(bright music) - Hello and welcome to "The Journal."

I'm Steve Kendall.

One of the greatest needs in communities across Ohio is a need for more people willing to become foster parents.

Our guest is Randall Galbraith, Director of Hancock County Jobs and Family Services.

Welcome to "The Journal" today.

Thank you for being here.

- [Randall] Thank you, Steve, for having me.

- [Steve] Yeah.

Now, one of the things we can start off with, I talked about foster parenting, but there's also adoptive parenting.

So kind of explain the difference in those two things and maybe they're not as different as we think.

- [Randall] They may be more similar than you think.

Yes.

- [Steve] Okay.

- So I'll start off with foster parenting.

Foster parenting is the idea that your home would become a substitute home for children that are in the custody of the state or the county.

It's the county, but government.

Custody of government.

That's generally considered a temporary placement.

So there's a tremendous amount of education that goes into that.

So there's training.

There's about, I think, 36 hours of training that goes into that.

There's a licensing process, which includes a pretty thorough home inspection, a very thorough background check, and then every two years recertification with additional training.

So adoptive homes, generally what I deal with are foster homes that decide to adopt children.

- [Steve] Oh, okay.

- So it changes from a foster home to a foster-to-adopt home.

And there's basically just a change in licensure.

There isn't a whole that once you become a foster parent, you have most of the tools there to become an adoptive parent.

The adoptive homes that you may be thinking of are more of a private kind of adoption.

Yes, they have to have background checks and very thorough home inspections as well, but generally not to the level of a foster home that will take in children at a moment's notice and, you know, from various backgrounds and keep them for a short period of time before they're... We always attempt to return 'em to their birth families.

- Sure.

Now, and you mentioned something too now, and then one of the questions I was gonna do is like, how long would a foster parenting situation...

It can run any length then, obviously, right?

- [Randall] It... - Or is there a timeframe that you work within?

- [Randall] There's a general timeframe we work within.

So from the time that children are removed from their birth home or their caregiver home, the clock starts ticking.

And it's a two-year process by law.

Something, some permanency has to be achieved by the end of that two-year period through a court case.

Now, if in the rare event that a children's services agency is granted permanent custody of the children, oftentimes those children will stay with their foster parents, usually because the foster parents decide to adopt.

But if they don't, then some other arrangement will be found.

But I'd like to tell you that there's some average length of time, but I've really not seen that.

It's kind of all over the place.

- [Steve] It can vary, depending on all the circumstances are so variable.

Yeah.

Now, when you talk about the people coming in, where do the potential foster children come from?

What kind of circumstance?

Pretty much a range of those I'm sure as well.

- [Randall] Yes.

It's a hodgepodge or if you're asking me what trends generally drive children into foster care, what we see is a tremendous amount of domestic violence, a tremendous amount of untreated mental health issues, and a tremendous amount of substance abuse.

And usually it's more than one combined.

- [Steve] A combination -of all of those.

- Yes, and so it makes a household that's unsafe for the children.

- [Steve] Yeah.

Now, when you have multiple children in a home how do you deal with that?

Because obviously you place them all and do you have to spread them out, or do you try to keep them together or..?

- [Randall] That's certainly the vein of my job, because when you have a sibling group, the idea is to keep the siblings together as much as possible.

It's very difficult to do.

Any sibling group over two becomes very difficult to find a foster home that's willing to take, you know, four or five children.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- Now that's circumstances and it doesn't happen...

I shouldn't say in Hancock County, that circumstance doesn't happen very often where you have more than three kids.

It does sometimes.

I suspect that Lucas County and Franklin County might have a different experience.

- [Steve] Yeah, larger metropolitan areas with the... Now, when you have, skipping ahead just a little bit, so Ohio's had a foster care system for quite some time.

Has it evolved over time from maybe what it was 50 years ago compared to now or even five or 10 years ago?

-[Randall] Okay, so my history in this program isn't that long.

- [Steve] Okay.

- You know, and we do know that at one point in time that each county had basically an orphanage, a children's home.

Hancock County still stands and is in use by business today.

But over time, the idea was that children do much better in a home-type.

- [Steve] In a family setting.

