A publication dedicated to making foster care and adoption in North Carolina the best they can be
I was tired. This would be my fourth high school in four years. I’d already moved twice the previous year, which meant having to go to two different schools during my junior year. The principal didn’t make it easy. She looked over my transcripts, and decided that I should be placed in the 11th grade again. My heart sank as
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by Anna Morrison • I am an elementary school teacher. I know what it is to have a classroom full of first graders who come from all sorts of backgrounds and have different needs and gifts, and to be responsible for their learning for a whole school year. I’m also an experienced foster parent. My family and I have cared
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Nov. 2018 (Vol. 23, No. 1)
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by Donna Foster • If you know me, you know I’m a big fan of shared parenting. I cherish any chance I get to explain why I think this practice is good for children, birth families, and foster families. In North Carolina, shared parenting usually starts with a face-to-face meeting between birth and foster parents within the first two weeks
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by Jonathan Rockoff • Your license has been approved! You spent the past few months going through the licensing process and learning as much as you could about a child welfare system with many moving parts. Yet if your child is school-aged, you still have more to learn. School Districts & Enrollment Even before your license is approved, one of
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by Bob DeMarco • I feel strongly that school is an area resource parents can help make huge strides in their kids’ healing and give them the greatest opportunities for success. As we think about and talk about school for kids who have experienced trauma we must understand two things. First, if your child or youth is separated from their
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Though there are stellar students among them, on the whole children and youth in foster care struggle in school more than their peers. They experience higher rates of placement in special education, more absences, more suspensions and expulsions, and lower achievement. They also experience more school instability, which can hurt academic progress. One study found 75% of students in foster
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I am foster parent in another state and I’m moving to NC. How do I foster in North Carolina? The licensing assessment and approval process differs in each state. The foster home requirements in each state are governed by standards set in accordance with the laws of that state. Therefore, it is not possible to transfer a foster home license
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by Lisa DeMarco and family • Like most parents, my husband Bob and I are willing to go to great lengths to help our children grow up strong, healthy, and happy. We did this with our four biological children, and we are actively doing it with our two youngest children, who spent several years in foster care before joining our
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by Becky Burmester • As a veteran foster parent (two decades and counting), I am familiar with licensed foster parents whose homes have remained empty. These foster parents frequently contact their social workers seeking placements, yet no children are placed in their homes. They ask themselves: Why is this happening? There is supposed to be such a need for foster
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