This production is made possible by the generous support of the Mike Schmitz Automotive Group.

mikeschmitzautogroup.com.

Foster Coalition unites local foster care advocates into effective collaborative communities.

Imagine being a child and being removed from your home with no notice because of a tragic event, abuse or neglect.

Hello, my name is Andrew Howard and I'm on the Board of Directors for the Foster Coalition.

I want to introduce you to this organization that is positively impacting the foster community in the state of Alabama.

Right now in Alabama, we have approximately 6000 children in foster care, At the Foster Coalition, we want to help those children b uniting government agencies, foster organizations, and churches to provide services to the foster care community so that these children can thrive.

We want to support caseworkers and foster parents by providing additional resources.

There's also a tremendous need for mentors and other support people for foster kids.

With the help of a mentor, there is an increased high school graduation rate, higher college enrollment rates, and decreased likelihood of turning to drugs and alcohol.

We want to support caseworkers At the Foster Coalition, we have identified four target areas that our programs will address.

Recruiting workers, reducing turnover, providing education and spreading awareness to improve the image of the foster community.

When the adults have the resources they need, the kids get the care they deserve.

Every child deserves to feel safe and loved.

Thank you for taking time to watch this video to learn more about what we're doing at the Foster Coalition.

Thank you again, and God bless.

commissioner of the Alabama Department of Human Resources.

Our agency employs over 1000 child welfare workers across all 67 counties in the state.

These hardworking men and women are tasked with the all important responsibility of investigating child abuse and neglect.

Each year, they investigate tens of thousands of reports of abuse and neglect.

They also connect families with support services designed to prevent abuse and neglect from occurring in the first place.

I won't lie to you.

It is a tough, tough job.

Although I can tell you from experience that it is absolutely one of the most rewarding professions anywhere to be found.

At the end of each day, you know, your efforts have improved the lives of others.

The evidence is plain as day when you see the faces of the children and families you have helped.

I hope you enjoy this documentary about Alabama's child welfare workers.

If you have a calling to help others, I encourage you to contact your County Department of Human Resources to learn about our employment opportunities.

Thank you.

So I became a caseworker right out of my undergrad.

I got my undergrad in social work from the University of Montevallo, and I had completed an internship with DHR in the Child Welfare Division.

I did casework or assisted with casework.

I did investigations, foster care, adult protective services.

I got to see it all.

But foster care is what really stole my heart.

When I was going to undergraduate school, I didn't know what in the world I really wanted to do.

I knew I wanted to help people as a lot of social workers.

That's where they start, they just want to help people.

Well, I got into my undergraduate courses and I was introduced to social work at the University of Montevallo, I loved it, from the get go.

I said this is this is the right fit.

This is what I need to do.

I was able to go on and do my internship with the Department of Human Resources and I just I knew.

So my background is very I would say diverse.

My my initial schooling and education in college was never to become a social worker.

I have gone from working on the business side of things, finance, corporate America to teaching.

Being a teacher and being a teacher actually opened my eyes to a lot of things that kids experience.

And there their various cries for help.

So I went from that to I had a friend, a very close friend that was also a CAN worker And she she saw how passionate I was about the kids, how passionate I was about education.

But I wanted something different.

I didn't like being restricted and confined to just one setting, just one building.

I wanted to still be on the go and doing things out with the public.

So in talking with her and seeing that she was a social worker and a CAN worker, it opened my eyes to a different field that I had not thought about before.

And she said, Fran you know, you'd be really great at this.

So I applied with my various college degrees and my education.

I didn't realize that I would be someone that would be considered for the role.

And the rest is history.

These were my people.

This is what what I knew that I was meant to do is to work with family, work with children, and hopefully get them to a point where they could see that they they could manage, that they could make it through whatever they were going through, whatever struggle they were facing, you know, that they could make it through.

And I was able to be there and be a support to them and be a help to them.

So days after graduation, I started my very first social work job at Elmore County DHR and as a foster care social worker, it was very intimidating from the start, just being young, being new in the field.

But quickly, I started to just take on my role as a social worker, as a foster care social worker.

I really fell in love with the meaning behind and the mission, behind DHR behind what my role as a social worker was.

And I did casework for about six and a half years.

In that time I did so I did foster care.

I did family reunification cases.

And I also was the independent living coordinator at our county office so the Independent Living Program is a program for youth 14 to 20 in the state in the state of Alabama, you age out of foster care at 21.

So we worked with youth in that age range from 14 to 20 years old, helping them successfully transition out into adulthood.

Well., so I was fresh out of college.

I was working for an attorney's office, and with my degree in sociology and a concentration in family marriage studies, I knew that I wanted to help families and kids.