- A family setting.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- And so that's where we try to keep them.

And I've been doing this about seven years, so.

- Okay.

- In that time, the changes are more to the training side of being a foster parent.

It used to be that we had our agency open on evenings and weekends to accommodate foster parents coming in because the training had to be in person.

- [Steve] Ah.

- COVID changed that to training is now pretty much online at your convenience, and I think that's been helpful.

But since COVID, the State of Ohio has lost about half its foster families that it had pre-COVID.

- [Steve] Really?

- Yeah.

- [Steve] And you probably weren't overwhelmingly... - No.

- [Steve] Overdye, you didn't ha people waiting in line to do it, probably.

- No, no.

So as of the last day of June 2025, that's the last stats I have from the Department of Children and Youth.

There are about 7,000 foster homes in the state of Ohio.

Of course, those aren't evenly distributed, and there's about 7,700 children in those foster homes.

So obviously there's some sibling groups that are out there.

But as I said, it's not an even distribution and we can always use more.

In fact, we really do need more.

- [Steve] Yeah.

And one of the things we do is help people find out how they can get in touch with someone like you in their county and get into it and become involved in this.

Demographically, is there a typical foster parent age-wise, or do you look for younger foster parents versus someone say like maybe my age?

- [Randall] No, age doesnt matter.

- [Steve] Age doesn't matter.

Okay.

- Demographics really don't matter.

I mean, there's obviously some things that would exclude people from being foster parents, but we look at everybody.

Probably the foster parents that I interact with the most are in their thirties to forties.

- [Steve] Okay.

- They usually have some children of their own already.

That's, you know, a two-parent household.

And that's generally what we see.

- [Steve] Yeah, yeah.

Now what about sing... You mentioned two, can you be a single parent and be a foster parent?

- [Randall] Yes.

Yes, you can.

- [Steve] Okay.

All right, okay.

- [Randall] It's more unusual, I say, from what I've seen, but you absolutely can.

- [Steve] Yeah, yeah.

Well, when we come back, we can talk a little more about it because obviously, hopefully what we can do today is have people want to get involved and become part of this system to help you folks do what you need to do and what we need to do for the children here in Ohio.

So we'll talk more about that in a moment.

Back in just a moment with Randall Galbraith, Director of the Hancock County Job and Family Services, and we're talking about foster parenting and adoptive parenting.

Back in just a moment.

- Thank you for staying with us on "The Journal."

Our guest is Randall Galbraith, Director of the Hancock County Job and Family Services.

We were talking a little bit about foster parenting.

Demographically, do you have more people in that 30 to 40 range versus a 25-year-old or a 55-year-old?

Is that kind of where it posits and is that just the way it lays out basically, right?

- For the families that Hancock County license, yes.

Once again, Lucas County, for example, has a quite a robust foster family system and I'm not sure what their demographics look like, but ours is certainly, that's where it falls.

- [Steve] Yeah, yeah.

Now let's say that, you know, obviously you're always looking for prospective foster parents.

What is that process like?

If I picked up the phone and called you and said, "Randall, I'm interested," what's the first thing you say to me after that?

- [Randall] If it were me, if you get ahold of me, I would put you in touch with my Foster Parent Licensing Case Worker.

We do have one dedicated person that recruits and retains foster parents.

- [Steve] Okay.

- [Randall] Rebecca Reese.

And she would then take down a ton of information about you and start that licensing process with an application, assuming that it still interests you after you see the red tape, which is always the thing with government.

Again, we would start you on that 36 hours of pre-placement training and get that out of the way as quickly as as possible.

An adoption assessor would come out and that's the term.

Any of my caseworkers could be an adoption assessor if they've been through the training.

They would come out and do an extensive home study, what safety elements we need, are they in the home?

If not, we will put you in touch with YWCA out of Lima.

They have programs to make sure that you have everything you need to start that foster parent journey.

- [Steve] Yeah.

Just for a sec, what would some of those things be if they come into my home and looked for them?

What would be... - Smoke detectors, fire extinguishers.

You know... - [Steve] Carbon monoxide detectors.

- Detectors.

- [Steve] Okay.

Gotcha.

- All those kinds of safety things, where they're located.

