A common concept in the foster care community is the idea that foster care is for the entire family. We call this “fostering the family.” The ultimate hope of the foster care system is reunification, when children can return to a safe environment. This means reuniting the child with their biological family, after the cause for removal from the home has been addressed and repaired.
As parents embark on their foster care journey, they are called to walk alongside biological parents with the hope of reunification, in addition to providing a safe, loving environment for children in foster care. Of course, this is much easier said than done. While it is not uncommon for foster parents to have a positive, cooperative relationship with biological parents, it can often be a struggle.
One example of a family that fosters the family well is Cheyenne and Andy Cook. They began considering foster care after hearing about the need in Howard County from a friend who is a school counselor. This got them thinking about foster care after realizing that children were often moved out of their communities when a home was unavailable.
“After we first talked to our friend and realized what the need was, we got married shortly thereafter and then had our first son,” Cheyenne shared. “Life got really busy, but we felt this constant pull back towards this work. It just never went away.”
Cheyenne and Andy had heard about Coyote Hill Foster Care Ministries from friends in the community. After running into Amy Kingery, our Licensing and Training Director, Cheyenne shared that they decided to get licensed through Coyote Hill Foster Care Ministries because of our presence in their community.
“We’d much rather go through someone we know to get licensed and really have that advocate and those people we could build connections with, from training to licensing and advocacy,” Cheyenne said. “It just felt very easy, and you guys didn’t just walk away. We had constant conversations with our advocate prior to placement. And now after placement, our advocate, Makayla, checks in on a weekly basis, and she’s on all the family support team meetings to help me process what’s going on in our case.”
Cheyenne and Andy have welcomed three children into their home, bringing the total number of children in their home up to five, with their two biological sons.
“There’s just more,” Andy shared. “There are more dishes to do and there are more kids to get ready and it takes longer to get out of the house. But when you think about it, what does that really matter, you know? You’ve got kids that need you. How can you say, I can’t take any more kids, it takes too long to get dinner cleaned up? There’s no other option for us.”
While they experience the typical challenges that come with managing a household of five children, they also face the challenges of mentoring and coming alongside their daughters’ biological parents.
“In training, we talked about how we are also called to support the parents,” Cheyenne shared. “When you get in it, I’ll just be honest with you, it’s hard; it’s hard to love someone who can hurt a child—emotionally, physically. Honestly, the hardest part for me about foster care is loving bio parents, even when they continue to not do the right thing.”
Despite the difficulty of this situation, God has shown up for this family to help them navigate the relationship with biological parents.
“God’s like, Wait a minute, that’s my child too, and I called you to foster the family, not just foster the child,” Cheyenne said. “Sometimes I don’t know what to pray for bio parents, but how do we ever change this cycle if we don’t pray for the family and show them the love of Jesus?”
We are so thankful for the work that the Cook family is doing to provide a safe home for their children, as well as the effort they are putting in to build a meaningful and mentoring relationship with their daughters’ biological families.
To learn more about becoming a foster parent and the goal of reunification, visit: https://coyotehill.org/becomeafosterparent/.
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