So I applied for the Department of Human Resources, and I got a position in food stamps.

So I worked as a food assistance worker, helping families that needed immediate assistance all through certain counties.

In Alabama.

And then after about eight months, I took a promotion as a social service caseworker because I knew that helping all types of families and kids and being able to talk to all kinds of kids and different age ranges was something I really wanted to do.

So as a social service caseworker two I am specifically in the child abuse and neglect unit.

So with that we have, you know, different response times for cases that we receive regarding families.

No day is a typical day.

Whenever reports come into the office of children being mistreated in some way, our intake worker, intake supervisor will take a look at that and then they'll make a determination whether or not it needs to be assigned to what we call a CAN worker, which is what I have been.

Well, you have a CAN caseworker.

They are the ones that actually come in and they receive a report.

It may be a five day.

It may be an immediate, 12 hours.

And they have to go out and assess child abuse and neglect.

What we're really looking to see if when we get out there, if the allegations that we're provided are correct.

Okay.

We're also looking to see if the parents or the legal guardians protective capacity is diminished in any way.

But ultimately, to make sure that that child is safe.

You can come in and you have your whole day planned out.

I'm going to get here.

I'm going to open up my computer, answer some emails, schedule some visits with some families, go out into the field, and then you get a phone call and you have to go right then and deal with something.

So as far as being a CAN worker is what they call the child abuse and neglect unit, I always say expect the unexpected.

You never know.

It is always quick and on your toes and it's ever changing.

You can plan some of your stuff, but it's always spontaneous.

It's always something new in each family and each case is definitely independent and different.

So I just received a report to go to a house not far from the office with allegations of a home that's not in great living conditions for the children there.

So we're just going to go down and check it out.

And see what's going on.

Being in the Investigations Unit this is our day in and day out.

We get reports and we either go within 12 hours or we have five days to go to that house.

So on this particular one, with the kids being so young, it's an immediate where we need to go right now to make sure they're okay.

When you get an immediate response, you don't really know what you're walking into or what lies ahead.

And most people are not happy to have workers come to their house.

But once we start talking to them and just let them know what our reports about, whether it's true or not in that moment, we don't know.

But, you know, just explaining to them that we just need to check and you know, it's our job to find out if it's true or not.

Sometimes you can talk them down to where they're not so upset sometimes not.

But most of the time just sitting there and being kind and talking to them, they're going to be open to talking to you and letting you check their kids and their house Whether they're hesitant or not, you know, that's okay.

And that's a completely normal reaction to us coming.

I don't hold it against them.

Even one they might get a little loud.

And, you know, sometimes they scream at us, but usually by the end, you know, a lot of them are thankful that we came to their house In particular, when you go to like a house for domestic violence sometimes we're that outlet for these families to get the help and the safety that they needed, just, you know, those words of encouragement and letting them know that they can do this.

And sometimes all these mommies and daddies, too, that's just all they needed to hear that somebody supported them and has their back.

Just being able to go into a home and sit down with those families and get children to help, maybe stay in the home, that's not always feasible, but just been able to talk with those families and see what got them in the situation that they're in.

It's not my place to judge them.

It's my place to try to help it make it better.

And so I take pride in going in and talking with them and try to get to the the solution so we where we can keep those kids there or not return them soon.

Being here, I've realized there's a lot of generational situations.

So we're working with moms that when they were younger, their parents were on drugs or they were in a house with domestic violence.

And some of those have been in foster care.

And then now I've placed their children in foster care.

So it's trying to figure out what's happened and how we can break that generational I say generational curse, but trying to figure out how we can break that so it doesn't happen to their children.

I'm on the front line.

I usually meet the children when there's the initial interaction or the initial allegation of some form, some form of abuse or neglect.

So to see that play out in the system where a child may have been being abused or neglected and then they're in turn welcomed by a welcoming home, be it other family members or foster care or foster parents.

And then seeing that child blossom into a kid that's no longer shy, sad, scared, afraid to the a child that's bubbly, outgoing, doing great in school, having great interactions with their foster families, it just it seeing it go full circle is always rewarding.

So for us, if it's like an immediate case, we'll go out right away, make contact with the family, make contact at the hospital, whatever needs to be we'll make contact with them, we'll introduce ourselves.

Let them know who we are what we do, what we're here for, and we'll get everybody side of the story before we kind of make a determination of okay what needs to be done.

And then from there, we'll usually talk with our supervisor, we'll talk with them, and then we'll kind of go onto like what next steps need to be done if it's a prevention usually I have like five days to make contact, so I'll go out or I'll call and be like, Hey, you know, I'm your worker.

