Vol. 2, No. 2 • Spring 1998

Why Start a Foster Parent
Association?
by Judy Callaway

If you're a foster parent, you know what it means to have a full life.

Like everyone else in the world, you probably have a job, a house to keep up, bills to pay, a family to keep going. On top of that, you have opened your home to children who have enormous needs: for structure and learning, for understanding and love. They are wonderful children, but many of them have emotional or behavioral problems the require a lot of your time and attention.

So when someone starts talking about why you should join--not to mention create--a foster parent association, your first reaction is probably to wonder why, with your already too-full life, do you need another commitment?

Actually, there are a lot of reasons. Foster parent associations (FPA's) are places to make friends with other foster parents, people who share the joys and agonies of the particular kind of service you have chosen.

Maybe that's why there are so many of them: since the idea first caught on in the late 1970s, FPA's have spread like wildfire across the United States. Today, where are hundreds of active associations in the US, with associations in almost all 50 states. North Carolina has 34 local associations and a newly-rejuvenated statewide association.

Here's a brief explanation of why foster parent associations are so popular. They provide:

• Support Networks. Because they have "been there," other foster parents have a special kind of support to offer. Sometimes they are the only ones who have the uplifting encouragement you need to "keep going."
  
  
• Training and Learning Opportunities. Where else can you get access to literally hundreds of years of combined foster parenting experience? Associations are places to learn the special skills needed to parent the children in foster care, children with increasingly difficult personal problems and demands.
  
  
• Resources. Through their ability to raise funds and connect with other organizations, FPA's do incredible things to help children and foster parents. Examples include providing respite services for worn-out parents, special arrangements with food banks and clothing providers, and supplemental reimbursement for the special needs of foster children.
  
  
• Advocacy. Children who lose their homes have no voice. United in an association, foster parents can be that voice in a way no other individual or group can. In many cases, foster parents know better than anyone about the needs of children in foster care. Membership in an association gives you a chance to speak out to improve services, policies, and attitudes that affect foster kids.
  
  
• Recruitment and Retention of Foster Parents. There is no better advertisement for fostering than a healthy, thriving foster parent association. Supported, involved, appreciated foster parents naturally spread the word!

Judy Callaway is Education and Training Director for the Foster Parent Association of Wilkes County. For more information on the Wilkes County FPA see "Profile: Wilkes County's Foster Parent Association."

Copyright � 2000 Jordan Institute for Families