WEST VIRGINIA — A few different agencies are joining forces to recruit more foster parents and address the shortage of foster care placements in West Virginia during a newly-launched, statewide campaign.
The West Virginia Department of Human Services (DOHS), along with Aetna Better Health of West Virginia, Mission West Virginia, and ten foster care organizations around the state are all collaborating for the initiative, which is specifically to target first time foster care parents as recruits, and focus on finding older youth in the system good, stable homes.
The Executive Director of Mountain Health Promise with Aetna Better Health of West Virginia Kathy Szafran told MetroNews that the organizations all agreed that focusing the campaign specifically around these areas of emphasis was important as there’s a great need in those areas.
“The focus for us is specifically on youth who are not babies, youth who are older in age, you know, tweens and teens, because those are the kids who we so often see who have difficulty finding foster homes,” Szafran said.
She said they are particularly looking for single or married adults who may have considered fostering in the past but have not yet taken the steps needed to become qualified.
Szafran said research shows that some people may consider becoming a foster parent for months or even years before they take action to do so, but she said they can see this campaign as a reminder that the time to become a foster parent is now.
“The focus is on honesty, urgency, and duty,” she said. “We want folks in West Virginia to be able to know that we need them and we need them now.”
According to 2022 U.S. Census data, there were over 6,000 West Virginia youth in the foster care system.
Szafran said, however, that one aspect which helps ease the burden on West Virginia’s foster care system is the number of kids in kinship care in the state where family members have stepped up to raise them.
She said the end goal for foster care agencies is to ultimately reunite children with their biological families whenever possible, and that foster parents serve as something like a bridge in the gap in the child’s life that’s lacking the support, care, and love they need to thrive.
“That reduces the extensive stay with kids in foster care and gets them back into their own communities hopefully and with their families again,” she said.
Szafran said Aetna and the other agencies truly see this initial campaign to boost foster care recruitment as only the beginning of the collaboration efforts they intend to continue to partner to do to help the beleaguered foster care system.
However, she said finding more safe and secure foster care placements is where they need to start, and this campaign brings awareness to the urgency behind the issue, as well as the crucial role foster parents play.
“We’re really wanting people to look at it as “your’e good enough, these children need you,” said Szafran. “If you can care for these children and open your homes to them for a period of time, that’s great, so the more foster parents we get the easier placements and finding homes for children will be.”
She said Aetna’s role in the campaign is to serve as the primary Managed Care Organization (MCO) to take care of all of the foster care children’s medical and behavioral health needs.
Szafran said Mission West Virginia is really acting as the hub of the campaign who will be collecting all of the data and information.
They encourage those considering being a foster parent to visit wefosterwv.org as the next step, as it’s a central resource outlining everything you need to know to become qualified.