Is there, there a time that works better for you, and I'll go out and I'll get the evidence myself.

Meet the family.

So I'll build that relationship, that report that you need.

So that way families are willing to work with you because some of them have had horrible experiences.

They've told me and they're like, Hey, you were actually one of the cool workers to work with.

Like, you actually talk to me about the process.

You talk to me about what's going on.

Like, if I needed to call and I couldn't get you, you were going to call me back so it's just building that relationship.

Yeah, it's a difficult process, but I'm kind of just making them feel comfortable.

So you want them to be comfortable.

So that way, the process goes smoothly.

Pulling up to a home, you never really know what you're going to expect, you know, depending on what kind of case it is and the immediate response times and what the family is actually going through, it's kind of a little bit of the unknown.

However, I like being curious and working with these families and really delving into their lives and diving in and, you know, looking for resources or anything I can do to help them to better assist them that way, they want to be able to talk to me once their case is closed.

They don't mind passing me in a Walmart and saying, Oh, hey, Miss Hill here's so and so do you remember, oh, I had a new baby, meet my new baby.

I enjoy building relationships with people no matter what the case may be that way that they can always feel like they can talk to me and I can help them even long after.

Being a case worker at times is beyond difficult because we're the face of the organization.

So a lot of times our initial interactions with families aren't always the most pleasant.

But once you get to meet people and recognize people for who they are, which are people, then those interactions become more easier.

They become easier, more welcoming once they realize that is one human being talking to another human being and we're all discussing our life experiences.

Things usually go a lot smoother.

And for kids, a lot of times it just they just want to be heard.

They just need a voice sometimes, like a lot of kids I've talked to, they're yeah, well, they see me as this like they think I'm bad, they think I'm this.

And it's like, okay well, you tell me who you are because I don't know.

So who are you as a person?

Let me get to know you.

And usually with that, you'll be able to see, like a lot of kids is not they're you know, yeah, they may be in trouble, but they're only in trouble because they're calling out for help.

They're calling out for someone to talk to them, just to be able to guide them and listen so I to me I see that as an important need.

And so, like, I'll talk with my kids.

I may spend an hour with them, sitting with them, just talking like, hey, what's going on?

Like let me know or if they're upset or something and parents are like I don't know what to do.

I'm like okay let me see if I have some time on my schedule, I'll come out speak.

And so it is rewarding because last times kids will change.

I've had a family change like the kid started out in trouble bad and at the end of it, I don't know what happened.

That kid did a big 360 and he was just good as can be.

And he thanked me, he was like he was like, thank you.

Like I was, I think I stayed at their house for maybe 2 hours, let the parents talk with the kid.

And I said, Hey, we just laid out all on a table.

Nobody's going to judge.

Nobody's gonna say something.

You say what you say.

You say what you say.

I'm just here just to make sure everything gets out.

And after that, it was what they needed.

It was just, you know, the child really missed hanging out with dad.

That's usually what it is, a lot of it, just that attention that the kids need.

So in my role, it's a little bit different because I'm usually not the first one on the scene.

I work in the foster care unit, so usually the CAN unit has already went in and done all the hard stuff.

But we do have this thing called our on call week.

And so we are on call from Friday until Friday handling any emergency that happens outside of normal work hours and so I have had to be the first person on the scene at times a lot of times there is this adrenaline that comes.

It can be 2:00 in the morning and it's like, okay I got a call.

I know that I need to get up and get to action because there are kids who may be in danger.

And so it is there are times where I'm nervous or that I'm like, what am I going to do once I get there?

And if I'm nervous about going into a situation and not knowing what to do, my supervisor is going to come in and help guide me through that.

Because sometimes it is a bit more difficult when there are foster care workers who are on call that week because we're usually not the first responders.

And so having that guidance from them is really important and really helpful.

I have had some tough cases and they are a lot to take home.

I think that we have some great supervisors around here that kind of help us decompress.

It's always good to be supported by coworkers and staff, obviously, and our director, they are very just let's have a minute.

You deserve a minute for what you just had to experience.

But don't take it home and you've got to pick it back up.

And they are very great at supporting us and just kind of helping us get through some of those things that are not easy.

Being a caseworker is like being on a great team.

This team we win all the time and then saying that being on a great team, you get to work with a bunch of great people.

And when I say great people, not only the people who are in this agency, but the people who are in the surrounding community.

I've been here for approximately 16 going on 17 years.

I've had the opportunity to work with the U.S.

Marshals, the Drug Task Force.

I talk to FBI agents, police, regular law enforcement, firemen, I've had an opportunity to engage with a lot of other people and professions.

