The story below is from our July/August 2024 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
Foster care and adoption changes children’s lives, one family at a time.
Aaron Spicer
The Semones Family - Back row, left to right: Ashton, Anderson, Conner, Wyatt, Ian; Front row, left to right: Peyton, Sophia, Jonah, Colby
Bryson is a 16-year-old high school student who loves anime and has recently become interested in drawing. (He’s currently perfecting eyes.)
Like most kids his age, he’s begun thinking about what he’ll do after graduation, and he’s narrowed it down to landscaping or art school. He’s a summer solopreneur, mowing his relatives and neighbors’ yards for extra cash when he’s not busy being an excellent big brother to his household.
While all that is super responsible, in many ways, he’s a typical teenager with everyday teenage concerns. “My friend group helps each other out any way that they can.”
But even at 16, Bryson knows things could have gone much differently for him had Child Protective Services not intervened six years ago. When he was only 10 years old and his little sister Bella was five, they were placed into foster care with the foster parents who would eventually adopt them two years later. That was when the courts ruled it was not in their best interest to go back with their biological parents.
There are currently 285 kids in the custody of Roanoke City Social Services; 24 of them are between the ages of 18 and 21, and the rest are minors. Forty-nine of those children are placed with relatives. The average length of time a kid remains in foster care across the country is 20.25 months. There are 1,641 foster children in Virginia waiting for adoptive families.
Just over 10% of kids in foster care return to their birth families.
Foster care requires a lot of cooperation. While foster parents are at the front end, social services, lawyers, family law judges and nonprofits assisting parents and cooperating with the government all work hard to do what’s best for the children.
Though most people are aware of foster care, it’s full of misconceptions and unknowns for those who aren’t a part of it.
One of the biggest misunderstandings is the system’s goal. The ideal it works toward is reunification. Though the 10% number may seem low, the courts are reluctant to take children away from their parents. They give them every opportunity to improve their living situation to make it more suitable for the children.
Since 2002, the Virginia Supreme Court has ruled that every child placed in foster care is entitled to a lawyer appointed by the court to represent their best interests. That lawyer is called a guardian ad litem.
Diana Perkinson has been a guardian ad litem since 1992, and it covers 90% of her caseload. She worries there’s a public misconception that “this is just social service taking children,” but “they’ll do literally everything they can to see if the children can go home safely to their family.”
Anthony Giorgetti
Melissa Cook and Trista Thompson stand in front of DePaul’s building on Hollins Road in Roanoke.
Like most lawyers, Perkinson needs to know and communicate her client’s position. But unlike most lawyers, she’s also required to be trained in child development, medical and psychological issues and take all of this into account when making her recommendation to the court, even if it’s not the same choice as her clients’.
Perkinson loves her work.
Working with young kids sometimes requires communicating differently. She explains that their parents need to do some homework before the kids can go back.
One seven-year-old once responded that his mom was “going to have to do it over.” He was right. And Perkinson is often impressed with the kids’ insight and depth of understanding.
In a lighter interaction during an initial meeting, after introducing herself to a boy as his lawyer, he dropped his head dramatically. When she asked him what was wrong, he says, “I can’t afford a lawyer!” He was relieved to find out the state was paying his legal fees.
In addition to the courts and families, Perkinson works closely with social services to understand each client’s needs and report progress.
The first thing you see when you enter the office of Gwen Coleman, the director of Roanoke City’s Human and Social Services since June 2023, is a sign that reads, “Welcome back! We’re so glad you’re back, Gwen!”
Coleman is just as happy to be back in Roanoke, where she started in 2005 as a foster care worker. She moved up through the department before moving to Atlanta in 2021 to serve as Fulton County’s Foster Care Supervisor.
Coleman grew up in a traditional family with many aunts, uncles, cousins and siblings always there to look out for each other. But she knows not every kid is so lucky and credits her grandma for her choice of career.
She set the example early on that her purpose in life was helping others. The rest of the community called her Cousin Florence (often shortened to Confluence) because she always looked out for others. In addition to Coleman, all four of her sisters entered helping fields.
Confluence would have recognized the “it takes a village” mentality of the foster care system.
Though the DSS is ultimately responsible for all the children in foster care and supervises the many cases on their own, it utilizes the help of local nonprofits to support foster parents.
One of those organizations is DePaul Community Resources, a therapeutic foster agency. While Roanoke City (or the locality where the child entered CPS) retains legal guardianship of the kids, DePaul works to support dedicated foster parents and their wards.
That means participating in the vetting and matching process for foster families and the children they foster and running a 24-hour hotline for them.
