people are beloved.

- May is National Foster Care Month, and that's a time to bring awareness to the needs of children and teens in the foster care system, and to recognize the families and professionals who support them.

According to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, there are about 10,000 young people in foster care in our state.

Here to talk more about providing support for these children is George Winn.

He's the Chief Strategy Officer at Judson Center.

Welcome.

- Thank you for having me, glad to be here.

- Yeah, so 10,000 children.

I don't think most people know there are that many children in the foster care system.

Talk about the work that goes into making sure that they're cared for.

- You know, that's a very good question.

When you talk about the fact that we are looking at 10,000 kids who have been abused and neglected, unfortunately, have been removed from their home abuse and neglect, you have to really first just give honor and praises, and thanks for that devoted caring population of foster parents.

- Yes.

- I truly believe that foster parents are unsung heroes because not only are they really working with the child who's been removed out their home due to trauma and abuses we talked about, but also they are a support system back for the family.

When you think about foster care, most people think about foster care from the perspective of, these are the entities that come in and rip and remove kids from the families.

Judson Center, that's not what we do.

Our first primary goal is really to keep kids and families safe, and safety is the primary thing.

And then we're looking at family reunification.

And we know that while we're working on family reunification, as long as there's safety and we can remove those barriers, we're trying to get those kids back home.

But in order to do that, you have to have a safety net.

Foster parents bringing that safety net for ensuring safety, caring, nurturing, guidance, and support that goes above and beyond what they do on a day-to-day basis.

They just open up their hearts and their doors.

- Right.

I mean, I'm not sure many people understand what makes a family say, "Hey, we want to help other families out, support other families.

We're gonna open our home."

It's a very dramatic act to take on to other children.

Talk about who some of these families are and why they're doing what they're doing.

- Great question.

First of all, everyone cannot be a foster parent.

- [Stephen] Right?

- There's a lot of people who care and a lot of people who want to support and do some things.

Foster parents take a different approach.

They act.

So it's not about just telling people what the problem is, they act.

So you're talking about someone who's caring, someone who's devoted, someone who's nonjudgmental, someone who's willing to get into the trenches and provide support and love and unconditional care for someone that they may or they may not know.

If you think about it from the lens of a child's view, when a child is removed from their home and separated from their birth families or families of origin, that foster parent is right there providing that safety net, providing that hope, providing that healing, providing that safety to support these kids as they've been traumatized.

- Yeah, yeah.

What about that connection that you mentioned before between the foster family and the family of origin?

I think that's something else people don't necessarily understand that there is this connection and interaction that is aimed at helping that family of origin get back together.

- I've seen, because we know that foster parents provide that temporary, I wanna really emphasize, that temporary care is not permanent unless there's some other things that have happened that cause these kids to be available for adoption, but they come in and fill in that gap, and filling in that gap, they're not only working with that child, because remember, the reason the child is placed in their home or out of care is not because of something that child did.

So they are willing to open up those doors, but also making sure that that connection is still maintained by that biological family.

So they have weekly visits where they're working with the child to come in, and the child may come to an office setting or a community setting where they're visiting with their parents.

The foster parents keep encouraging that relationship.

They oftentimes create those relationships with that bio parent and can create a safety net or support system far and beyond what the system is able to do.

Those are natural supports that happen overnight, and not instantly, but it's something that they're willing to do.

- Yeah, yeah.

Let's talk about some of the challenges that you see at Judson to the care, the continuing care of these 10,000 children.

Obviously, lots of things in the world are changing right now.

I would imagine that some of those things have an effect on the foster care space.

What are the things that you worry about, I suppose?

- The sleepless nights really for me is seeing kids come into care with multiple siblings, and as they go through this traumatic event of abuse and neglect, when they're removed from their home and they're placed in foster care, and because it's multiple kids, one foster home may not be to take all those kids.

- [Stephen] All of 'em, yeah.

