A Conversation With Olive Crest: Is Foster Care For Me?
Megan and Steve were serving their community in different ways, when COVID presented an opportunity to reflect “what is a way that our family can care for the community together as a family, and how do we get our kids involved?” That’s when the conversation opened the door to explore foster care, having now fostered 15 kids (and counting). Here’s their conversation with Jimmy from Olive Crest, an organization with the mission to “transform the lives of children in crisis through the healing power of God, family, and community.”
With so many stereotypes and assumptions about foster care, Megan and Steve have found truth in how much good they’ve discovered along the way. Here are 3 key insights they share in their conversation:
Diverse perspectives change lives. “You always hear this, ‘Your kids could get messed up in the process of interacting with these bad kids.’ [Our bio kids] are not changing the kids’ lives; their lives are getting changed, being around these kids by getting to know people who comes from different backgrounds.” For Megan and Steve, opening up their home to welcome foster kids helped spur conversations of meaningful curiosity, intentionality, and awareness early on for their bio kids.
Love is keeping the door open. Steve and Megan specifically talks about the fears surrounding foster care, and how once you gain perspective on foster kids and their potential to impact others, it’s impossible to close your door. Steve once had some compare foster care to “if a little kid knocked on your door and they were alone and needed help, you would open the door…it’s in our nature, our DNA…foster care is saying, ‘My door will be one of the doors that can get knocked on,” “and opened,” adds Jimmy.
Being reunited and united is the goal. Another large stereotype that people often get confused about is becoming too attached to kids who might return to their bio homes. Jimmy, Megan, and Steve talk about how that’s the point - to help foster kids experience a healthy attachment, a consistent love, and a healing relationship so that foster kids and parents who have lost their kids can be reunited with the support they need. And in the case that foster kids can’t return to their bio homes, having the space to provide a loving, forever home makes a life-changing impact on a kid’s life.
Jimmy describes the reality of foster care today like this: “What I would tell somebody who’s considering fostering is: just do it. There are so many kids, so many families that are one relationship away from wellness, they’re one relationship away from healing. And if we don’t do it, then they miss out on that relationship. In Clark County, there are 4,000 kids in the child welfare system, 500 churches, [and] if each church took eight kids, that’s it. Child welfare would be eradicated in this country.” There is so much support, partnership, and resources for people to say yes to foster care!