Foster parents Jocelyn and Matthew Watkins. (Courtesy of Angels Foster Family Network)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe Watkins home is a child\u2019s paradise with a variety of toys and three-dimensional puzzles neatly set throughout the house. Handmade drawings hang from the walls of the dining room, which is equipped with a high chair and Cookie Monster bib waiting for their preschooler to return home for the day. It looks like the set of a sitcom about a modern family without a problem in the world. In reality, it\u2019s a lot of hard work to create a stable home, said the couple. But it\u2019s also very rewarding.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese kids need love, and they bring more energy and life to our home,\u201d explained Jocelyn. \u201cWe\u2019ve become better people and our marriage has grown stronger through the experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
The need for stable foster parents like the Watkins is great. In San Diego County alone, there are 3,500 foster children, 1,400 of whom are younger than five years old, said executive director of Angels Foster Family Network Jeff Wiemann, who is also a La Mesa resident.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a great need for families willing to provide long-term care for young children, especially for sibling sets,\u201d Weimann said. \u201cThe awful reality is that when the County (Department of Child Welfare) calls, we can only meet one in three requests.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matthew and Jocelyn became foster parents a year ago after they completed extensive screening and training through Angels Foster Family Network. The couple says they like the approach at Angels, which is providing support for stable, loving foster families who are\u00a0committed to children\u2019s reunification with biological parents whenever possible. Biological families are treated with great respect.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not us versus them, we work together for what\u2019s best for the children,\u201d Matthew said.<\/p>\n
After providing weekend care for toddler siblings, Jocelyn and Matthew were asked by Angels Foster Family Network to consider a special needs child, a little girl with autism. The little girl, who they call their \u201cAngel,\u201d has been in their care for nearly a year. The couple quickly realized that the puppet shows that were such a hit with the toddler siblings weren\u2019t going to cut it because the little girl doesn\u2019t respond to imaginative or representational play.<\/p>\n
\u201cThings are what they are with her,\u201d Jocelyn said.<\/p>\n
That first night with Angel, Matthew took out his guitar and started playing music.<\/p>\n
\u201cNeil Young, Johnny Cash, she loves it all,\u201d he said. Even though Angel is non-verbal, they could tell she was responding. She rocked back and forth, clapped her hands, and shook her head, all with a big smile on her face.<\/p>\n
And having that swing set in the backyard \u2014 a godsend, Jocelyn said, recalling how Angel spent hours on the swing when she first arrived.<\/p>\n
When Angel first came to the Watkins home, the couple also noticed that the little girl seemed preoccupied with food.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe felt like she had to fend for herself and scavenge for food, but after a while she learned to trust that we were going to feed her,\u201d Jocelyn said. Part of that trust is the stability of living in a loving home where she is well cared for. The other part is that Jocelyn includes snacks in their after-school routine, which includes speech, occupational, behavioral, and trauma-based play therapy.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is very particular \u2014 she loves french fries and chicken nuggets,\u201d Jocelyn said.<\/p>\n
Matthew and Jocelyn discussed becoming foster parents even before they married five years ago. They immediately agreed it was something they wanted to do, though Matthew was the one with direct experience in this area.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was in high school, a neighbor had a bad home situation and the child was taken by Child Protective Services,\u201d he said. He then became a volunteer counselor through a church in North County and worked at a camp for foster youth.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was fun to see kids act like kids, and see that there are other options for life than what they may have been exposed to. Even in the space of one week with an adult loving and caring for them and thinking they\u2019re awesome, it can be enough to give them another way to see the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some day the couple hopes to adopt and have biological children as well continuing to foster.<\/p>\n
Foster Care Month gala<\/strong><\/p>\nMay is National Foster Care Month and in honor of it, Angels Foster Family Network will hold its annual gala at\u00a0Omni\u00a0La Costa Resort\u00a0& Spa on May 20. The gala raises funds to expand its education, training, and support for foster families.<\/p>\n
In addition to attending the annual gala, Weimann said people can learn more about his organization\u2019s work by attending an orientation or visiting online.<\/p>\n
\u201cI encourage people to come to an orientation at Angels and hear from foster families, former foster parents, get real facts about the ups and downs so they can make an honest decision,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cThey may decide they can do respite care when other families go out of town for the weekend; they may decide they want to go through the screening and training process to become a foster family; or they may realize that they can help foster children in another way.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more information on how to become a foster family, or how to support foster families, visit\u00a0angelsfoster.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u2014Jennifer Coburn is a San Diego-based writer. Reach her at jen@jencoburn.com.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Por Jennifer Coburn<\/p>","protected":false},"author":810,"featured_media":222765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11548","_seopress_titles_title":"Fostering children makes their marriage stronger","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11548,11551,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-la-mesa-courier","category-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/810"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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