There’s a new foster care service in Southwest Michigan, and it’s hoping to find some volunteers with the start of the new year.
Heart for Home is serving 19 counties on the west side of the state, including Berrien, Van Buren, and Cass. Julia O’Carey is Heart for Home’s Berrien and Cass County recruiter. She tells us the group offers respite foster care. That is, they need families that can give a break to more long-term foster families.
“It can be half a day up to five days at one time,” O’Carey said. “We come in and we’ll take the foster, adoptive, or kinship kids, and what we do is we’re licensing families to become respite foster families.”
O’Carey says the licensing process through the state does take some work and time, but serving as a respite foster family isn’t the same as being a full time foster family.
Heart for Home co-CEO Michelle Delaney manages the group in Van Buren County. She says she’s learned first-hand how being a foster parent can become overwhelming.
“You have an opportunity to help be that extra person for that foster family,” Delaney said. “I personally know of people that were just ready to be done and respite was able to step in and be able to save that placement, just kind of being able to give those parents a couple of days to kind of regroup.”
Delaney adds there’s a huge need for such services in Southwest Michigan. There are more than 10,000 foster children statewide.
Heart for Home, based in Kalamazoo, was just licensed by the state this July and is looking to get off the ground in January. Anyone interested in learning more about the organization, or interested in helping, can go to HeartForHome.info.
