Finding foster parents is a challenge, Indiana advocates say

Indiana Court of Appeals Judge Dana Kenworthy and her husband were once foster parents to a little girl who was afraid of storms. To help her cope, they put a mattress in their room so anytime there was a storm and she got scared, she knew she had a place to go for comfort.

“I told her that I will keep this, and this will always be here for you,” Kenworthy said. “And she said, ‘Do you mean always?’”

That mattress ended up the physical embodiment of the promise kept by the couple, who are still in touch with the girl, now in her twenties.

It was moments like this, bonding with her foster children, that ended up being her most significant as a foster parent. Between 2003 and 2006, Kenworthy and her husband were parents to 15 kids in the foster care system.

She, a deputy prosecutor at the time and he, a police officer, were prone to seeing children in dire situations.

“And at that time, we had time and space and desire to provide unconditional love to some kiddos who really needed it,” she said. “So that’s why we started.”

May is National Foster Care Month, and for Kenworthy and many others, it’s the perfect time to educate the public about the need for more foster parents and the positive ways they can influence a child’s life.

What the numbers show

In the 2022 fiscal year, 570,000 children across the United States were served by the foster care system, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Administration for Children and Families.

Of that number, 19,201 children were served in Indiana. However, 11,457 children were still in foster care as of September 30, the end of the fiscal year.

Most kids who enter the system do so because of abuse, neglect or abandonment by their parents, according to the Indiana Department of Child Services.

The number of children served in foster care in Indiana has changed significantly in the last few years, from 2021, showing a steady decline since 2017.

As of May 1, 2024, the number of children currently in foster care in Indiana is 9,018, according to the Department of Child Services, which measures by calendar year.

According to DCS, this decline can in part be attributed to the organization’s focus on increasing and improving prevention services that support families proactively so kids do not need foster care, Brian Heinemann, deputy director of communications for DCS said in an email.

Challenges in the foster care community

Despite this decrease, experts in the area say it’s difficult to find Hoosiers willing and able to serve as foster parents.

Several factors play into that challenge.

Foster parents must be 21 years old and own or rent housing that meets physical safety standards, according to DCS. Potential foster parents must also pass criminal background checks and demonstrate financial stability to be considered, and complete educational training requirements like first AID and CPR.

Experts say foster parents themselves find it challenging to commit to the role without a support system behind them.

“Many of these parents are parents of their own; parents still have to work,” said Dr. Jim Dalton, President and CEO of Damar Services, Inc. “And then the challenge is you’re asking them to care and support, many times, kids with very complicated, complicated challenges.”

Indianapolis-based Damar Services is an organization that supports children and adults with developmental, behavioral and intellectual disabilities. Dalton said it’s difficult to place a child with significant trauma or developmental challenges into a traditional foster care home.

“Most of our children that we serve in our primary programs, it was extremely difficult to transition them from higher levels of care, like hospital settings, or in residential settings, to that next least restrictive level of care, which was often foster care,” Dalton said.

The Department of Child Services and providers like Damar are working to establish ways to better support children facing challenges while in foster care, he said.

Many of these efforts involve figuring out how to provide professional support to foster families taking in children with certain exposure to trauma and offering community resources that avoid displacement and removals from foster homes, Dalton said in an email.

“All counties in Indiana have specific needs for foster homes that involve multiple demographic factors,” Heinemann, the DCS spokesman, said in an email. “Our goal is to have foster homes available to meet the unique needs of every child and to minimize disruptions so a child can remain in their community and school when foster care is necessary.”

How Hoosiers can help

Hands of Hope, a Noblesville-based organization that offers resources to support children in foster care and through the adoption process, uses its connections to rally community support for families opening their doors to foster kids in the community.

Suzy Roth, executive director of Hands of Hope, says these care communities have gone far in helping foster families thrive.

“Fifty percent of foster parents quit after the first year because it’s so difficult…that’s a big hole in the bottom of the bucket,” said Roth. “But if they have this, a care community around them, less than 10% quit.”

These care communities are made up of six to eight volunteers who want to help a foster family in several practical and emotional ways, like providing meals, offering encouragement and prayer and building “extended family” relationships.

“I think that is a huge need, is to have people who step up and say, ‘I will come alongside these people who decide to foster,’” Roth said.

In addition to care communities, Hands of Hope supports CarePortal requests in eighteen counties across the state, including in Hamilton and Marion counties.

These CarePortal requests consist of anything from new crib sheets and gas cards to monetary support for adoption papers.

Last fall, DCS launched a new foster care recruitment initiative to support existing recruiting efforts, Heinemann said in an email.

Both Hands of Hope and Damar Services are part of this initiative, called Every Child Indiana, that involves around 50 organizations.

“With Every Child Indiana, what’s awesome is we’re all collaborating together,” Roth said. “We’re all saying, ‘Hey, we want to tackle this problem together.’”

For Kenworthy, National Foster Care Month is a great time to give people considering fostering that extra boost of encouragement.

“I think it’s very important for people who have the thought, in the back of their head to be reminded, if they thought, ‘someday I might like to be a foster parent,’ I think it’s very important for them to know that the need is today,” Kenworthy said.•