But being a part of this agency, you really get to operate and mingle with different entities located throughout the community, throughout the state and throughout the government.

You know, I had an excellent opportunity to do some things here as well as learn some personal skills that they can't be taught how to interview and how to interact with people from the highest forms of government down to people who work at the local agencies.

So so here I have some excellent opportunities here, and that's being a part of a good team and being a part of a good team you you develop and the whole team wins and so we push together for, for one effort and one purpose that's ensuring the safety of these children.

In Elmore county we have a great law enforcement.

We have great working relationships with all of our community partners.

But being able to have that assistance from our sheriff's department, from our local police departments, there's nothing that makes me feel better and safer at my job, especially if I feel like I need them or they have responded out and they need us.

I feel that we are 100% supported and protected with our law enforcement.

They are absolutely wonderful and I couldn't ask for a better county to work in.

No matter what your background, no matter what your degree is, you have opportunity to use it and just me as an example I was working for a sheriff's department.

I was a correction officer.

I got a supervisor position.

I began to move up and as I moved up, I began to interact with people a lot more where I was in charge of the inmates, the medical staff and CO's and things of that nature.

And so as I began to interact with people and talk to the inmates and I looked at this thing, I realized that a lot of these inmates, the people that I deal with, come from broken homes, whether it was a father was missing, whether it was a mother was missing or both of them.

And they you know ended up being raised by their grandparents.

So I step back and as I talk to these people, I look for years and years of of talking to different people.

And I've seen something to that effected people, regardless of who you were, where you came from, your race or your socio-economic background.

And I seen it, I thought about it.

I said, wow, I would really like to help somebody out.

And how can I do that?

How can about how can I get in front of the situation?

And I found out the best way to get in front of a situation is becoming a social worker.

And that kind of what led me into becoming a social worker because I was seeing the after effects of a problem and I had the desire to change and how could I be affected where could I go take some of the skills that I've learned and push them to the next level.

Now I'm ahead of the problem.

I believe that what I'm doing now can change somebody, somebody's life to keep them from having being locked up of being incarcerated.

Because most of the people I dealt with who are incarcerated, nobody gets up in the morning and says I'm going to go to jail for 20 years, I'm going to go to jail for the rest of my life.

Or better yet I'm going to catch a life sentence or something of that nature.

And so I found out if you can affect the home and the parents, if you can catch them at a young age, we can stop this.

I feel like in our community there's a great need for mental health treatment, assessments, recognizing that everything is not just black and white.

That there are some gray areas and where the gray areas are, there is help for those areas.

I feel like in our area, mental health may be a little bit taboo and oftentimes is misunderstood.

So it doesn't just mean that you're a negative person or that your quote unquote may be crazy or something like that.

Sometimes kids as well as families just need someone to help them through what they're experiencing mentally so that they can be the best person that they can be.

Sometimes you just have to calm yourself and realize that, hey I'm not in this alone.

There's help for me.

There are professionals that can treat whatever I'm experiencing, whether it's in my head or my mind, or in my heart help me through it.

And once they're helped through it, they blossom beautifully.

The ILP program is the Independent Living Program.

This is a program that is designed to work with our teenagers from ages 14 to 20.

Okay, we can keep a child until they're 19 and they can age out, or we can keep them until they're 21 years old.

The IOP program teaches life skills.

This is ultimately put in place to help these kids function at the highest levels so that when they become adults, they are able to thrive, they are able to do well, they are able to, in some instances, not repeat issues that may have caused them into coming into care, where they are able to be productive citizens.

Are youth they go through so much, they have been through so much and they're counted out a lot.

And that's why that age group really captivated me.

Our IO youth ages 14 to 20 because they are counted out.

They are left out sometimes.

And I think it's just because at times people don't, when you think of foster care, you think of little kids, you think of babies.

I thought that same way before I worked at DHR I had no idea that there were so many teenagers in foster care.

I thought I only wanted to work with little kids and babies, and then I wasn't really given a choice.

So I was given a a caseload that had a handful of teenagers on it.

And I don't know at the time, if if our staff or supervisors director knew what they were doing as far as did they know the outcome of what it what it would become did they know?

It's like they knew exactly what they were were doing as far as leading me along that path.

So I had the opportunity for six and a half years to work with or to be the caseworker for youth in foster care.

I think the longest I was a youth's caseworker was five years, five and a half years until he aged out of foster care.

So making those connections with them, watching them grow up, watching them overcome adversity, they have really taught me, you know, we pour into them, we help shape them, but really they've taught me so much.

They've taught me the meaning of resiliency.

