DeSoto County News: Apelah seeks more foster parents
Christmas is the time for gifts: both giving and receiving. This holiday season, you may have a chance to both give and receive, by becoming a foster parent for a child needing a special kind of love.
Apelah is a Mississippi-based nonprofit organization that focuses on foster care for children with special needs. The Mississippi Department of Child Protective Services refers children to Apelah, which then works to place them in foster homes and provide the necessary support to make the experience successful.
“We train foster parents to take the therapeutic children with a mental health diagnosis, ADHS, or medically fragile children,” said Felicia Todd-Jones, a case manager and supervisor in the Apelah Hernando office. “They are children who have come into state custody due to neglect, physical or sexual abuse, or emotional abuse, who have been removed from their birth family due to abuse.”
In addition to Hernando, Apelah has offices elsewhere in the state, including Ridgeland and on the Gulf Coast. Todd-Jones said the need for foster parents is consistent.
“We get 15-20 statewide referrals daily,” she said. “Some of them are repeats, but many are new kids coming into the system. I believe there are 5,200 kids in the system in Mississippi right now, so the need is continuous.”
As of Thursday, 137 children were in custody in DeSoto County with Child Protection Services, out of more than 4,100 statewide.
Love and caring are the most important things that foster parents can provide these children, who have gone through broken homes and broken lives. Todd-Jones notes parents are provided support, information, and monetary backing while fostering.
“We train foster parents on mental health issues, trauma focus issues, have been abused from emotional abuse and the trauma from the abuse,” she said. “Our parents are trained in those aspects as they take the kids into their homes. They go through 24 hours of training, initially to become foster parents, then the training is ongoing monthly from there.”
Parents get a stipend plus clothing and personal allowance for the care of the child. Todd-Jones adds that Apelah also gives parents as much information on the child as possible.
“We will try to meet with the foster parents,” she said. “A lot of parents want the younger children because they feel it’s not as intense as with an older child. We let that parent know, before taking the children, what we were told by CPS based on the application.”
A permanent situation for the child is the ultimate goal of each placement. A child is taken out to go into a foster home. Meanwhile, the birth family has to determine if they want a restoration with the child, and if so, are told what steps have to be taken for that to happen. At the same time, the foster parents are developing a relationship and working with the child as they consider what the future might be with the child if given the opportunity.
That future might be adoption, if the birth parents won’t, or can’t, work toward a restoration, or if a judge determines the best outcome for the child if not with the birth parents.
“We do have a high percentage of adoptions because a great deal of the time their birth parents don’t complete their service plans, so the foster parents end up adopting them, which is a positive, great thing,” Todd-Jones said. “The main objective is permanency, a permanent home for that child.”
Apelah is committed to promoting the well-being of those in need through compassionate, individualized care. Their programs are designed to provide stability and support for some of Mississippi’s most vulnerable residents.