Chautauqua County needsfoster parents and is holding an online open house Thursday afternoon to recruit. The county is holding open houses at 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. using Zoom.
It's important because the county has 100 children in foster care right now, reflecting all of the problems of the long COVID-19 lockdown. Not only have the kids been at home and hoping for screen time during the pandemic, many of the protections for them were locked down: no social services, no court activity and no contact with mandated reporters like teachers.
Adult, Children and Family Services Deputy Commissioner Leanna Luka-Conley said problems are across the board.
"A lot of the families we were working with were families that were from all demographics, all income areas, just with the added stress of isolation and finances and other things that may be going on in that home. It really was all demographics. It's not the families that get reported every other day," she said.
Luka-Conley said the county Health and Human Services Department is looking for an array of foster parents, of different races, languages and geographic locations across Chautauqua County.
"We are a rural area, so being able to have the advantage of having foster parents established throughout our county would be a win-win," she said. "Also diversity. We would love to be able to place children of their own culture, especially of their own language, so that's always a win-win for us."
Luka-Conley said foster care itself has changed, with more care provided by relatives and more cooperation between the foster parents and the birth parents, for the benefit of the kids.
"They have seen the children, but they establish a relationship with the parents and even though those children go back home to their parents, they are still involved with those childrens' lives," she said. "They become a family unit, which is an added plus. So, just because I say it's a temporary situation, doesn't mean you have to walk out of that child's life."