And, you know, it's learning.

Sometimes you learn together.

I'm learning things about them.

They're learning things about the world.

So we were able to just make those connections.

And when you're in foster care, you do get to make those connections with people you do get to sometimes you're there from start to finish throughout the duration of the case or like our youth in foster care, so many of them that spend several years in foster care and age out in the foster care system, just making those connections, being able to go to football games and watch our youth, being able to celebrate birthdays celebrate big milestones, the look on a youth's face when you remember their favorite candy or their favorite bath and body work scent just pouring into these youth and making connections.

I know the stereotype is, oh you work with DHR.

You're talking kids away.

That's not what we do.

Our ultimate goal is to keep the kids here keep them reunited with their family.

That's our number one goal.

Unless it's necessary that we have to if we're unable to place kids with family then we will take them.

But other than that, the reward is for me I love being able to make sure my kids stay with their families.

If we can put services in place to protect the kids, to protect the families, to give them the resources that they need, that's something that I enjoy doing and just making sure the kids do get to stay home because a lot of kids, when they hear what DHR is some of them know, they're like, oh you take kids away, or others are I'm not sure.

So usually for me, when I talk to kids I'm like hey do you know what we do.

And if they're like, no, I'm like, well, you know, we want to make sure kids are safe, so do you feel safe.

If they say yes, that's good.

Or if they're like, I don't know if I feel safe or if they don't understand what safe is, we can explain that too.

So but I love when my kids get to stay home with their families, That's what we do.

So I would say that my role is rewarding in the aspect of not only are we protecting children, we're keeping them safe.

We I like to tell my families when I meet them, hey, I'm your advocate.

I know that I may come across is this person this me, this you may think is judging you or looking down on you, but I am not at all.

My role is to ensure that your child is safe.

And typically that's that's what families want to happen.

They also want the children to be safe that are in their care.

So once I explain to them that that's our role, then it becomes really rewarding and us working together as a team, not me against them or them against me.

We'll work together as a team to make sure children are safe and they all of their needs are met be it counseling or whatever they need me to do.

I try to do it for them and help them with it.

My very best awarding day probably was when I was able to return a child to a father who had made some mistakes in the past.

And we were TPRing this child's mother who was refusing services, but he got out of jail.

He had changed his life.

And I was ordered by a judge to actually do the home study.

We have a home study unit, but the judge ordered me.

I was the court liaison ordered me to go out and do a home study.

And so I did.

And following our procedures as relates to what we do with our policies, I did and after that home study was completed, the ultimate ending finding of that was that this father was appropriate and he was reunited with his child.

That was a happy moment for me.

I've had four children that I go to personally work with, that have been adopted.

And so three of those are a sibling group of six.

And those three were adopted, um not too long ago.

And so that was amazing to see them when they first came to us and how they looked and to see them now where they all have beautiful hair their skin color looks amazing.

They're doing well in school They had bad grades when they came.

And so being a part of that, throughout that journey.

helping them get the education that they need and get you know IEP's or 504 plans set up at the school so they could get a proper education Kid's with severe trauma are a lot of times very behind in school that I've noticed since being here.

And so just being able to be that advocate for them and then seeing them get adopted by this family, that they adore, you know that's their mom and dad and nobody sees it any different and so that was that was very heartwarming to be a part of that.

Every year, every May, the state office of IOP, alongside with Children's Aid Society, they host a graduation celebration for all of our youth in foster care who are graduating high school or had gotten their GED or high school equivalency diploma that year so that year specifically I had four youth that had graduated or gotten their G.E.D.

within that year time span.

So just being able to celebrate them and see them graduate not only my four youth, but a roomful of youth, seeing them celebrate everything that they had accomplished.

And it's just a privilege and an honor to get to be by their side during that and we help influence and shape their lives.

But they were the ones who over were able to overcome what they had been through.

They had made it across the finish line and they had defied all the statistics about youth in foster care who don't graduate high school or never go to college.

And many of those youth went on to go to college.

I am always a helper I love to pitch in and do what I can anywhere.

So being able to help those kids that don't feel safe and want someone to be their advocate, there's nothing more that I would rather do.

And seeing those kids be able to go back home, maybe after their families have experienced some things that are you know, were not the best situations and traumatic for them, and being able to help the family to get the child back in the home, whatever that may look like or whatever family that may look like to get a unit together where a child is loving, is loved, safe and protected.

That is really the best part of the job for me.

I will also say that we have a great staff here with some of the things we see it can be hard and for us, we all get along very well.

We like to crack jokes, play little pranks on each other and being able to support each other because some things we see in this job can be tough.

