A Statewide Initiative Looks To Help With Critical Need For More Foster Parents

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI)- Every child deserves to grow up in a home filled with lots of love and support, but unfortunately in Mississippi that’s not always the case.

According to the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services, more than 54 hundred at risk children have been removed from their homes and placed into foster care.

“Right here in Columbus we have over 130 children in care, and only about 25 non-relative foster families,” said Sabrea Smith, director of Rescue 100.

Rescue 100 is a statewide program that’s designed to help erase this epidemic and put children back with their families.

The purpose of the program is to recruit, train, and support foster families through church engagements.

“Every child that comes into our foster care system has been through some type of trauma, some type of neglect, or abuse and our goal is to always try to put them back with their biological families once we work through whatever issues brought them into care,” Smith explained. “If we can’t do that immediately or we can’t find a relative for them then we need non-relative families who are willing to step up as foster families to take care of them during that difficult time.”

However, finding foster parents for the children is becoming increasingly difficult.

“Foster families tell us this is the hardest thing that they’ve ever had to do, so it really takes people who have the flexibility and the commitment to stick with it even when it gets tough,” said Smith.

“Foster care is a temporary placement, that’s something that we really want people to understand and sometimes it does lead to adoption,” said Samantha Crimm, assistant director with Rescue 100.

All throughout the summer the program has been recruiting and training potential parents looking to make a difference and take on the challenge.

“It’s just very important that a child has stability in their lives,” Crimm expressed.

In order for someone to become a foster parent in Mississippi they must be at least 21 years or older, have no more than four children, live in Mississippi, and be able to support themselves financially, just to name a few.

“If they still feel led to go down this path then we start the training and they will learn all kinds of stuff as far as child development, alternative discipline, attachments, and separation issues that our kids may have,” Smith described. “Then once we go through that whole training process, we do a home-study and they are willing and able to have a placement at that point.”

On Tuesday, Rescue 100 is hosting an orientation at Parkway Baptist Church in Houston.

The event will take place from six o’clock in the evening until seven.

For more information on becoming a foster parent visit https://www.mdcps.ms.gov/rescue100/ for more information.