No foster journey is exactly the same. Despite this, the desire to partner with the biological family is constant, in order to achieve reunification. One way foster parents walk alongside biological parents is through supervised family visits. However, these visits are not always comfortable or possible, either taking place in an office or cancelled due to case worker staffing shortages.
Coyote Hill Foster Care Ministries launched our Family Connections program with the hope that we could provide a safe and fun environment for children to spend time with their parents. Family visits are able to take place in our Family Connections home, a real house with plenty of space to bond and play. Volunteers supervise family visits, offering a friendly face as parents and children are able to interact for an hour or more each week. As of right now, the Family Connections home has hosted over 150 hours of family visits!
“It’s a safe space,” Cody Cox, Family Restoration Director, said. “There are no filing cabinets or other staff members walking around. It’s a home with a kitchen and a backyard. They can be a family and have it be as quality of time as possible.”
One volunteer and current Board Chair, Amy Starr, said the Family Connections house has created a vibrant environment where families can interact with one another and have supervised visits that are comfortable.
“It just shows that things can look different,” Amy shared. “There may be expectations around what supervised visits have looked like in the past, but it’s really paved the way for creativity to have it meet the need, but also look different than what it’s been in the past.”
Amy shared one story of a family that brought a bunch of different craft kits for one of their visits. They were able to sit out on the back patio and do art projects together, spending meaningful time together. “It just creates an environment where you can really be a family,” Amy said. “It’s truly encouraging them to be families, interacting like you would at home or in a safe and comfortable space.”
This past semester, several service-learning students from MU were able to start volunteering at the Family Connections home. Every volunteer works as part of a team, so they are able to be flexible.
One college volunteer, Hannah, started volunteering with Coyote Hill Foster Care Ministries after learning about us through social media. She initially became a mentor to one of our children who lived at The Hill. After the child she was mentoring moved away, Hannah began supervising visits at the Family Connections home. Each week, Hannah will open up the Family Connections house with her partner volunteer, and they will take notes while the parent or parents play with their child.
“Depending on the week, the parent and child may work on homework, read together, or play games,” Hannah said. “They can also play outside together. There is usually lots of laughing! It’s clear that the family I supervise looks forward to these visits, and they have lots of fun together.”
For both Amy and Hannah, watching how foster and biological parents partner together to support the child has been very impactful.
“Watching how the kids, the bio families, and the foster families interact with each other – the love that is shared between them, the check-ins, watching them communicate and work together – is pretty amazing,” Amy said. “Just seeing that true, caring connection.”
“It’s an awesome experience because I get to help the family be able to spend time with each other,” Hannah shared. “It’s very special to be able to provide an opportunity for kids to see their parents. These visits can provide hope for the children and parents.”
Becoming a foster family is about more than fostering a child. It is also about fostering their connection to the biological family God gave them. We feel honored to create an atmosphere where this connection can flourish.
“Even being on a journey that is challenging, when your kids are with someone else, just seeing that true care and connection between bio families and foster families is really cool,” Amy said. “And nothing beats a kid running up to give you a hug because they’re excited to see you helping with their visit with their family.”
The Family Connections home was made possible through the generosity of the Veterans United Foundation, and this program is funded by the Boone County Children’s Services Fund.
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