Five ways to fix the foster care crisis in Muscogee County

With more than 500 children and less than 100 beds in the Muscogee County foster care system, children are being pulled from familiar surroundings and scattered all over the state.

Local judges, social services officials and state legislators say the situation is a growing crisis that they’re trying to get under control. Here’s a five-step plan:

1. Assess the situation

An Atlanta-based organization called FaithBridge Foster Care spent a little over a year assessing the foster care system in Muscogee County, said Crystal Williams, the organization’s implementation coordinator. Williams said FaithBridge interviewed 60 people in the community and produced a report that includes both local, state and national data. The document has become a resource for officials, churches and others trying to address the crisis. It’s available on the FaithBridge website.

“When we started that report there were a little over 300 children in foster care, and as you know, now that number that grown to over 500,” Williams said. “So in the course of a year, the numbers have grown exponentially, which has made national headlines because of the size of the community in relation to the foster care problem.”

2. Recruit the churches

FaithBridge recruits churches, not families, to get involved in the foster care solution. The churches are then responsible for recruiting families to become foster parents, and surrounding them with community support to be successful.

“We call that our community of care model,” Williams said. “We recommend that for every five families in a congregation that the church approves two respite families and 15 volunteers to wrap around those families because we know and we understand that families thrive when they have those support systems in place. And we believe that no family should foster alone.”

Since being in Columbus, FaithBridge has recruited five churches so far, Williams said: St. Luke United Methodist Church, Cascade Hills Church, Calvary Baptist Church, North Highland Assemblies of God and Evangel Temple.

Each church is also responsible for spreading awareness and raising funds for the project. Williams said FaithBridge has been working with other churches that may soon get involved, and the organization hopes to recruit some black congregations.

“We believe that the church has a huge part to play in this,” she said. “In the Columbus community, there over 300 Christian churches with about 50,000 people attending church on average each Sunday. Our goal is to raise awareness within the church community as it relates to foster care, since the local churches have a biblical mandate to take care of widows and orphans.”

3. Engage stakeholders

Local judges have been at the forefront of the effort to address the foster care crisis, and two will be holding meetings this month to engage stakeholders. Juvenile Court Judge Warner Kennon will hold a semi-annual stakeholders meeting Friday from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m., on the plaza level of the Government Center.

Kennon said the meeting will include Division of Family and Children Services representatives, judges and others working with children in the foster care system. “We discuss among ourselves the problems we see and how we can better serve the children,” he said. “It’s essentially for service providers.”

A broader, community-wide meeting was scheduled for March 25 in Superior Court Judge Gil McBride’s courtroom, but it has been postponed because of Good Friday, McBride said.

4. Empower kinship caregiversState Rep. Stacey Abrams and other state legislators have introduced several bills that could help grandparents and other relatives care for children in their family. Three of those bills passed the House floor and are now pending in the Senate Rules Committee, according to Joycelyn Osei, an Abrams spokesperson.

House Bill 962, sponsored by Abrams, would create a Georgia Kinship Care Enforcement Administrator position within the Georgia Department of Human Services to make sure grandparents and other caregivers are treated fairly.

HB 957, also sponsored by Abrams, would require public notification of the ability to waive probate court fees when a caregiver is applying for guardianship.

HB 934, sponsored by Rep. Tom Kirby, would require the construction of a new website specifically for grandparents and other kinship caregivers.

5. Revive a ministry

Fourth Street Baptist Church recently revived a ministry called Fostering Hope Ministry. The ministry held a forum last Thursday to educate the community about the need for more foster families. Participants included DFCS representatives and local judges.

“We’re joining together with the community to see what we can do to make a difference in getting the word out about ways people can help,” said the Rev. Johnny Flakes, pastor of the congregation. “If they do not take the role of a foster parent, there are other ways that they can help in terms of addressing the needs of children in foster care.”

This story was originally published March 15, 2016 at 3:43 PM with the headline "Five ways to fix the foster care crisis in Muscogee County."