Written by: Diversity Richmond
Embrace Treatment Foster Care has extraordinary foster parents! Our foster parents are a vital part of Embrace’s statewide effort to protect and care for children in need. They provide children in foster care a structured home that is full of love and stability. We welcome all types of families, including single parent and two parent homes of all races, religions, cultures, sexual orientations, gender, etc.
Our team recognizes that we would not be successful without parents like Heather and Alicia who have been fostering with Embrace for approximately four years. When asked why they were inspired to become foster parents, they expressed that they “have always enjoyed working with children and families.” Most importantly, they “wanted to give back to the community, believing that it takes a village to raise a child.” Heather and Alicia expressed their gratitude for the Embrace family due to the unwavering support, patience, and education necessary to do this kind of work.
Throughout the process, they both have experienced great gratification and happiness. They did share that their biggest challenge to date is “helping school and daycare staff understand the unique challenges our children face” and having “to help them see that negative behavior is a form of maladaptive communication, and our job is to support a child to learn a more appropriate way to communicate his/her needs.” Heather and Alicia stated that the intrinsic benefit is the ability to nurture children by providing a loving and stable environment that promotes mental, physical, and emotional healing.
Becoming a foster parent is a choice! This choice cannot be taken lightly but we are so honored to work with individuals like Heather and Alicia who have chosen to selflessly give back to children in our community. Foster parents play a pivotal role in our community through their desire to bridge the gap between children and their biological families. When asked what they love most about being a foster parent, they said “getting to see the resilience of children, especially those who come from difficult situations. It is a gift to be able to see everyday that children can heal”. Foster parents understand the difficulty that some face with parenting and recognize that foster families are merely a conduit of love, compassion, empathy, teamwork, and understanding; amongst other things.