(A News and Sentinel Op-Ed - Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

Foster Care may or may not be a familiar term to many in the general public. It may have a little element of the old fable about a number of blind men trying to describe an elephant by talking about the part of the elephant they touch; one describing the trunk; one the leg; one the tail; one the tusk. Foster care can mean quite different things depending on your vantage point. I now know quite a few people well up into their 50s who were in foster care as a child or adolescent.

Their experience includes perspective on their growing up years that others may not see. Parents whose children have been removed from them and placed into foster care have often traumatic, angry, bitter feelings toward the “system” and those operating in it. Foster parents experience a wide variety of things; from the decision to open their homes, to going through much scrutiny to be approved, to experiencing the wide variety of situations children may come to them, to experiences with bio-families and reunification, to termination of parental rights, and children becoming free to adoption, to the many complex issues foster children experience in their developmental stages. Extended family members experience foster care in yet another way, watching and participating in disruptions and complex dynamics of intra-family transitions.

Social workers, therapists, court-related officials all participate daily in many, many different scenarios. Their experiences began with their initial commitment and interest in helping children and families who are in crisis or turmoil. And yet, their work evolves into dealing with the nonstop barrage of lives, cases, regulations, documentation and on and on. The responsibility for decisions about children and families lives can seem like a nearly impossible pressure.

The wider public may have some encounters in the above ways, but they may also become aware of the foster care system through media coverage, documentaries, presentations. They may form opinions or their own thoughts about “what can be done” or “what should be done.”

A good place for everyone to start is to listen to the experiences from a first hand account. From any and all of the above vantage points. This can open up one’s eyes and broaden any personal conceptions, and may lead individuals to see a way to help or support.

Some ways this listening has led people to get involved include:

* Becoming a CASA (Court appointed special advocate) who follows the case of a child in the child abuse and neglect system to advocate with the court for their best interest as a volunteer in a formal process

* Offering help to foster families in ways such as meals, needed items for newly placed children, invitations to activities and opportunities in the community

* Becoming involved in mentoring to children or families through an organization that provides structured and accountable programming

* Remembering children in foster care at holidays, seasons,

* Becoming a foster home and its variations such as respite care

* Taking part in the various drives to gather and provide luggage (duffel bags, suitcases) for children in foster care.

* Volunteering in additional ways (deliberately through carefully screened programs and services) to provide support to families in the continuum of reunification (such as in our local area the Circles Campaign of the Mid Ohio Valley)

* And perhaps additional ways not mentioned.

I hope you will seek to become more involved in this crucial issue in our community. Please stop by the tables at the Freedom Festival June 30 and July 1 under the tent to talk to some folks involved in foster care at the Grand Central Mall between noon and 4 p.m. on the 30th, and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the 1st.

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Steve Tuck is a retired chief executive officer of the Children’s Home Society.