All For Family, a Jefferson County organization that supports foster children and their families, has added a new resource at libraries around the county. Called Foster Family Survival Bins, the large plastic containers hold training materials, books and games for families with foster children or those contemplating becoming foster parents.
The four locations of the Jefferson County Library – the Arnold, Northwest and Windsor branches and the Cedar Hill satellite – plus the Festus and De Soto public libraries have the bins available for checkout.
“Each library gets two of the bins, with different materials in each,” said Amy Baum, an All For Family board member. “People can check out one and then go back and get the other later and it’s all different contents.”
Baum said the bins were purchased with funds left over from a recent Jefferson Foundation grant to the All For Family group, a nonprofit organization founded in 2018.
“We got some supplies donated when we had already budgeted for them,” she said. “So we were looking for ways we could use the extra money and came up with this idea.”
Foster parents are required to take part in ongoing training in order to retain their foster license through the Missouri Children’s Division.
“There are books, DVDs and other materials in there (the bins) that can qualify as training hours,” Baum said. “There are also books for foster kids that talk about what’s happening in their lives and how they can handle it. There are games and ice-breakers for kids and foster parents to get to know one another better. It’s a good resource.”
Plenty of space
All For Family was created to offer support for families involved in the foster care system. One of its most important missions is providing safe space for supervised family visits.
“There are about 700 children in foster care in Jefferson County due to circumstances like poverty, mental illness and addiction,” Baum said. “It is vitally important for these children to have regular contact with their parents and siblings, both for their emotional well-being and to maintain family bonds.”
The law requires there be a trained supervisor at those visits, which is a paid position unless the family can find a qualified relative or friend to do it.
“These kids (in foster care) crave being with their siblings and their biological parents,” Baum said. “But some of them end up going long stretches without seeing their family. They feel frustrated and lost.”
It’s similarly daunting for parents who are trying to get their lives back on track and regain custody of their children.
“A lot of them don’t have anyone they can get to supervise visits, so they have to pay $35 or $40 an hour,” Baum said. “These are parents who may be in poverty, trying to overcome addiction, and it’s just not feasible. It’s tough for most of us to wrap our heads around how hard that must be, not being able to get your kids back and not being able to see them in the meantime.”
All For Family has two locations where they offer supervised visits: at Exchange Church in Arnold and at Hillsboro United Methodist Church. For a time, the group rented a small space in a building in Hillsboro across from the Children’s Division office.
“We were able to give up that space when we got the church spaces,” Baum said. “There’s so much more room, and they both have playgrounds we can use.”
All For Family pays a total of $850 a month to rent space in the two churches, which includes office, meeting and play areas at both. Some volunteers undergo training to become visit supervisors; others pitch in on administrative support, fundraising, tech support and accounting.
“We are trying very hard to keep our family visits free for all families,” Baum said. “The foundation is awesome; we’ve reapplied for more grants. We’re having a fundraiser in October – a country hoedown at the Dew Drop Inn in Bloomsdale. But we need volunteers, we need cash, we need board members, we need more foster parents.
“The more volunteer help we are able to recruit, the better we can meet the needs of the community.”
For more information or to donate or volunteer, visit allforfamily.net, call 636-345-5222 or visit the All For Family Facebook page.