There are times when we have to do really hard things as social workers, and sometimes we talk about those things.

Sometimes our kids bring those things up, but I can think about a time when a kid went home and, you know, we reunified them.

We knew that they were in a safe place being home at that point and then something happened and that place was no longer safe.

And months went on when this kid came back to care and he just randomly said it one day, I'm so thankful for Miss Audri and that police officer who came to help me, and that just made my heart expand and made it so happy to think, wow, this kid was actually paying attention to what was happening.

And so that was a really good day to know that what I was doing was not only being seen by, you know, my supervisors and my director, but also by the children.

And knowing that what I did was right.

So I keep a folder of just anything good that has happened, anything that youth or kids have written to me.

And it's just a reminder that I've made a difference, that what we do matters because this system is hard.

Working in the system can be very difficult.

And you have to remind yourself of all the positives.

You have to let the positives outweigh the negatives because you can easily be consumed by all the things that we deal with and we see.

So this is from one of my youth that I worked with for probably three and a half years.

So that's what she wrote to me.

And this youth has gone through a lot this youth and I went through a lot together.

So she wrote this letter to me and said, Miss Briannna, I know I've cost you a lot of trouble and stress these past two years, but I love you.

Thank you for never leaving me and for always having my back.

You have always believed in me.

You always lift me up.

And even though I may get tired and upset with you and DHR I wouldn't wish to change anything about my life because there were lessons meant to be learned, you have prepared me for adulthood and you still are.

But I understand now more than ever why I've been through, what I've been through.

And Lord knows I'm stubborn and I need to see it for myself and believe it.

Love, A. I think that doing a job like a social service caseworker, there is a lot that is expected and required as far as policy and, you know, actually determining safety assessments of children and the safety, protection, all the things that are expected of us.

But building those relationships with these families, it is an incredible experience.

As I said, being able for a case that you've a family you've worked with and help get a child back in the home or you've left the child there and gotten the child help that they need or resources that the parents just didn't even know about seeing them, you know, out on the park doing things together as a family, them being able to come up to you and speak to you and kind of update you on what they've been doing or even our families that email us pictures of their kids way after their case has been closed.

Hey, our kids are doing great.

We just went to the beach.

I love building those kind of relationships with people.

Like any child in care, our youth are in need of and deserving of unconditional love and support, not just from DHR but from our community.

The more we pour into them, the more we plant those seeds.

The more our successful outcomes that we're going to have.

I can't imagine growing up what my life would have been like if I wouldn't have had that support system.

Where would I be now if I wouldn't have that support system?

These youth deserve the same opportunities to have the support that I grew up with.

And I never want a youth in foster care or any child to grow up and say they never had anyone to give them unconditional love.

They never had anyone to push them to be a greater version of themselves.

So our youth need and deserve that unconditional love.

Even when times are hard, they need people who are going to through the best times in the worst time, love them anyways.

Being a foster parent, as a worker, somebody that works in this agency, I have a lot of admiration for them.

Growing up, that was another glimpse that I had at DHR.

I grew up just down the road from a foster home and some of my friends were were in that home.

And I got to see the love and the support that they had growing up and and the care that these, you know, this couple had for these children.

And, you know, I just had a lot of admiration for them.

They they went over and above for their for their foster children.

And I would say that for somebody coming into this, you know, coming into being a foster parent, thinking about it that's that's the kind of difference that you can you can make in the child's life is be that person that, you know, a child can go to be that person that that that child needs, you know, be the stability that they need, be the just the help that they need.

These kids, they do need unconditional love.

But they they need stability.

They need to know at the end of the day that when they go home, there's going to be somebody there that's going to be able to take care of them, that's willing to take care of them, has a desire to take care of them.

And that's what a foster parent can be or should be and one thing these children will always remember is going to a safe place.

And so it's important to foster parents know they have an opportunity to make a difference in someone's life.

That's life changing.

That's lasting because when they come out of that environment, they need a safe place to go.

And when they go to that safe place, it's a foster home.

Someone who can love and nurture and care for them.

And in doing that, they build a relationship.

And when you build a relationship, you learn more than what you can ever imagine.

And so in becoming a foster parent, you develop some interpersonal skills.

You'll learn a lot about children, and you experience some things you never know what's going on.

Unfortunately, we work with children that are mistreated and hurt, and a lot of times there's a lot of stuff going on in the community that nobody really knows about.

And so they'll get a chance to plug in to see, to make a difference.

And by doing it, they plug into the system and so they'll grow.

And you don't just become a foster parent, you plug into the system and you plug into the system.

Some of our foster parents that went on to do great things, start their own fellowship, or just communicate or just support each other.

