'Take that step': Cayuga County has 'urgent need' for foster parents

The Citizen - 5/18/2023

May 18—FLEMING — The Cayuga County Department of Social Services had an ulterior motive for bringing all of its foster parents together for dinner Wednesday at the Springside Inn.

While the department held the dinner to celebrate those parents during National Foster Care Month, the approximately 30 foster mothers and fathers in attendance were also asked to help find more.

"The best foster parents we seem to get come from other foster parents," Children and Family Services Supervisor Johanna Lattimore told them. "So please, please, please spread the word."

The need for more foster parents in Cayuga County is so urgent, Lattimore said, that the department often has to send children to counties several hours away. Children who require therapeutic care for emotional, behavioral or medical conditions are placed in homes where they don't receive it. Conversely, children who don't require that care are placed in homes that do provide it, at additional cost to the county. And respite care — where children are temporarily placed with another family to provide their foster or biological parents a period of self-care — is less available as well.

Ann Scott, a home finder with the department, told The Citizen the county currently has 31 regular homes and 22 kinship homes providing foster care. Ideally, it would have 50 regular homes.

Meanwhile, the department has 105 children in foster care, 38 of whom are in therapeutic or group homes. The number of foster children in Cayuga County increased after COVID-19, Scott said, while the number of foster parents and case workers decreased. She and Scott believe that's because the pandemic has caused a mental health crisis and exacerbated a drug epidemic, among other problems.

"Children have been in some pretty terrible situations," Lattimore told the parents. "You are so important. It's a tough job, but you are putting so much out there to open your homes and love them."

With the pandemic receding, the department hopes to make its need for foster parents less urgent by recruiting more. Becoming one requires completion of a 10-week course and some paperwork, Scott said. Each child they foster comes with a daily subsidy to support their care that ranges from $28.52 for infants to $34.63 for teenagers, with $55.07 for special children and $82.97 for exceptional ones.

The need for foster parents is why several of the ones who spoke with The Citizen at Wednesday's dinner volunteered with the Department of Social Services.

Tony and Mackenzie Tabone, of Cayuga, have fostered seven children since the end of 2019, mostly two at a time. Their eighth will be placed with them next weekend, they told The Citizen.

A former case worker, Mackenzie Tabone was familiar with the need. But she wasn't prepared for what came afterward, she said, like the fulfillment of watching a teenager placed in her home as he improved academically, tried new activities and developed his personality. After three years he returned to his biological parents, which also was a learning experience for her and Tony as foster parents.

"It's a grieving process when they leave," she said. "It's tricky. You form these crazy bonds with them and it's really emotional to say goodbye, but the good parts far outweigh those sad moments."

Mike and Kim Hooper, of Union Springs, became foster parents after having their second child two years ago because they felt "selfish bringing more children into the world when there are ones who need help," she told The Citizen. One of the five children who have been placed with them became best friends with their son, and called her on Mother's Day despite having returned to his biological parents.

Another child placed at the Hooper home was only there 12 days, much to their surprise. Flexibility and emotional readiness are part of being a foster parent, they said, as is constant communication with the biological parents, case workers, supervisors and other parties. But the Hoopers stressed that it's always a good thing when a relative works hard to have a child returned to their home.

"You rearrange your whole life and get everything scheduled and then — bye!" Kim Hooper said. "It's surprising, but it's great for them."

Pam and José Sanchez have been foster parents for 15 years, adopting three of the nine children who have been placed in their Auburn home.

Pam Sanchez told The Citizen she saw the need for parents during her 22 years working with the county. Her daughter, Nicole Sanchez, is now a foster care supervisor at the department. Pam Sanchez said she wanted to help meet that need because "every kid deserves a safe, loving, stable home." Along with providing that, she and her husband have found the growth of those nine children the most rewarding part of being foster parents. They currently have a 14-year-old who just made honor roll after failing for many straight marking periods, a change his teachers have also noticed.

The key to unlocking that change in children, she said, is simply to be there for them.

"Listen, be compassionate and understanding, and treat them as your own," she said. "A little bit of kindness impacts these children so much."

That's all it takes to be a foster parent, Pam Sanchez continued, encouraging other adults in Cayuga County to help meet the need.

"People are afraid, but it is rewarding and it is worth it. If you have an extra room, and you have a lot of love, you should do it," she said. "You just have to be willing to take that step."

To learn more

For more information on Cayuga County's foster care program, visit cayugacounty.us/285/Foster-Care-Adoption.

Dinner donors

Donors to the Cayuga County Department of Social Services' foster parent dinner Wednesday at the Springside Inn included: CJ's Pub & Restaurant, Potters Farm to Fork, Shepherds Brewing Co., Pavlos' Restaurant, Kosta's Bar & Grill, Curley's Restaurant, Parker's Grille, XL Cookie Co., Smitty's Fish House West, Nate Torrance and Jon Turner at Nate's Barber Shop, BJ Ruscio at Ruscio's Barber Shop, Seb's Green Shutters, Andrea Gadsby at Hair Tonic, Shelly McConnell at Serenity Salon, Lisa Sobus with Color Street Nails, PaPa Paulie's, Nino's Pizzeria II, Mamma Maria New York Pizzeria, Teddy Mountain, Falcon Lanes, Mark's Pizzeria, Sennett Still & Barrel, Mr. Pizza, Mesa Grande Taqueria, Hairlooms, Savannah Bank, Bag O' Nickels, The Rev Theatre Company, the Hilton Garden Inn in Auburn and Champions for Life Sports Center.