COUNTY NEEDS MORE FOSTER HOMES

Ten to 20 more foster homes are needed in Cape Girardeau County to meet the needs of foster children, the county director of the Missouri Division of Family Services said Thursday.

"We're always in need of additional foster parents," said the official, Dennis Reagan. "We have at the present time 19 active and 11 inactive (homes). We could easily use twice that many active homes."

Reagan spoke to a reporter Thursday evening at the annual foster family picnic of the Cape Girardeau County Foster Parent Association. The Division of Family Services is the state agency responsible for caring for children who cannot live with their parents because of abuse or neglect.

About 15 children went to the picnic with approximately 30 foster parents and Division of Family Services workers. The picnic was held at a shelter at Cape Girardeau County Park North.

The ideal number of active foster homes in the county would be 100, Reagan said, all of which would be used. Ruth Ward, foster care licensing worker, said 25 to 30 of the county's foster children now live in homes in surrounding counties. Only 21 of the county's foster children live inside the county.

"The majority of our kids that are out of the county are black," Ward said. "We really need some black homes."

Plus, Reagan said surrounding counties have their own shortages of homes.

"One of the reasons we need a wide variety and larger number of foster homes (is) we would like to be able to match the children with the ... foster parents," he said. Some parents, Reagan said, are better at raising small children, as opposed to others who are better with teenagers.

"When you don't have a selection, it comes down to a matter of, `Where do you have an opening? Where can you place this child?'"

Probably 60 percent of the county's foster children are over 8 years of age, said Reagan. The most popular foster children are newborns to children five years of age.

Pat Abernathy of Jackson said she has served as a foster parent along with her husband, Leroy, for about 22 years. Over that time, she said, she and her husband, who works as the city of Jackson's water and sewer construction supervisor, have taken into their home about 170 foster children.

Most of those children, Abernathy said, were taken in in emergencies until their difficulties could be smoothed out. She said she hasn't had more than half a dozen children for one or two years.

Among her foster children were a newborn, four boys ranging in age from 1 to 5, and a 16-year-old girl.

Abernathy said foster parenting gives the foster parent more back than he or she puts in.

"You really get a lot of personal satisfaction out of it. A lot of the little ones..., they don't know what it is to be loved and played with and rocked.

"You have to spoil them rotten, but you also have to have your discipline, and it has to be a consistent discipline."

Another foster parent, Debbie Campbell, also of Jackson, said she has raised foster children along with her husband, Rick, an accountant, for approximately two years. The couple moved to the area in June 1990 from St. Charles.

Right now, she said she is raising three foster brothers, ages 1, 2 and 7.

Campbell said she would tell a person who is considering being a foster parent to try the required training first. It isn't for everyone, she said.

"It does take time to do. But it's not something that's difficult for someone to do if they have the willingness to share their home and love," she said.

Campbell's 7-year-old foster son, a boy with freckles and a crewcut, said he liked living with Campbell and her husband because "it's fun."

"We go fun places, like to the swimming pool and stuff like that," he said.

Ward said the state pays from $209 to $281 per month for each foster child, depending on his or her age. There is also an annual $100 clothing allowance, she said.

Anyone wishing to become a foster parent should contact Ward at 290-5800.