GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - Before Janelle and Brett Beimers were married, the couple knew they wanted to foster or adopt children.
"We just really saw a need for safe families, for kids in foster care in particular to have somewhere safe to go with parents who love and care about them." Janelle said.
The couple was right: there are currently around 900 children in the Kent County foster care system, according to the West Michigan Partnership for Children. The Grand Rapids couple has fostered 20 children since 2012 and, over the last few years, adopted five of them.
"We've loved them and cared for them knowing their time in our home is uncertain, but when the question came, 'Do you want to make this permanent?' We said yes for our kiddos.'"
The ultimate goal of foster care is to reunite the children with their biological parents, said Kristyn Peck, CEO of the West Michigan Partnership for Children (WMPC).
"It takes someone with a big heart to provide that healing home for a child knowing that the goal is eventually to reunify with their family. And then when that's not possible, we would love for foster parents to open their home permanently to that child that's in their home."
The WMPC is a pilot program, launched last October by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and local foster care agencies, working to enhance local foster care.
"Our goal is to make the experience a positive one and minimize the traumatic impact of being separated from your family and to increase reunification of children and their families," Peck said.
As part of the WMPC's enhanced foster care service, the organization links behavior specialists and clinical case managers to parents with children who may have experienced trauma.
It takes a village to raise foster children, Brett Beimers said.
"There's a lot of people out there with a nontraditional role of being a parent, whether it's a grandparent stepping in or an aunt and uncle," he said. "There's a community [and] it's neat to see the camaraderie and the shared experience."
May is National Foster Care Month.
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