For Ramsey Vaughan, becoming a foster parent has always been a call on her heart. Having grown up in the adoption and foster care system, she knows the impact of foster and adoptive parents.
“My parents are adoptive parents and they are licensed foster parents. Growing up I saw both the successes and the failures of the systems and this made me more passionate to see more success. This motivated me to be part of a solution,” Vaughan reflected.
At the age of 27, she welcomed her first foster placement into her home. For a long time, Vaughan continued to put conditions on her circumstances. As she prayed, the Lord began to open doors for her to be a foster parent. Since her first placement in 2021, Vaughan has fostered two kids.
“I felt like God was telling me I would be called into foster care and kept trying to make excuses for why I couldn’t do it,” Vaughan said. “I thought I could do it when I was married, had a different job, made more money or had a bigger house. God really began to work on my heart. I felt Him ask me if I would do what He asked me to do.”
At the heart of foster care is reunifying families. The goal is to see the needs of the community and help families get their kids back. To meet this goal, a strong community of support must be built. For both foster kids and families, support is needed.
“With both of my two placements, physical and emotional needs were really important when they came to my house. Clothes, shoes, books, toys and academic resources were some of their physical needs,” Vaughan said. “Emotional needs are harder to address. These are social needs like friendships and athletics.”
When serving foster parents, encouragement and support are meaningful. This could look like an encouraging text, providing transportation or respite care, sending a meal, bringing by coffee or cleaning the dishes.
“Reaching out to foster parents and seeing what emotional needs can be met is so important and shows you are supportive and care,” Vaughan said.
For those with a heart for kids and foster care families, there are many ways to serve beyond becoming a foster parent. There are several local agencies that need volunteers, families that need respite care and opportunities to become a Court Appointed Special Advocate through local CASA chapters.
There are 4,600 kids in the foster care system in Arkansas. To see this number diminish, there is a need for advocacy and awareness of what this system looks like for kids and families. The goal is not adoption, the goal is reunification.
“In Arkansas the licenses for adoption and foster care are completely separate. “Foster to adopt” is not a thing in Arkansas. If you are fostering to adopt, that is rooting against the parent for reunification,” Vaughan reflected. “This is the exact opposite of the point of the system. This is a good way to keep people’s mindset on the goal. You are on a plan with the hopes of them going back to their parents.”
