Family Forum / Parenting / Adoption / September 2004

TLC raises awareness of foster care shortage
By: Tammy Worth, Sun Staff Writer     September 09, 2004

There are not enough homes for Johnson County children in need.

Matt Humphrey, foster care recruiter at TLC for Children and Families,
said there is a constant struggle to find safe homes for children in
the foster care system. He is trying to change that by getting the
word out this month.

Humphrey will be hosting two upcoming meetings with the goal of
getting information to adults interested in becoming foster parents.
The first will be held from 6:30 to 8 tonight at the Shawnee Library,
13811 Johnson Drive. Another meeting will be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m.
Thursday, Sept. 23 at TLC's campus, 480 S. Rogers Road in Olathe.

Humphrey said more than half of Johnson County children placed in the
foster care system over the last two years had to leave the county to
find a home. There were 184 Johnson County children in need of foster
care in 2002, and 180 in 2003. Both years, only 82 of those children
were placed initially in homes in Johnson County. The others were
placed elsewhere in Kansas.

"Not only does Billy or Sally get removed from home, which is not a
planned or prepared event," said Humphrey. "But then they are also
removed from their schools, neighbors, churches - any part of their
familiar community - and placed in Garden City or Wichita. It's a
double whammy for the kids, and with reunification (with the family)
being the first goal ... the distance makes it harder to bring them
together physically. It works against everything we are trying to make
happen."

A need for TLC

TLC was founded in 1972 to fulfill a need to shelter abused and
neglected children from birth through age 12. The organization also
offered help to children in crisis, and within a few years instituted
the Family Foster Care Program. Through the program, Humphrey seeks,
trains and supports new foster parents to provide safe, temporary
housing for children ages birth to 18 who are removed from their homes
due to abuse, neglect or other family problems.

To become a foster parent, one must be over the age of 21, have a
stable income, like children, agree to use non-physical discipline and
have a safe, clean home. Background checks are required and the good
health of the prospective parents must be verified. Persons interested
in becoming a foster parent may be married or single and live in a
house, duplex or apartment. Interested adults must complete a 30-hour
training class through TLC and get a foster care license. The
licensure and training process may take anywhere from three to five
months.

After licensure, the time required of foster families can vary. There
are three types of placements for children in the system. The shortest
stay is respite care, which is a planned transfer of a child from
their normal foster home to another foster home for the weekend so the
parents can take a break.

An emergency stay lasts from three to five days. This occurs when a
police officer finds a child in immediate need of a care. The children
are placed in a foster home until the state can determine what is best
for the child. Because the child's safety is the biggest concern, they
are not allowed to leave the home during their stay. For these visits,
a stay-at-home parent is required.

The third type of care is long-term, in which the average stay is just
over 12 months. The child stays with a foster family until adoption,
independent living or reintegration with the family is established.

A foster family's story

To this day, Gloria Lefmann can't drink Sunny Delight.

She laughs as she tells the story of one teenage foster child they
housed who wouldn't come upstairs to use the bathroom. Instead, he
would urinate in the yellow "Sunny D" bottles and leave them in his
dresser drawers.

"You always have to be aware that the possibility is there," said
Gloria. "You don't know what kind of background the kids are coming
from ... I would hate to dwell on that because that's not the norm at
all.

"There are some really neat kids out there who just need someone to
give them a chance. To keep them safe while they have a chance to kind
of get themselves together."

Gloria, 62, and her 69-year-old husband, J.P., have been sheltering
children since 1969, just two years after they married. The Gardner
couple have taken in over 120 children in their 35 years of fostering.

The young couple decided to take in foster children as a test before
they started a family of their own. After fostering for a few years,
the Lefmanns had a daughter and a son. They took some time off to
raise their young children, then continued taking in other children in
need.

"J.P. always said it was our calling," said Gloria. "There is always
another one there. There is always somebody else who needs a home,
someone to care for them for a while."

The couple have a flexible schedule, with J.P. farming their land and
Gloria working as a substitute teacher. Although they never had
schedule concerns, it was not always easy on the family to foster
children. Gloria said both her son and daughter are glad now that they
kept foster children although they weren't always happy with the
arrangement at the time.

"When our daughter was younger, she would say, 'Mom, just say no, no'
when the social worker would call," said Gloria.

But in the end, "It made (our children) much more caring, giving and
less selfish people. Otherwise they pretty much had things their own
way, being one boy and one girl."

The Lefmanns have taken in children for a couple of days to five years
at a time, but prefer now to house older children for short-term stays
so they can focus on their 15-year-old adopted son, Marvin. Marvin,
who has lived with them since the age of 2, helps with the foster
children who stay with them currently.

"We are the parent authority figures and they sometimes get
intimidated by us, but Marvin is excellent," said Gloria. "They just
pull out the Game Cube or whatever and it's an instant bond. Even with
little kids, he's really, really good to help make them feel
comfortable."

J.P. and Gloria have been invited to high school graduations and other
life events of former foster children and there are some they see on
holidays and who still occasionally visit.

"It's so rewarding," said Gloria. "Not necessarily at the time - in
fact it's usually not at the time. But at last count we had nine
foster grandchildren.

"You see the values you instilled in them. When they become adults,
they can pull that back out. They aren't going to let you know they
got that when they were here, but when they need it, it's in there."

They plan to foster children for as long as their health allows
because, Gloria says, "We're not really put out all that much to do
it."

A continuing need

Demand is highest for families that can take in kids that are 10 or
older, and who can care for sibling groups so the children are not
separated.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the
number of children in the foster care system in the state of Kansas
has dropped over the past five years. During the 1999 fiscal year,
6,774 children were in the system, by 2002, there were 6,109.

Humphrey said the decrease is obviously good news, but there is a
continuing need for families to provide homes for youths.

"While the overall number of kids in care may be going down slowly ...
where the kids are living while in care is still our main concern," he
said. "Having enough loving, supportive and caring temporary homes in
this area for this area's children is a vital piece of the efforts
towards reintegration."
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