Thailand Foster Care Transition Homes

After much prayer and discussion, we have decided to pivot our foster care focus from being transition homes to providing therapeutic foster care. There are a few reasons for this: 

1) transition homes are meant to be 1 year or less, but in our experience, many of our foster children need longer term care than this

2) our foster children have mainly come from children's home/residential care settings where they have never had the chance to develop good habits and thus need stability for a longer time to work on these life skills. One example is a foster child wanted to get a driver's license and as foster parents we said "you need to show us we can trust you with that responsibility if you want a driver's license." The teen responded "what does trust mean? How do I show that?" Such things that seem so simple, but a 15 year old has never had the opportunity to learn what trust is or how one earns the trust of another. 

3) time and time again, we have been asked to take "problem" teenagers, because no children's home or foster families want teenagers. If they are labeled "problem kids" the issues that need to be addressed to prepare them for living in larger society take longer than a year to resolve and heal from. 

Because of these reasons and more, we have decided to open our homes to provide therapeutic foster care. Our previous goal was to reunify children with their biological family. With this new focus, our goal will be to either prepare the child to go into a long term family situation (whether biological or foster) or prepare them to live on their own if they are about to age out of foster care. We will still be available for emergency placement as well. 

In the past quarter, we have provided foster care for 2 teen boys: one is about to turn 15 and one just turned 14. The younger of the two had major spinal surgery and needed intensive care that his family was unable to provide post-surgery. He was with Heather for 3 weeks before he was recovered enough to go home and return to school. The other boy is with Jay and Butsaba and is studying 8th grade. His current desire is to finish 9th grade in foster care and then attend a school that has on campus housing for high school. He sees his mom and brother (who is in another foster home) on school holidays and will spend the upcoming school break in October with them. Unfortunately, his mom has intellectual disabilities which made caring for two teenage boys too overwhelming for her, so she placed them in foster care, but we work hard to make sure they stay in regular contact. 

The Thai government foster care system continues to be besieged by staffing and financial issues, so your support in this area remains very important and necessary! There is only enough funding for 5000 foster or kinship care families in the entire country and close to 50,000 children needing care in a loving home. 

Butsaba and Jay have been providing foster care for two brothers since March who were living in the government orphanage for several years. They are now teenagers and the staff doesn't want to deal with their rebellious behavior so their were either going to kick them out or we could take them. However, there was no funding left for foster care support, so we are covering their care from our own budget, thanks to donations like yours. The cost of a month of caring for a teen boy is around $300. We have known these boys for several years as they were part of our Building Family Dreams program with their mother. Unfortunately, their mother has severe mental and physical health problems and is unable to care for her children, though she loves them deeply. The best part about this type of foster care is we can support the boys to maintain relationship with their mother and see her every weekend. When they were in governmental care at the orphanage, they only got to see their mom for an hour a month. With us, they can even spend a weekend with her a couple times a month. 

At the end of May, a long-term foster home was found for the younger brother and he moved in just before school term started. The older brother has a lot of attachment and behavioral issues, so we and the foster family thought it best he remain with Butsaba and Jay for this school year so he can have some therapeutic time to work on his issues, improve his school skills and experience some one on one time from trusted adults. 

Heather will be providing care for another boy following his spinal surgery in August. This is another family we know from our BFD program and have been managing his health care for severe scoliosis for six years now. Finally, he is going to have surgery to straighten his spine! This is a massive surgery, as 7 of his vertebrae are out of alignment. His recovery will be several months long and his foster father is going through treatment for cancer while his foster mother works and cares for him. They have no way to provide proper follow up care for the rehabilitation period after surgery, so he will stay with Heather so he can do his daily physical therapy and be close to the hospital for followup appointments until he is healed. 

Thank you for your support! This is an ongoing project, so any additional donations you make will go to providing a safe a loving home for children in need.