PAGE A10, KEIZERTIMES, JULY 20, 2018
FOSTER: ‘It changes the
entire dynamic of our home’
(Continued from Page 1)
parents need to have a love of
children, but they also need
more than that—a willingness
to stay with a child even when
the going gets tough.
Shane and Malia Witham
have fostered 24 kids over a pe-
riod of six and half years. Ma-
lia and Shane also have three
of their own “forever” chil-
dren in the home, in addition
to the children they foster. But
they don’t usually make this
distinction when they have a
foster child in the home: “We’re
not babysitters, we’re parents,”
Shane said.
Foster parenting is a task that
requires the involvement of
one’s entire community—not
just those acting as foster par-
ents, but also their own kids,
their extended families, their
circle of friends.
“It’s a family affair, it is not
just my husband and I, because
it changes the entire dynamic
of our home,” said Malia.
Incorporating foster kids
into the dynamic of one’s home
requires acceptance of the chil-
dren as they are, not as one
would like them to be. This re-
quires adjusting one’s expecta-
tions of behavior.
Kids who come into one’s
home from somewhere else are
often used to different routines,
and in the case of kids coming
into foster care, these routines
often aren’t ideal for the chil-
dren’s age group.
Ratliff described a one-year-
old she fostered who threw
his food on the ground when
she put him in a high chair for
snack time. Usually when a
small child throws their food,
Ratliff said, it means they’re
done eating.
But when Ratliff took the
child out of the chair, she saw
him trying to eat off the fl oor.
She realized he was throwing
food because he wasn’t used to
eating in a high chair.
“He wasn’t done, he wanted
to eat in a more comfortable
environment,” she said.
Especially when working
with young foster children,
who can’t yet articulate their
needs, listening to behaviors
and adjusting one’s sense of a
“normal routine” accordingly is
important.
As opposed to forcing the
child to eat in a high chair im-
mediately, she tried to fi nd safe,
but less restrictive places in the
kitchen to feed him. “Their
worlds have been fl ipped upside
down,” she said, just by coming
into care, so one shouldn’t force
change too quickly.
“Over time, we gradually
work on that to get them to
healthy, scheduled routines that
are appropriate for their age,”
she said.
Malia noted that while fos-
tering is truly challenging,
the impact a foster home can
have on a child is immense.
Throughout our conversation,
the Withams referenced a sib-
ling set of three who lived with
them for two years before mov-
ing on to live with their bio-
logical relatives a year ago. They
still keep in touch and provide
respite care for the kids on oc-
casion.
The three kids came to the
Witham household with high
needs and intense behaviors,
but over the course of the three
years they’ve known those sib-
lings, they saw how their sup-
portive environment allowed
the kids to grow.
“The growth that we’ve
seen from when they moved
in with us to now, you can see
in behaviors what uncondi-
tional love, what stability, what
routine, all of those things that
were not a part of their lives
before, it changes them,” Malia
said. “They are different kids.”
One of the most challenging
parts of being a foster parent is
letting go and saying goodbye
to the foster kids, especially
when they’ve been in the home
for an extended period of time.
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And that’s often a reason people
cite for not becoming a foster
parent, because it would hurt
too much to give up a child
they’ve developed a bond with.
But foster parents are sup-
posed to get too attached. That’s
Every
sometimes I wonder how many
times can we do it. At what
point does your heart say I can’t
break anymore? I don’t know.
We’re not there yet. It is the
hardest thing we’ve ever done,
but they’re worth it.”
SHANE & MALIA
WITHAM
Shane and Malia Witham have been fos-
tering for six and a half years. Shane works as a
city planner in Keizer and Malia works as a stay-at-
home mom. Their fostering journey began on the
fl ight back from a mission trip to Uganda, when
Malia felt challenged in her prayers to do good in
Keizer. She asked herself and her family, “What is
my mission here in Keizer?” Soon after, she and
Shane certifi ed as short-term foster respite care, but
ultimately began fostering full-time.
Over this six-and-a-half year period, Shane said
he has adapted his role as a father to consider the
needs of the foster kids he and his wife Malia bring
into their home.
“I think sometimes people look at parenting,
just regular old parenting, as I’m the parent and
I’m the boss and I’ll have rules and boundaries. I’m
there to fi x things, to protect things, and to be the
person in charge,” Shane said. But when a child
has been traumatized and abandoned, they’re not a
problem to be “fi xed”—they’re a complex person
that needs to be loved and listened to, even when
they’re throwing a tantrum.
