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Wednesday, 11 March 2009 |
A foster care program has spread to Saline County.
The CALL (Children of Arkansas Loved for a Lifetime) has been holding meetings and plans to hold more to educate, equip and encourage the Christian community to provide help for children.
The goal is to keep foster children in the county with which they are already familiar, so they can stay in the same school, for example, said Alicen Bennett, manager of foster parent recruitment and retention for the Department of Children and Family Services.
She noted that on any given day there are 3,500 children in the state foster care program and not enough foster/adoptive parents to care for each child. About 650 children’s parents have had their parental rights terminated and are waiting for a permanent home. There are 55 foster children in Saline County and only 30 foster families, she said.
Bennett is serving as the liaison between the state and the Christian-based organization.
The CALL seeks to raise awareness and find more foster and adoptive families, Saline County organizer Tonia Griffin said.
The CALL’s founder Mary Carol Pederson said the need for a faith-based group became apparent after she and her husband, Jason, fostered a teenager.
“Because of my experience, I have no problem recruiting others,” she said.
She said The CALL helps to streamline the adoption or foster parenting process by making it more “user-friendly.”
The program, for instance, helps with the expediting the certification process and provide training at church locations with more convenient training schedules. Many CALL families become certified as foster families in three to six months instead of six to 12 months, she said.
The CALL began in Pulaski County and has moved in Lonoke, Ouachita and Faulkner counties and now Saline County.
Griffin said the program is a way for Saline County churches to reach out “as one body to love and care for children.”
She added 11 churches, various denominations, were represented at a Monday night meeting.
“My husband, Jess, and I are a part of The CALL because of our love for children and a heart for those in foster care,” she said.
“In September 2007, we felt called to reach out to these hurting children in our state, actually right at our back doors and do something, starting with us.
“We truly believe with God’s hand in The CALL there will be no waiting children in Arkansas waiting for foster and adoptive parents.”
Bennett said sometimes people comment that the partnership is a conflict of church and state, but she said that is not the case. “We work independently, both with a common goal and that is the children,” she said.
Both she and Griffin noted that adults who seek to foster or adopt children through the program will undergo the same background-screening process as any other adult seeking to foster or adopt through the state.
Griffin said not everyone who volunteers for The CALL has to agree to adopt or foster children. “We need volunteers,” she said.
There are many ways a person can help. One could act as a church representative, communicating information to the congregation about upcoming events, training sessions and needs of the organization.
Griffin said she also needs volunteer social workers to conduct home studies, CPR/first aid trainers, training leaders, childcare coordinators to be used during training sessions, recruiters to enlist the help from other churches, prayer team members, hospitality coordinators, foster care clothes closet keeper, office help, phone bank coordinators, fundraisers and other support group meetings.
To register for a training series to be held April 21-23 or for more information, contact Griffin at 960-6541.
The next information meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. Monday, April 6, at Trinity Baptist Church, 702 Church St. in Benton.
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