COMMITTED TO REUNIFICATION
"Our YES is not only for our children, but it is for these families that feel like they are all alone in this fight to get their children back home and to remain a positive role model as a parent."
Ashley Spinks, Connected Caseworker for our Monticello campus, shares about the commitment of campus foster families to see siblings reunified with their parents.
Campus foster parents, Sara and Scott Moffatt have continuously worked with the biological mother of siblings placed in their home. The foster family has been diligent to ensure that the mother has an adequate amount of time to spend with her children as she prepares for them to be reunified with her soon. When the court granted the mother unsupervised weekend visits, the Moffatts invited the mother to stay at their home for the weekend visits due to her circumstances. She lives about 4 hours away and did not have a place big enough to provide proper sleeping arrangements for the children during the visit.
The Moffatts and Ashley decided that it would be helpful in the process of transitioning the mother into the full-time role of parenting to provide her housing in an apartment on campus and offer support as needed during the time of the unsupervised visits. The Moffatts have walked alongside her by answering her phone calls in the middle of the night to offer suggestions on how to calm her 2-year-old down when she has experienced challenges with getting her to sleep at bedtime. They have provided her feedback on how she can engage in meaningful conversations with her teenage daughter after having a disagreement about inappropriate language and behavior that she displayed during a visit. The Moffatts and biological mother have developed a shared partnership in promoting a healthy and nurturing relationship. Through the interactions between both sets of parents, the children have witnessed everyone working together for their best interest.
The Moffatts have stated, "our YES is not only for our children, but it is for these families that feel like they are all alone in this fight to get their children back home and to remain a positive role model as a parent." The Moffatts have taken every word spoken in that statement, and they have wrapped it into love and action. The Moffatts continue to help promote a healthy relationship for the foster children and their biological mother, and they are being proactive in the effort to build, strengthen, and restore this family back together through tangible support and unconditional love.