So it's more than just taking a child into your home is being a part of something that's truly great.

Please don't count our kids out.

Our kids, it doesn't matter if they're 14, 15, 18.

They are never too old to need a family you are never too old to need love.

They need it just as much as our little ones do.

They need it.

They need that support.

They need people to show them the way they need people to pave the way for them.

My mom's a foster parent, and so I recruited her.

When I started, I saw I knew there were kids that needed a good home, and I knew what it was like being raised with my mom, and I knew that she could offer them the best home.

And so my mom adopted two kids, they're siblings.

She got both of them from the hospital.

And so I would tell them being a foster parent is something that you didn't know you needed.

When my mom started the journey of foster parent, I don't think she ever had the intentions of adopting she was in her late fifties, but she did.

And so it was a it was a blessing in disguise at a time that I think that she needed it most so I'm all for it.

I'm all for getting foster parents because it's a love that I think you've never felt before when a kid really needs you in that moment and you can be there.

I think it's a love, I would say indescribable.

Just watching it personally, and then when you get to have those kids return home, it's it's hard and is exciting all at the same time.

And so it's, I would say be a foster parent.

This is going to change your life for the better.

There's going to be hard days with it.

But it's well worth it.

It's well worth it.

And when you remove a child from a bad situation and they have an opportunity to go to a foster home and they decide to take the next step to solidify the relationship and bring that child to a home on a long term basis, and you watch the progress, you watch the relationship, you watch the love build, you watch the caring build.

It's an awesome thing to observe because I'm not only in the process, but I'm watching the process and I watch the process through fruition.

And so one of the greatest things is to see, you know, the judge said, hey, we're going to award you these children.

They're yours, take them and love on them.

And so these foster parents, they build up these great relationship with those children, and there's nothing like seeing them and seeing the the the excitement and the joy that they have, knowing that they have someone and they're going to continue on with and ensure that they're safe and they're taken care of and you develop lasting bonds and lasting relationships.

And so those are one of the things I was talking about.

When you plug into the system, just as becoming a foster parent plugs you into opportunities to take the child and to raise them up as your own and not just they're on to college, on to grandchildren and great grandchildren.

And so we see it from the beginning to the end.

But it also warms my heart because these children, they need love and they need someone to care about and need someone to hold them.

They need someone to just show they care.

Because I found out people will forget what you did to them, but they'll never forget how you made them feel.

And so and that's how I try to approach the situations.

And I feel that that's one of the greatest aspects of the foster parent you can realize is that, you know, they are, in time, they'll forget what happened to a certain extent, but they never forget how you made them feel.

And so that has an awesome opportunity to really change someone's life forever.

There is a huge need for foster families as we are constantly bringing children into care because they're their primary systems are dysfunctional and has failed them in the areas of providing a protective and suitable place for them to grow up in.

We constantly need workers as the areas are growing bigger, so we need these workers to help with the caseload that we have to work to make sure that we're giving these kids permanency, to make sure that we're giving them a fair opportunity to have normalcy.

Okay, we have a lot of kids that come in that may age out.

That means they'll be in the IOP program.

We need workers for that because we're trying to help them function at their highest level as they become adults.

So that they won't repeat the issues that they dealt with as a child.

I would say to someone that is 16 or 17 that may be considered in investigating child abuse or neglect or working with kids that are in foster care or preserving the family environment of the state of Alabama it is a great field.

It is something that's not usually when you're coming up through school, social work is not something that's always taught or talked about.

Usually you hear about education, you hear about the medical field, the law field or sometimes business aspects of things.

But social work is may be looked over, but it's greatly needed and it's a rewarding, wonderful field to see families preserve their environment and also just knowing what the community has to offer and presenting that to a family to help them is is just wonderful.

Consider it.

Think about it.

If you've always had a desire to want to help people and see kids thrive and do well, consider social work.

It takes a lot of courage.

It takes a lot of integrity and it takes a lot of character.

But the rewards are great, but it's challenging and this is an excellent opportunity for someone that's coming out of college to really make a difference, not just from the standpoint of we all have professions and we do certain things whether it's working at a plant or pushing papers or doing something like that.

But I found that the most valuable assets that we have are people.

And when you can change people, you can change a city a community, and you can eventually change a nation.

And so if we got the right people and they are the right people, if you come here and you are the right one.

And so you have the opportunity to change, to be a part of something great.

A young person that would be interested in social work.

I would say to them that if they ever want to become a generalist social worker and get the best, best training in the world, then they should think about coming and becoming a CPS worker.

That's Child Protective Services.

