Foster parents recognized
Rob and Ruth Hawley have made an impact on hundreds of lives.
The Clinton Township couple, who are foster parents for Butler County Children and Youth Services, have lost track of how many children have come through their home in the past 27 years.
"We stopped counting at 300," Bob Hawley said.
Although not every child stays in touch with the couple after they leave, some do. And when the Hawleys hear from their former charges, they're touched by their comments.
A former foster child who now has children of her own recently told the Hawleys that they instilled a sense of family within her 20 years ago.
The woman now has her family sit at the dinner table every night just as the Hawleys did.
"She said, 'I just wanted you to know my children always sit around the dinner table. You taught us that,'" Ruth Hawley said.
Although the couple took a break from being foster parents when Ruth's parents died in the late 1980s, they resumed doing it before long.
"We really missed the interactions with the kids," Ruth said. "God was tugging at our hearts to come back to foster care."
The Hawleys are among foster parents recognized by the county this month as part of National Foster Parent Appreciation Month.
Joyce Ainsworth, county CYS director, praised the foster parents participating in the program.
"We couldn't do our jobs without them," she said.
There are two types of foster care: short term and pre-adoption.
Ainsworth said foster parents participating in the pre-adoption program have a particularly daunting challenge.
Before an adoption occurs, a judge could issue a court order returning the child to the biological parents.
"There's a risk of heartache," Ainsworth said. "Hopefully, everything goes great."
She said it's not easy for foster parents to consider the possibility of losing the child.
"It's tough," Ainsworth said about waiting for an adoption to be finalized. "It could take years."
Because of the potential outcomes, some people might be dissuaded from becoming foster parents.
While CYS seeks more foster parents, Ainsworth lauded those already committed to what often is short-term care.
Linda Geibel also has opened her Slippery Rock Township home to the county's foster children.
Geibel started 15 years ago. Since then, she's had up to 30 girls ages 16 to 21, fostering them from a few days to several years.
"My kids were gone," Geibel said. "I was single then."
She initially took in a girl for a few days. That girl ended up staying for two years.
Geibel now has a 15-month-old boy.
"My first baby," she said.
The boy is the son of a girl who is a former foster child of Geibel's.
She said the foster children are glad to be welcomed into a home.
"These kids come with nothing," Geibel said. "(It's rewarding) to see how happy they are when you give them the simplest things."
Like the Hawleys, Geibel is always encouraged to hear from her former "kids."
"They'll say, 'Guess what I'm doing now?'" she said.
Geibel was working at Irene Stacy Community Mental Health Center recently when her first foster child visited her with daughter in tow.
"I was so happy to see her," Geibel said.
The women plan to meet soon so Geibel will get to meet her foster daughter's son.
County Judge Kelley Streib agreed with Ainsworth about the value of foster care, saying children need stable, loving, permanent homes.
Streib said when the county can't keep children with their families or is in the process of arranging for children to return home, foster parents fill an essential need.
"To me, they're heroes," she said. "It's truly done out of love."
Streib encouraged people to offer their homes for foster care.
CYS deals directly with 31 foster homes. Private agencies working with CYS provide more than 50 additional foster homes.
Family Pathways, which has most of those foster homes, runs the Kinship Care program in which foster children's relatives become their parents.
As part of National Foster Parent Appreciation Month, CYS started accumulating duffel bags to carry foster children's belongings.
Ainsworth said many children entering foster care have nothing more than a garbage bag to carry their belongings.
To demonstrate that, CYS placed numerous bags outside the courthouse May 5 on Main Street.
CYS is filling the new duffel bags with items such as toiletries and one new outfit.
Younger children will have stuffed animals while older ones will receive pads and pens.
The first 100 bags, which cost $25 including contents, were bought using seed money raised by the CYS advisory board.
The county is accepting donations to keep acquiring the bags. Anyone wishing to make a donation may call Rochelle Graham at 724-284-5156.
