There is always a demand for people to open their homes and hearts to children in need, but this time the appeal is spurred by good news.

Although more people are adopting foster children, taking them out of the county system, this also has increased the need for new foster families.

Santa Barbara County currently has about 600 children who have been separated from their parents as a result of physical and mental illness, incarceration, abuse, neglect or abandonment, according to the Family Care Network Inc., a local nonprofit foster care agency.

More foster parents are sought in an increased effort to keep such children out of group homes and within permanent homes in their communities.

New foster parents are also needed to replace those who are adopting the children who were originally meant to stay with them on a temporary, short-term basis.

“It's a great problem to have,” said Raye Vega, 35, a family development specialist for FCN in Santa Maria and a foster parent.

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The recruiting process has been focused on extensive education of foster-adoption, and Vega said people who are leaning toward adoption are introduced to foster families who have adopted.

“Actions speak louder than words and new families are seeing really positive experiences,” she said.

Also, Vega said her agency has begun a more selective and proactive approach for placing children so that if reunification with the biological parents is slim, they are placed with families who have expressed an interest in adoption.

“Foster care has definitely evolved. Before children were placed into foster homes that had no intention of adopting or were never asked and kids would bounce from home to home,” said Vega, who grew up in the foster care system in San Jose and had many different foster families.

Now, Vega and her husband, Oscar, who have six biological children, have served as foster parents to about 50 children since they opened their home seven years ago.

Vega and Oscar are also one of the several families whose home serves as an emergency shelter, offering housing to children for approximately two weeks.

“A lot of these kids go into one of FCN's emergency shelter homes and don't want to leave. Then, we lose shelter parents because they fall in love with them in two weeks,” Vega said.

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FCN had 92 children on the adoption track in 2007 and another Santa Barbara County foster and adoption agency, Aspiranet, averages approximately 10 adoptions a year.

“It's a good thing to find parents for children, but we may lose a foster family because of it,” said Anne Maddox, the family developer for Aspiranet, which covers the area from Buellton to San Miguel. “That's the reason why there's always a need for more foster parents.”

Other factors influence the increased need for more foster families.

A marked increase in removals by Child Welfare Services is blamed on parents' methamphetamine abuse, said Jim Roberts, the executive director of FCN. The 2008 grand jury agreed.

“Every time the economy goes bad, referrals go up,” because of more incidents of mental illness, homelessness and child abuse, said Roberts, who has worked in foster care for more than 30 years.

He added, “We haven't seen it come to fruition, yet, as it has in the past, but coming soon we could have a real problem.”

People will not become rich fostering children, Vega said, but are motivated to serve because it's the right thing to do.

“If we can't take care of them here, then they have to find homes outside of the county, away from their community.”

November 17, 2008