- And so now, not only was this child separated from their bio parents, but they also was separated from their siblings.

They also was separated from their school.

They also were separated from their community.

So then when you have to think about how does that feel on a young child in terms of the trauma that they've experienced, but also how do you normalize some of the things that just happened?

None of this is normal, but yet this is what they go through each and every day, and the expectation is that when this young person comes into a stranger's home, and sometimes it's a relative, and when it's relatives that have stepped up to the plate to care, there's a little difference in that type of placement.

But for a foster parent, you have to understand, first of all, that child's development and some of the issues and reasons and understand from a loving, caring, nonjudgmental, passionate way to give that child a space, to make sure that that child feels comfortable in an environment that has just been totally changed for them.

- Right, right.

What are the things you tell families who are thinking about becoming foster families and the things they ought to consider before they take that leap?

- The first thing that I would say to someone interested in becoming a foster parent is it's a gift from the heart.

Foster parents, people can give time, people can donate money, but when you open up your heart, you open up your doors, you open up your family to someone in need is tremendous.

I also say these kids have never came into care and raised their hand to say, "You know what?

I wanna be a child who's abused and neglected."

That's what I wanna be."

I tell them that, and I share the fact that they can make a tremendous difference in the lives of a human being.

They can be supporting the next president of United States.

They can be supporting the next astronaut.

They can be supporting the next educator.

Their life is unlimited, and their success, they just need some guidance, some support, and someone that cares unconditionally.

- Yeah.

Do you find it more or less difficult right now, I guess, to get families to do that?

Again, with all the change that's going on in the world, is that discouraging people?

Is it, or is it maybe encouraging people to do this?

- It's more difficult than ever before, because not only are you talking about the day-to-day stressors that we deal with just in our day-to-day lives, we are also asking them to put some of the things that they have going on aside and take on some additional responsibilities, and that's huge.

And so what we're seeing across the state of Michigan, and certainly at the Judson Center, those foster parents who have been doing this for years, they're getting tired.

And so how do we grow and develop the next generation of foster parents?

How do we take a look at our family systems and say, "Can we have a family member who knows that someone in their family is struggling, that needs a hand from the family to jump in and support these kids development?"

How do we contribute back to the community to make our communities and neighborhoods safe for the kids and the families that are resided in them?

- Yeah, and how do you do that?

How do you convince families of that?

- It's through education and awareness.

It's through outreach, is through having other foster parents.

The best recruiter for a foster parent is another foster parent.

- Is another foster parent.

- It's another foster parent.

Because foster parents can tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly.

And I will tell you, while we're improving the sector, we have a lot of work to do.

But open the lines of communication, and one of the things that at Judson Center we provide is not only are you taking a child in to provide that shelter, that love, and the condition, but we also provide integrated care or behavioral health services because we know these kids deserve and need that because they have experienced trauma.

We also have programs, like, if autism or other things that these children may be going through.

We also have primary care so that you can get the physical services that you need as well.

The Judson Center wraps all of these supports around that foster parent.

We also have ongoing training.

So you get training, we have support, support groups on a monthly basis where not only my staff are there, but I'm also attending to listen and address some of the concerns.

You also have advocates that we're working within the courts that we can help that process along as well.

So there's a lot of different supports that we provide here at the Judson Center to support our foster parents.

We also do activities.

We have coming up this month, we are having a foster parent appreciation dinner.

We are just going out to say thank you for what you do.

We also take the time to just send cards to our foster parents just saying, "Hey, here's a card to let you know we're thinking about you."

So it's a lot of little things that you do, or we are doing, just the basics to let them know that we are here and they're not doing this just by themselves.

- All alone, yeah, yeah, okay.

Well, congratulations on the work that you're doing at Judson, and thanks for being here on "American Black Journal."

- Well, thank you for having me and thank you for celebrating those 10,000 kids, certainly in the foster care system, but over 6,000 foster parents that we have in the state of Michigan.