“They’re going to freak out about cereal or
whatever silly thing, because that’s a way they can
control something because their life has been cha-
os,” Shane said. And dealing with these behaviors
takes a different approach to parenting than many
have been socialized with.
“One of the most effective ways of getting them
to be okay, is just to be with them,” Shane said.
If one of his foster kids was having a tantrum, “I
wouldn’t say a word, but I’d go in [to their room]
and just hang out with them, and say, ‘Aw buddy,
I’m sorry you’re having a hard time’ but not forc-
ing them, ‘Tell me what’s wrong,’ you can’t do that,”
Shane said. “I think in a lot of these situations where
children lack that trust, we have to earn that trust,
by being consistent, by being loving and caring.”
BRIGETT & MIKE
EISELE
Brigett Eisele and her husband
Mike have been fostering kids for
about two years. She works as a nurse
full-time, and her husband works full-
time as well. They now have two of
their own kids, ages 12 and 14, and
usually foster one or two children un-
der the age of six.
Eisele’s fi rst experience with the
foster care system came when she was a
fi rst-grade teacher in the Portland area
in the early 2000’s. She regularly had
students who were in various stages of
foster care in her classes, and learned
an important lesson about supporting
them in her capacity as a teacher.
She came to understand that “the
academics I had to teach them was not
the most important part of their life.”
As a teacher without kids of her own
GWEN & MIKE
SLIPPY
Gwen Slippy has worked in the
local child welfare offi ce for fi ve
years and currently fi lls the District 3
(encompassing the Marion, Polk, and
Yamhill counties) role of foster parent
recruitment and retention specialist.
Her entrance into working with the
system did not begin as a DHS worker,
however. Her fi rst seven years of
engagement with the foster care system
were in the role of a foster parent,
alongside her husband, Mike.
Slippy became a foster parent in
response to the methamphetamine crisis
of the early 2000s, when a huge infl ux
of kids entered foster care. “We drove
a 12-passenger van and often traveled
with 10-plus people in it. Our family of
origin was four at the time, so we often
fostered six children at a time,” she said.
Her two biological children were
always involved in the process, and
Slippy and her husband adopted two
children out of the foster care system
during their time as foster parents.
Foster parents will emphasize how
AT KEIZER RAPIDS PARK
To fi nd out more about be-
coming a foster parent, adoptive
parent, or short-term respite
care provider, visit MarionFos-
terOrAdopt.com, where you
can contact local foster parent
certifi ers.
a home
By CASEY CHAFFIN
KEIZER ROTARY AMPHITHEATER
PATRICK
LAMB
part of their job.
“They need us to be heart-
broken when they leave, be-
cause that means that we loved
them with every part of our
being and that’s what we do,”
Malia said. “It is hard. And
important communicating with their
“forever” children is in the fostering
process, and making sure family
cohesion isn’t stressed beyond repair
during their time as foster parents. But
foster parents, including Slippy, also
emphasize how engaged their own
at the time, she
could spend time
“making
sure
their basic needs
were met,” so
they could thrive
in an educational
environment.
Now, as a full-
time foster par-
ent, she can have
a fuller role in
their lives, “in-
cluding them in
what our family
would normally
do,” she said.
It’s important, however, to under-
stand one’s capacity to bring foster kids
into the home. “Not everyone can take
every kind of kid,” she said, and differ-
ent kids need different environments
to thrive.
“Recognizing what your family can
handle, setting boundaries and sticking
to them” is essential to being a suc-
cessful foster family, she said. Because
when a family doesn’t exceed their ca-
pacity to care for the children in their
home, those children get the care they
need: full and undivided love and at-
tention.
Eisele said people tell her they
could never foster because they’d get
too attached to the kids. However, she
said, “That’s what they need. You are
supposed to get attached and you’re
supposed to make them 100 percent
part of your family.”
children were in supporting the youth
they brought into the household—and
that whole-family engagement is part of
what makes a foster family successful.
“Our children were young and it
was just a part of who we were as our
children were growing up,” she said,
adding: “When we didn’t have a full
house – our two biological children
would always ask in anticipation, ‘When
will new kids come?’ and sometimes
they would wake up in the morning
and there would be several new faces at
the kitchen table.”
Her perspective on the foster care
system has broadened since working
within DHS.
“The need is great and I had no idea
just how great until coming to work
for the Agency. … Understanding the
whole picture of Child Welfare was a
completely different perspective than
when I was a foster parent. My focus
was very narrow when fostering; it was
all about loving and nurturing children,
guiding and providing for their needs
and doing what we could to help
families reunify,” she said.
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