CFW Foster Care needs volunteer families
By Rebecca Maynard
Foster care is one solution for the thousands of children who, for a variety of reasons, have been temporarily removed from their parents' custody.
Those reasons can include physical or sexual abuse, neglect or abandonment, physical or mental illness of a parent, death of parents, parental substance abuse, or the child's emotional or behavioral problems.
CFW Foster Care, which has an office at 311 E. Main Street in Berryville, serves the foster-care needs of Clarke and Frederick counties, and the city of Winchester.
Foster care provides various services such as substitute care and supervision for a child on a 24-hour basis until the child can return to his or her family or be placed in an adoptive home or another permanent foster care placement.
The philosophy of Virginia's Foster Care Program is to maintain family unity and ensure that all children grow up in safe and stable homes. Foster care is designed to be a temporary response, not a long-term solution.
Bridget Diehl, a social worker with CFW, explained that foster parents in Clarke County are in need.
"The bulk of the need is for children ages 12 to 18," Diehl said.
Normally, babies and young children are relatively easy to place, but people are less likely to take on the responsibility of a teenager who may have come from a troubled home, she said.
Diehl acknowledged that foster-parenting can be challenging, particularly when the children are older.
"I tell prospective foster parents that these children have been exposed to things their own children haven't been," Diehl said.
But being a foster parent can also be rewarding, and it can make a big difference in the life of a child.
Anyone age 21 or older can become a foster parent, whether single or married. CFW provides training, supportive services, financial assistance and counseling.
Candidates must complete an application, consent to a criminal background check, provide references, medical information and employment information, and meet with a social worker.
Diehl said that in the past, children could linger in foster care for many years, but today, after parents have been deemed unsuitable to care for their children for 18 months, the state begins to seek to permanently remove parental rights and find an adoptive home for the child.
"Foster care is not a good place to be raised permanently," Diehl said.
Foster parents should also be willing to consider the possibility of adopting a child if the parents do not retain custody.
The most important thing, Diehl said, is that foster parents try to make their home a place of love.
"We ask foster parents to treat the children as their own children," she said.