go, even overnight."
He understands the fear associated with becoming a foster parent. It was his wife that first caught the vision of the service.
Before making the commitment himself, he read negative media accounts. He didn't feel qualified to meet the needs of troubled children. He wondered how the commitment would affect his own children. He feared he would become attached to children who would be returned to their parents.
Then he saw a little girl, sitting on a bench at 10 p.m. after being taken into state custody. She looked as if her whole world had collapsed around her. She looked friendless. She looked crushed.
"I have no idea to this day why she was removed from her home," Bishop Weeks said. "I have no idea what has happened since."
He decided helping one child would be worth it.
"I think we put a name on foster kids that they are trouble, and they are not," Sister Weeks said. "It is sad that as a society we have labeled these kids."
Bishop and Sister Weeks remember taking in a little boy who was locked in a room with six other children for extended periods of time. The child spent his first hours in the home curled up in the fetal position. He would also hoard food, filling his checks until they were bulging and hold the food in his mouth for hours. It took three days before the little boy realized he was being fed on a regular basis.
Richard Anderson, Utah DCFS director and a member of the West Bountiful 6th Ward, West Bountiful Utah Stake, said even though the number of children in Utah's foster care system is going down — probably because of prevention efforts and increased emphasis on care by relatives — more foster families are still needed.
The greatest need, he said, is for families that are willing to take older children, sibling groups or children with emotional or physical disabilities. "Some people have in their mind that they can love [the foster children] and not have to make a lot of sacrifice," he said. "We need people who come forward because it is going to be a sacrifice for children."
For the most part, he added, foster children are normal children who have come through some difficult times. DCFS is working to place children with special needs in homes trained to meet those needs. Sometimes, he said, needs arise after children are placed or that the agency didn't know anything about.
Bishop and Sister Weeks took a 5-year-old girl into their home who had terrible fits — kicking, biting and carrying on. When the tantrums didn't end, they called their case worker. "That is the only time we have ever sent anyone back in three years," Sister Weeks said. "We felt terrible about doing that."
The Utah DCFS director said foster parents aren't expected to deal with every challenge alone. All applicants must complete 32 hours of pre-service training, plus CPR training, to qualify to be foster parents. They may choose the age range and gender of the children they take into their home. They can ask a lot of questions. They are paid a small fee to meet the child's needs. They can rely on the child and family service team as well as other foster parents for support.
Still, he said, many foster parents find it hard to sort out their needs from the needs of the child and the family the child came from. Another frustration for foster families is that many times foster children are reunited with parents who live in less-than-ideal circumstances, he added.
The most successful foster parents love the child without judging their family, he said. "They say, 'I know these people may have done something to this child that is really bad, but I am going to hold judgement because it doesn't mean they can't change. I will watch this child go back and hope it all turns out all right.' "
He said many people enter foster care with the hope that they will eventually adopt the children they care for. While many children do become available for adoption, he said "76 percent of the children in our care go back to the family or a relative."
"Reunification is more of the work that we do than separating families," he said. "We need the families that come and say, 'Our goal is to help another family resolve their problems and heal.' "
The Weeks say all the children they take into their home are sad to leave their mothers. One child, whose mother was dealing drugs, was especially sad and scared. He didn't want to be left alone. "He was so terrified he would just beg and plead," Sister Weeks said. "We slept in the bedroom with him."
Brother Duke said LDS Family Services is willing to help people certify to become foster parents. The agency can conduct a home study for the state and collect other references. Families who certify as foster parents through LDS Family Services will also generally qualify to adopt special needs children — older children or children with special emotional or physical needs — through the Church agency.
The state tries to match the foster child's needs with those of foster families; LDS children are placed in LDS homes when possible.
"We hope the time spent in an LDS home will be beneficial to children in ways they will always remember," Brother Duke said.
The Weeks remember the first child placed in their home. The little boy stayed for 10 months. His mother was bitter. She voiced opinions of displeasure with the state. But she straightened her life out. She became the kind of mom she needed to be. Now she calls Sister Weeks for parenting advice.
"We have seen success," Bishop Weeks said. Anything other than that "is the exception rather than the rule."
One little boy insisted he stay with the Weeks until his birthday. Bishop Weeks said the boy wanted the recognition he saw other children receive in Primary. "I get to stand up before the kids, they sing a song and they give me a pencil," the boy told Bishop Weeks, anticipating his own time in the Primary spotlight.
The reward of foster care, the Weeks say, is loving a child who might never have been loved. They can't imagine not being foster parents. They have watched their own children grow. They count numerous blessings from the experience.
"We have seen a child hold his arms out, not knowing what it is like to be hugged," Sister Weeks said. "The children may go back to a situation that is not the best. They may end up in the [foster care] system again. But hopefully they will remember the year or 18 months in a home where they were loved. Maybe they will remember that and hold onto it in the future."
For more information about foster care please contact LDS Family Services, (801) 566-2556 or 1-800-453-3860 extension 21711, or the Utah Foster Care Foundation, (877) 505-KIDS. E-mail: sarah@desnews.com
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