Wanted: foster parents
Not a week, or in some cases not even a day, goes by without some politician or other public figure loudly proclaiming the need to do something for Belize’s young people. Today that call was repeated, but the pitch was not for any grandiose government sponsored project … just a little love. News Five’s Kendra Griffith reports.
Kendra Griffith, Reporting
According to the Department of Human Services, there are approximately one hundred and sixty children in foster care institutions across the country.
Jolene Arnold, Supervisor, Child Placement, Min. of Human Dev.
“The children come into care for a variety of reasons. It may be sexual abuse, physical abuse, neglect, wandering, orphans.”
Today the department launched its annual “Give Your Heart to a Child Campaign” in an effort to move the children out of institutional care and into homes with families.
Jolene Arnold
“This is the day that you share your love with someone special and we normally would launch it on this day so that others are aware that children are in need as well.”
“We believe that children belong in families. They develop, they reach their full potential in families and so we would like to see some of these children be placed in a permanent or a temporary home.”
Belmopan resident Denise Welch answered the call to foster in 2003.
Denise Welch, Foster Parent
“I have fostered four children already and now I have an adopted daughter, she is two years old.”
Kendra Griffith
“How did you hear about the programme, was it through this same campaign?”
Denise Welch
“Yes, I heard about it through the campaign and I decide to call the ministry of human services and so I get to do the fostering.”
Like Welch, Angie Leslie has fostered and adopted a child. Both women encourage others to experience to rewards of this kind of parenthood.
Angie Leslie, Foster Parent
“I wish and encourage everyone that has space in their heart to adopt a child or foster a child or give love on the weekends or anything for a child.”
Jolene Arnold
“A person may choose and option whether it is respite, whereby they would take a child out of the institution on weekends and holidays or it may be on an emergency basis whereby young babies would come into the care system and we would need an emergency home to place that child. We normally try and recruit housewives for this type of care, as the babies require a lot of individual needs and attention. Then there is the short term and long term foster care and this runs from a period of one to three months or one to three years respectively.”
As part of today’s ceremonies, the kids and parents released balloons into the sky.
Jolene Arnold
“The significance is to make an awareness to the number of children that we have in care. Some of them have grown up, emancipated and have led successfully lives and we would want to see that for the other one hundred and sixty children.”
Child
“Why don’t you open your heart and foster a child today?”
Kendra Griffith reporting for News Five.
The department estimates that one hundred and ten families in Belize are caring for a foster child. If you are interested in joining them, please visit the Department of Human Services on the second floor of the Commercial Centre or call 227-7451.
