“My boys often speak of their time at Coyote Hill Foster Care Ministries. During a difficult time for our family, their experience at Coyote Hill Foster Care Ministries was nothing but positive. Their Coyote Hill Foster Care Ministries families have now become an extension of our own family.
~~Trina*, mother of two boys who lived at Coyote Hill Foster Care Ministries
God bless you all for everything you do.”
The first goal of foster care across the country is reunification. In 2018, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 56% of the children who left foster care were reunited with their families or living with a relative.
When children come into protective custody/foster care, a case worker must put together a case file. This justifies the reasons children are in care and why the Department of Social Services had to step in to remove the children from their biological family’s home. This also explains the steps the biological parent(s) must complete to get their children back. One of those initial steps involves supervised visits.
This was the case when Trina’s sons, Caleb and Will*, were placed with us a couple of years ago.
“When we first met Trina, she was very wary and stand-offish to us,” Home Parent Mom in The Atherton Home, Mary Vassar, explained. “Of course, this is understandable. At the end of the day, we had her child in our home. This automatically creates a division.
“One of the goals Aaron and I had when coming to Coyote Hill Foster Care Ministries was to not only minister to the children, but also to their biological family. Often, their parents are part of a generational cycle of abuse or neglect that started long before them. Many have had no one in their lives to empower them and show them a better way.
“When Trina would come to our home to visit Caleb and Will, we noticed the boys being disrespectful towards her. We stood up for her and reiterated to them that she was their mother and worthy of respect. We also offered her some tools on how to approach those situations. She was thankful for the help.”
“She slowly began to open up to us about the things she was afraid of and worried about,” Mary continued. “We prayed with her while she was in our home. She seemed genuinely touched by that.
“She was working very hard to complete the steps of her reunification plan. We praised her efforts and told her how much we appreciated all the work she was putting into it. We explained that we wished all the parents would put forth such an effort.
“When the day finally came for the boys to go home (which is always a hard day for us) we told Trina again how proud we were of her! We offered that if she ever needed anything, to please call us. We knew that making that call for help would be a great act of humility on her part, but to our surprise, she actually has called us multiple times for advice. She also stays in touch, just to update us on their progress.”
“The best call yet though, came a few days ago,” Mary concluded. “She called to let us know that she had been released from Children’s Division completely, and she and the boys could move back to their home state. This is something we had prayed with them about many times.”
“If we had started off by treating her as if she was not as equally accessible to grace and love as anyone else, things may not have turned out so positively. Grace, love, and forgiveness point all of us to redemption. Redemption rewrites our stories and makes us beacons of hope for others to see.”
~~Mary Vassar