There's nothing, once you've done that, that you can't do, it prepares you for everything because you are consistently putting out fires, you are consistently dealing with crisis, and you learn to be flexible.

You learn to move away from your own biases.

You learn to respect rules and guidelines, which is the policies that we operate in.

So for for a young person in school for social work, I would highly recommend coming to DHR even if you don't plan on being here forever, you get the most experience in all aspects.

You work with law enforcement, you work within hospitals, you work with the district attorney's office, the advocacy center.

So I feel like you get a broad spectrum of social work here and you're not just generalized to one you know, to one area of social work.

It's been the best decision of my life coming here.

And I don't know, I hope to stay here forever, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

So fresh out of college, I started and I don't regret it.

It's been seven years.

I would say to to our future social workers or anyone that is interested in the case of child welfare, do it.

People ask me all the time, I don't know how you do this or why do you do that?

And my answer is, how could I not?

There is such a need for for young social workers, for people to come in and really wrap their arms around these families and the children that we work with.

And I would say to them, don't let anybody lead you to believe that this system is too big for you to make a difference and that you can have the impact in somebody's life and shaping their future.

And for getting a job with the Department of Human Resources, it is the most rewarding.

And as I said, it can be tough, but it is such a great experience and you build great working relationships with people in your community and other local partners.

So working with the Department of Human Resources has really expanded and opened up opportunities for me, as well as me being able to do what I really love.

I became an avid advocate for children in limestone County to help out with those kids that did not have a voice that needed to be heard, someone that had to hide his voice coming up as a child, I wanted to make sure that these kids here had somebody to advocate for them so that they can live a normal as much as possible life.

And to be safe, most importantly, and to have permanency.

You know when you go out and you meet with these families and you work with these families that you get to make a difference, you can't say that about every job that you have.

And this job, this is, I believe, a calling.

And when you are actively participating in that calling, then it is it is extremely rewarding.

Some of my best memories are the memories made making connections with my kids, my kids on my caseload.

They were my kids.

And you couldn't tell me any different.

They are the definition of they taught me unconditional love.

They taught me how to be patient They taught me how to give grace and be able to ask to receive grace.

They were just as patient with me as I was with them.

I'm doing something and what I'm doing is making a difference.

And so when I look back over my day when I could go home lay down and rest, and I say I did something that impacted somebody's life.

I did something that truly, truly made a difference in someone's life.

And those are type of intangible things that you can't make up, you can't take away, those are things that helped you become successful.

And when you realize how important you are and how you can make a difference, in someone else's life, we build on that.

We build on it.

That's when after building for several years you learn how to really become effective, like when you first start driving cars or driving a vehicle.

You don't really know the laws of the road, but the more you drive, the better you get.

I would take them all home with me.

I've said that a thousand times.

I think in the seven years that I've been here, but just loving on them when they when they've not been loved on is it touches your heart in a way that's really indescribable.

This is one of my favorite stories as a social worker, and I think it is for a lot of us in the helping profession.

It's called the Starfish Story, and it really goes along with not letting anyone make you think that the system is too big to make a difference.

One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a boy picking up and gently throwing things into the ocean.

Approaching the boy, he asked young man what are you doing?

The boy replied, throwing starfish back into the ocean, the surf is up, and the tide is going out.

If I don't throw them back, they'll die the man laughed to himself and said, do you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish?

You can't make any difference after listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish and threw it into the surf.

Then smiling at the man, he said, I made a difference to that one.

This production is made possible by the generous support of the Mike Schmitz automotive group, mikeschmitzautogroup.com Imagine being a child and being removed from your home with no notice because of a tragic event, abuse or neglect.

Hello, my name is Andrew Howard and I'm on the Board of Directors for the Foster Coalition.

I want to introduce you to this organization that is positively impacting the foster community in the state of Alabama.

Right now in Alabama, we have approximately 6000 children in foster care, At the Foster Coalition, we want to help those children b uniting government agencies, foster organizations, and churches to provide services to the foster care community so that these children can thrive.

We want to support caseworkers and foster parents by providing additional resources.

There's also a tremendous need for mentors and other support people for foster kids.

With the help of a mentor, there is an increased high school graduation rate, higher college enrollment rates, and decreased likelihood of turning to drugs and alcohol.

We want to support caseworkers At the Foster Coalition, we have identified four target areas that our programs will address.

Recruiting workers, reducing turnover, providing education and spreading awareness to improve the image of the foster community.

When the adults have the resources they need, the kids get the care they deserve.

Every child deserves to feel safe and loved.

Thank you for taking time to watch this video to learn more about what we're doing at the Foster Coalition.

Thank you again, and God bless.