You know, things like how are the outlets placed?

You know, what's the layout of the bedrooms?

And if you have children, how are they spread throughout the house.

That kind of thing.

It's a pretty extensive list.

- [Steve] Sure.

- And then a background check.

A very, very detailed background check would be next.

- [Steve] That makes sense.

Yeah.

- And at the completion of all that, then you are licensed by Hancock County to be a foster parent.

And then what foster parents may not know is they have a tremendous amount of control over the children that they might accept into their home.

- [Steve] Okay.

- So one of the things out there I think, is that once you become a licensed foster parent, is you're gonna get that call at two in the morning and you don't really know who's gonna show up.

That's somewhat true, but the foster family does have the option to say, "No.

this may not be a good fit for us."

And they usually have some specifications up front for us so we know who to call.

- [Steve] Yeah.

And that way and that which would make sense because that way you don't end up, because you wanna put people in a position to be successful, both the child coming into the home and the parents that make that situation, avoid potential problems downstream.

So, yeah.

- [Randall] Exactly.

- What are some of the things that people would, for instance, say, you know, "I'm good with this, but I'm not good with that age."

And not to say bad or good, but things they're comfortable with versus maybe they're not as comfortable with.

- [Randall] Ages.

- Okay, right.

- There's a lot of their, you know, it's always easy to find people that will take infants and toddlers.

Not so easy to find people that will take teenagers.

- [Steve] Ah.

- That's always been an issue.

Kids with medical conditions that, depending on what those medical conditions are.

Now I should say that we've been talking a lot and I've been using basically the family foster home model.

There is a level of care above that called a treatment foster home.

We do license those as well.

Along with a partnership with Sandusky County.

It's a fairly new idea, but it takes an intensive amount of case management and home visits for a treatment foster home.

And that next level would deal with kids who have extreme mental health issues or, you know, physical health issues.

- [Steve] Yeah.

That maybe most, that some people would not be able to handle as easily as everyone would like.

- [Randall] Yes.

- [Steve] Yeah.

Do you have, I mean, and the flip side would be, I'm assuming that not every situation you know, 100% probably isn't... Don't hit perfection with this, I'm afraid.

- [Randall] No, no.

It's usually not.

And that's one things that I would tell a prospective foster parent, even a foster parent that's already licensed.

You know, you have to be adaptable.

You can't... - [Steve] Sure.

- [Randall] You don't know what's necessarily going to happen from day to day.

There are a reason these kids are in the custody of the state and they will not necessarily react the way your own children would or children you might think would.

Lots of training on trauma-informed care around that to make sure that people understand the reaction you see will be normal for this child, but not necessarily normal for what you would expect.

- [Steve] But you would think and would, yeah.

And I guess, too, because people, as we mentioned earlier, kids are coming from backgrounds.

There's a reason why they're in the system, probably most times nothing to do with them.

It's really their environment, the surrounding, the people that they were involved with.

And that does, as you said, provide a range of reactions and life experience they've already had, which can be a surprise to a prospective foster parent then.

Yeah.

Yeah.

- [Randall] Yes, very much so.

- Now, and when you talk about going through the training, are those the kind of things that you talk about, like as you just described, "Hey, remember that every child is not gonna react the same way that maybe you've experienced," that kind of thing?

- [Randall] Yes, that is very much part of those pre-placement trainings and continuing training is just some instruction on what may happen and what could happen and how that might be a surprise.

- [Steve] Yeah, yeah.

Now, when a situation arises that it becomes a little less than manageable in a situation you've had somebody placed, things are going okay, then there's a bump in the road.

What's the...

There's obviously a plan for that too, that the parent can then call and say, "Hey, I've got this, I need to talk to someone," or, "I need some assistance here.

I need some help here."

- [Randall] Again, there's a case manager that's assigned to the child and in an ideal world would follow that child through the whole process.

And that doesn't always happen.

And again, I have a foster care recruiter and she also helps retain, so she's there available with resources and she herself is a foster parent.

And I find that lived experience to be incredibly helpful.

- [Steve] Yeah, I could.

Yeah.

- [Randall] We also have in-person support groups.

The first, we just kicked this off, starts Monday the 18th.

