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Listen to thisJoanne Nattrass is the executive director of Commonwealth Catholic Charities.
Nancy grew up in a big Southwest Virginia family, immersed in the chaos and love that comes with nine brothers and sisters.
It was likely her experience of growing up in a large, supportive family that prompted her to consider becoming a foster parent. Now after 20 years of foster parenting, it has turned out to be a defining decision, one that has set the course of her life’s purpose and continued that sense of belonging that was always present in her childhood home.
For two decades, Nancy and her husband – and their two daughters, now grown – welcomed foster children into their home. Some stayed just for weeks or months, long enough for the children’s situation in their own home to improve, while others settled in for much longer – as many as 10 years.
Children in need of foster care need more people like Nancy.
Consider the fact that there are 4,300 children in Virginia today who are in foster care, including more than 800 children in the Roanoke Valley region. Many of them experience emotional, behavioral and social problems, largely due to abuse or neglect.
At Commonwealth Catholic Charities, our treatment foster care program focuses on addressing these issues for each child. Treatment foster parents receive extensive training and work closely with the child’s social worker toward a set of goals. While foster children often return to their homes at some point, there are circumstances when a foster parent may adopt their foster child. Regardless, foster parents have the opportunity to make a lasting impact on the child and even on the child’s family.
Just like Nancy.
While each foster child’s background is different, they all carry with them a story of vulnerability and loss. Forced to grow up far too quickly, they confront a world made all the more difficult by events and actions not of their choosing. Many have endured abuse and neglect, and the walls they have built up between them and the outside world are difficult to penetrate.
Demonstrating the unconditional love of parenting was not always easy. But Nancy persevered, often telling her foster kids, “You’ll be done with me before I’m done with you.”
As a gesture to that commitment, Nancy and her husband adopted several of the children in their care. It is a fulfillment of the trust they had built together, of showing their children just how much they are loved and wanted. Even some who aged out of the foster care system at 18 wanted to ensure they retained their place in the family. One young man had Nancy’s family tree tattooed on his arm, a permanent symbol of his place in her extended family – and in her heart.
Foster parents are remarkable people who care deeply for the children in their charge and whose days are sustained by great doses of fortitude and energy, wisdom and prudence. What inspires each of them to take on this weighty responsibility varies, but, like Nancy, many of them feel a special calling to help make a difference in the lives of some of our community’s most vulnerable children – children who have been denied perhaps the most precious part of their childhood: their innocence.
Becoming a foster parent takes a special person, and we at CCC have a great need for foster parents who are committed to nurturing children and teens. If you’re interested in learning more about our program, we’d like to talk to you. Please visit us online at www.cccofva.org or call (540) 342-0411.
Joanne Nattrass
18 Novmber 2014
