Children’s Wisconsin has awarded State Senator Mary Felzkowsi (R-Tomahawk) and State Representative Robert Wittke (R-Racine) with the tenth annual Children’s Champion Policy Awards.
As a parent, chances are you’ve seen it or have even worn it on your shirt: spit-up.
Six years ago, our family said “Yes” to foster care having no idea where it would lead us. What started for us as a hope to adopt became a deeper understanding of the need and a desire to do more good.
Our journey through foster care thus far has brought us the great privilege of adopting three siblings, connecting with biological family members and seeing families be put back together.
Foster care has stretched us and brought us to places we never imagined.
I knew we were in for it when the placement worker said, “I know this is a different situation than we normally call you for, but I hope you’ll keep an open mind.” Two hours later, we entered into uncharted waters when a teenage boy walked through our door.
Fostering a teenager is something we didn’t expect to do, especially at this point in life where we have only parented up to the preteen age. However, I am so glad that we once again said yes to foster care. Although we enter into caring for a teenager with concerns that we don’t know what we are doing, what we do know is we can be a support for him, we can make sure he graduates high school and has the life skills to live on his own. It is an honor to enter his life at this stage of emerging adulthood, to show him what family can look like and to set him up for success.
Now I wonder what our next “YES” to foster care will be.
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Evangelina and Ricardo Hernandez share their foster care journey.
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