So there'll be in-person and YWCA in Lima manages an online support group as well through Facebook.

There are.... We can find foster parents what they need.

If worst comes to worst, we try to find respite.

So a child goes to another foster home for a little while, so everything kind of calms down and we try to... - [Steve] Everybody can get to take a deep breath and step back a little.

- [Randall] Exactly.

- And then, yeah.

And hopefully then bring it back together again, and yeah.

'Cause obviously you'd like to keep, I would assume you'd like to keep a foster child in a home consistently versus the other way around because you do hear like, "Oh, people bounce through the system all over the place."

Does that still happen?

- [Randall] It does happen.

- [Steve] Oh, it still does, but - [Randall] It does happen.

It's... - [Steve] Unfortunately.

Yeah.

- [Randall] Yes, we work very hard to minimize that because that's good for no one.

But yeah, that still does happen.

- [Steve] Yeah 'cause what you'r looking for is stability all the way around, so good.

When we come back, we'll delve a little bit more into this because obviously we've got some things to cover yet, but I appreciate it.

Back in just a moment with Randall Galbraith, Director of Hancock County Job and Family Services, here on "The Journal."

You're with us on "The Journal."

Our guest is Randall Galbraith, Director of the Hancock County Job and Family Services.

And specifically we're talking about foster parenting and adoptive parenting.

One of the questions I had was, obviously you've had generations of people who have been foster parents for 5, 10, 15, 25, 30 years through maybe their whole life.

Those people eventually move out of the system, you know, health reasons, age reasons, whatever it is.

So you're constantly trying to find new people who hopefully will then stay with you that length of time again, correct?

- [Randall] Yes, absolutely.

We've had families that have retired from the foster system.

They've gotten to the age where this is no longer something that they can do or want to do.

And, you know, that's absolutely understandable.

You have families that were in it to adopt and they adopted their limit, if you will, of children and they say, "No more," and they move on.

So it is a constant moving target.

It's a constant need for foster parents just for that reason.

- [Steve] Yeah, and one of the questions which we were talking about that came out of the break a little bit was what is the commitment?

When I sign up, is there a specific length that I'm in for or what is the commitment level?

It just depends?

- [Randall] Yeah, if someone decides they want to be a foster parent, as I said, they have a tremendous amount of power.

So they can limit, you know, the scope of their involvement, they can limit to what children they're involved with.

Now, that's not incredibly useful to me.

But it might be still that child might come through our doors.

So I still encourage people that have those limitations to, you know, apply to become a foster parent.

The licensure is good for two years.

- [Steve] Okay.

- It doesn't mean you have to use it for two years and you're not locked in to the agency for... You're not an indentured servant.

You're not gonna be here for 10 years doing this.

It is your choice.

What I would say is that the commitments, once you commit, it's not usually a two-week thing or a three-week thing.

It's usually a year or more.

Once you have a child in your home, that's what I generally see.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- It is also...

Even if a child, and for us, success is a child goes back to the birth family.

- [Steve] Right.

- [Randall] That may not necessarily be successful for the foster parent, but that's success for us.

- [Steve] Right.

- [Randall] Those connections are there, in most cases, much, much longer than a court case or a stay with a foster parent.

Those connections are often lifelong, yeah.

- [Steve] Which is what you want as well too.

- [Randall] Right.

Yeah.

- [Steve] You want that.

- [Randall] I have rarely heard a foster parent say that they wouldn't have done it again.

- [Steve] Hm, okay.

- They will talk about the hard times.

We all do.

They have war stories, just like we do.

- [Steve] Like everything else, yeah.

- And at the end of the time say, "Yeah, but we wouldn't have changed anything."

- [Steve] Yeah, yeah.

- And that's been the surprise to me, is like, I would've thought I would've seen a lot more, "This was not a good experience," but that's not really what I run into.

It's usually transformational for the foster parents.

- [Steve] Yeah, and I guess too, the other thing, once, and I know that we're gonna reach a situation too because what is the age that a child basically is then opted out of the system?

I mean, how long?

When they turn 18?

Is that the... - [Randall] The law in Ohio of emancipation is turning 18 or finishing high school.

- [Steve] Okay.

