Okla. seeks foster families for kids in shelters

OKLAHOMA CITY — You could have heard a pin drop as Marissa Reyes stood at the podium on Thursday.

She explained that her father was a drug dealer murdered when she was 4. Her mother, she said, was an addict.

“Growing up was really unstable,” she said. “I really never had a best friend because we had to move from place to place because my mom couldn’t pay the bills. She couldn’t pay the utilities.”

When workers from the state Department of Human Services came to check on her — which happened frequently — she lied and said everything was fine. Her life was far from it.

By fourth grade, she was using drugs. Everyone around her was doing them, she explained.

“I also did it because I wanted to hide the pain and all the hurt I felt inside me, because I wanted to run away from reality,” Reyes told a roomful of strangers.

Reyes shared her emotional story at the state’s History Center, as part of an effort to encourage people to open their homes to children in need.

When she was 15, Reyes’ mother and brother were arrested, she said, and she ended up in foster care anyway. A placement with someone she knew didn’t work out. So, for a year and a half, she bounced between foster homes and shelters, finally ending up in a youth shelter due to a lack of available foster parents.

It’s a predicament familiar to many children. On any given day, about 175 children sleep in shelters across the state because there aren’t enough families to take them, according to the Department of Human Services.

Those children are a fraction of roughly 11,000 who are in state custody for various reasons. Most don’t need placement because they are working toward reunification with their birth parents, in the process of being adopted, or in therapeutic settings.

It’s those living in shelters and who qualify for foster homes that Gov. Mary Fallin wants to help as part of a new program called Oklahoma Fosters. Fallin said she’d like to find loving, supporting, safe homes for those children with no place to go.

By June 2016, Fallin said, she hopes Oklahoma will have recruited 1,000 more foster families. The state is working with tribes, faith groups and others interested in the endeavor.

If each church in the state finds just one family willing to house a foster child, the program’s supporters say, no child will be waiting.

But recruiting families is a challenge. Three years ago, when the state launched its Pinnacle Plan to reform child welfare operations, officials aimed to recruit 1,200 foster parents. About 700 signed up.

Officials hope this push yields a better outcome.

They already have reason for optimism. Between April and October, the state’s tribes found 31 foster homes. The Cherokee Nation has three people dedicated to recruiting foster families, and the Creek Nation has two, officials said.

Foster families get small stipends to offset costs — from $16.88 a day for children 5 and under to $21.54 per day for teenagers. The state also provides support services — including therapy — for each child.

Officials said they don’t necessarily need 1,000 foster homes all at once. But they would like as many as possible since one home may not be as good a fit as another.

Reyes, who turns 18 this year, learned that firsthand.

After bouncing among foster homes and shelters, she started to communicate with a family. At first it was calls and visits. Those become to overnight visits. Soon she moved in for good.

That family recently adopted her.

“Two years ago, I would never had imagined having three brothers; one adopted baby, lovely sister; two dogs; and a loving mother and father,” she said.

Visit OklahomaFosters.com for more information.

Janelle Stecklein covers the Oklahoma Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach her at jstecklein@cnhi.com.