Their workers’ caseloads are smaller because they only let a coordinator carry up to eight kids at a time, allowing them to visit a home several times a month. They also aid children who’ve aged out of foster care in learning the life skills they need to be independent.
DePaul offers extra financial support in some cases for things like therapy for the kids in their care. But Melissa Cook, DePaul’s Regional Manager, rebuffs the all-too-common belief that foster parents do this for financial gain: “It’s not even a trade-off.”
No one gets rich off of foster care, and foster parents are lucky if they get enough to cover the costs of serving the kids, let alone their time.
Foster parents do this because they’re passionate about it. DePaul works to get them prepared.
Each parent who enrolls through DePaul goes through an intensive 10-week preservice program with online courses, group meetings and home study.
Each home has a profile of who would best match them. This includes whether they can accommodate siblings or special needs and even extends to ages and special interests.
Sophia Semones’s profile would include active kids. In her household of seven, including herself and boys ranging in age from five to 17, nearly all are into sports, and Semones frequently finds herself transporting them from one game or practice to another.
Even before she had children, she knew she wanted to foster and adopt. “I had no issue taking care of, loving and adopting children that I did not birth.”
Semones has been a foster mom through Embrace Treatment for 12 years. During that time, she’s adopted five children through foster care, in addition to her two biological sons and nephew. She’s also helped facilitate several children’s return to their biological families.
That’s an emotional experience, but it’s also “awesome if their parent can be rehabilitated and the family can be reunited… if a child can go back to their family, that’s an amazing thing because there are always that many more children who need a safe place.”
While it’s challenging, it’s also rewarding.
“Sometimes kids come to you that have never brushed their teeth, don’t know how to bathe and have never sat at a dinner table. …The child from the day you get them to a year later is unrecognizable.”
Aaron Spicer
The Semones Family
Kriste and Joe Chase have been foster parents for five years. They always knew they wanted to foster, and when they moved into their own home, “we had enough room and decided it was time.”
They have two biological children (both teenagers) and three adopted children: Gracie, 4, Colt, 5 and Tyler, 8.
They previously fostered two other kids. One was reunited with his mother. The other is Colt’s half-sister, who Kriste’s best friend adopted.
Colt was initially supposed to return to his biological father, but it turned out to be too much for him to have a special needs child as a single dad. He’s still part of Colt’s life.
Colt and his half-sister were adopted on the same day in a beautiful court ceremony. The judge gave each of the kids from each family a teddy bear to show they were all part of the same family.
So now Colt has an amazing extended family: his half-sister and her family, his biological dad and his aunt, who has his older half-brother. That aunt also treats the other Chase kids as nieces and nephews.
That highlights another misconception about foster care. In most cases, it’s best for the kids to still have contact with the parents. There are exceptions, but many of these parents are doing their best and need help.
“Anybody who’s a good person is not going to be a negative influence,” says Chase. “We’re not going to cut them out… it’s really in the best interest of the kids.”
Most of the time, CPP has to intervene because parents were raised by people who didn’t know how to raise them, and they are using the same maladaptive parenting. Other times, they’ve fallen on hard times.
Trista Thompson, the Foster Care Supervisor for DePaul, says, “We’re all one or two situations away from being in a really bad situation.” Working with parents in a nonjudgmental way is critical to reunification when it’s possible. When parents are cooperative and interested, foster parents can help them get there.
Foster parents do vital work, whether it’s giving kids a safe place before returning to their original homes or taking a step on their way to adoption. “We’re calling them at a moment’s notice and asking them to take in a child,” says Gwen Coleman.
Coleman recommends people who are interested in fostering talk to foster parents. “Start asking questions. A foster parent can provide more insight about fostering.”
Melissa Cook from DePaul also recommends signing up for their training program to learn more. It’s not a commitment. It’s an excellent opportunity to see if it’s right for you.
For Bryson, the 16-year-old who was adopted at 12, foster care and adoption have changed his life path. He’s healthier, has better grades and lives with a supportive family who loves him. He has choices for the future, which wasn’t a given.
“It can change your whole perspective…it can set you on a very straight path.”
There is always a need for foster care in our region. Contact Roanoke City Social Services at DePaul Community Resources or another local foster care agency to learn more about becoming a foster parent and changing children’s lives for the better.
Foster Care by the Numbers
- 285 children in the custody of Roanoke City Social Services
- 24 adults between the ages of 18 and 21
- 261 minors
- 49 placed with relatives
- 20.25 months average length of time a child remains in foster care in the U.S.
- 1,641 foster children in Virginia waiting for adoptive families
- 10% of children in foster care return to their birth families
The story above is from our July/August 2024 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!