- But not beyond 19 unless there's a developmental disability.

So we'll call it jurisdiction or my jurisdiction with kids with developmental disabilities overlaps a little bit with the Department of Developmental Disabilities.

- [Steve] Okay.

- They generally take over around 21.

- [Steve] Ah, okay.

And at some point what happens then?

For instance, I'm a foster child, I turn 18, I'm then basically on my own.

Is that... - [Randall] Right.

Well, it can be that way.

- [Steve] It can be.

Okay.

- [Randall] All right, if I can talk quickly.

- [Steve] Yeah, clear that up for me.

Yeah.

- [Randall] If I can talk to the foster kids in the system that are out there that are, that are teenagers.

We know you're tired of talking to a caseworker and we know you're tired of this process.

If you will stay with us, if you're in our custody, if you will stay with us, when you turn 18, there's a program called Bridges that Ohio's put together.

- [Steve] Okay.

- And that program can fund apartments, furniture, everything to furnish an apartment.

Yeah, it is a fairly smooth slide into adulthood.

Pay for college, pay for books, all those things.

Too many times, the 17-year-old is just tired.

I mean, this would be kids that are not necessarily in a foster setting.

They may be in a residential or group home setting.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- They're just tired of this and they want no more.

And when they turn 18, they're gone.

And there's nothing we can do to stop that other than to say, "Hey, hang in there for another three, four months.

Let us set you up."

- [Steve] "We'll help you with that transition so it isn't just a cold start."

- Yes, and we absolutely can do that.

- [Steve] Yeah, and I guess you would hope too that as you mentioned earlier, that maybe if they have been in a foster parent setting, that they still have some connection there that will help them with that transition as well if they're not in an adoptive situation at that point.

- [Randall] Exactly, exactly.

That's what we always try to help kids to that next, you know, it's hard enough if we all remember when we were 18 and suddenly, you know, you have responsibilities that you saw your parents do if you're lucky, but now it's yours.

You know, these kids are starting from scratch on that.

They may not have had those adults to watch.

And that's, again, that's where foster parents come in for everything from, you know, how do you buy a car, how do you run a checkbook?

- [Steve] All of those life skill things that we sort of take for granted that somehow end up by osmosis.

- [Randall] I guess I'm showing age by saying "checkbook," but there is still a bank account out there somewhere with usually the debit card or a Venmo attached to it.

- [Steve] Right.

- [Randall] You know, how do you financial literacy.

- [Steve] Yeah.

Yeah.

- [Randall] And we do provide that kind of training to kids, but having it modeled is always the best way.

- [Steve] It's still the best way.

Yeah, that's it.

If people want to become involved either from here or let's say that you want to think you're good foster or adoptive parent material, what's my best route?

Pick up the phone and call job, as you said earlier, and someone will route them to the door they need to get to?

- [Randall] For Hancock County, it's 419-429-8008.

That's 419-429-8008.

Not to sound too much like an infomercial, but you give us a call and we'll set you up.

And the need is so great.

There are private agencies out there.

They do operate slightly differently than the public children's services agencies.

Groups like Adriel and SAFY that we contract with do a good job.

They also will help you with this as well.

Right now, we'll take any foster parents we can get.

So if you have that interest, give us a call.

Let us walk you down that path a little bit, see if it's right for you.

- [Steve] Yeah, because obviously the larger base you have to draw from, for prospective adoptive and foster parents, the better for everybody that is in this process, in this system.

- [Randall] Absolutely.

- [Steve] Yeah, good, good.

Okay Well, thank you so much, Randall Galbraith.

Thank you for coming in and talking to me about this because obviously a lot of misconceptions out, like a lot of processes and things that people deal with on a day-to-day basis and they think they know a lot about it.

You've cleared up a lot of the questions that I think a lot of people would have and hopefully it turns into people knocking on your door down there saying, "Hey, we're interested in helping out."

- [Randall] That'd be great.

And you so much for having me.

- [Steve] No, no, you're very welcome.

Thank you.

You can check us out at wbgu.org You can watch us every Thursday night at 8:00 PM on WBGU PBS.

We'll see you again next time.

Good night and good luck.

(bright music)