Foster Care is love in action
Carol Brimm
Close your eyes and imagine yourself as a small child. Now imagine that your parents abuse and neglect you. You live each day in fear and pain until suddenly an unknown social worker appears in your room, stuffs all your clothes in a garbage bag and whisks you off to a group facility run by the Department of Human Services. You are scared and alone. You don’t know anyone. You don’t know what’s going to happen to you and you may never see your home again.
This happens every day to thousands of children across the United States. It is said that on any given day there are 1,500 children in Oklahoma alone waiting for a foster care family.
It is the mission of The Bair Foundation to bring hope into the lives of children who have long since given up hope by providing quality foster care to sexual, psychological and emotionally abused children.
Bill Bair knew that each child is a precious gift of god when he answered a call from the Lord to care for children. It has been almost 40 years since he quit his job and with his wife Marilyn, proceeded on faith to establish The Bair Foundation, a Christian foster care ministry. They began by taking troubled teens into their home and over the years God has truly blessed this ministry and allowed it to make a real impact on the lives of children and teens.
Today The Bair Foundation reaches out to children in seven states, finding homes and families to care for children who would otherwise have to face the world alone.
“Abused children often have behavioral or emotional problems that make it difficult for them to get the help they need in standard DHS foster care,” said Stephanie Sitz a foster family developer in The Bair Foundation’s Oklahoma City office.
The Bair Foundation fills that gap with therapeutic foster care parents and therapist who bringing hope into the lives of children who have long since given up hoping. Many of these children are school age or teenagers who are difficult to place because some foster families are afraid of what an older child will do. Without a foster family to care for them, some of these children will age out of the system at age 18 without ever finding the love and stability they so desperately need.
“Anyone can be a foster parent as long as they have room in their heart and their home for a child,” said Sitz.
The vision of The Bair Foundation is to provide the highest quality foster care to children across America. Foster parents in their organization come from a variety of family structures and range in age from 21 to 72. Each foster care applicant undergoes a thorough background check, including a search for criminal records and several home visits. Economic status is not a factor in becoming a foster parent; however the foundation requires families to have an income in addition to the monthly payments received from DHS to provide for the needs of the child.
Potential foster care parents must attend 6 weeks night and weekend classes provided free of charge by the foundation to prepare them for state certification in therapeutic foster care. These classes are important because they prepare therapeutic foster parents to deal with the behavioral and emotional problems often found in abused children. A licensed therapist counsels the children and families and makes regular home checks.
The Bair Foundation is a non-profit organization with offices in Tulsa and Oklahoma City which are funded by the state. They work with DHS to place children in therapeutic foster care. The Oklahoma City office serves Logan, Lincoln, Oklahoma, Canadian, Grady, Cleveland, McClain, Pottawatomie, and Seminole counties. They currently have 67 children placed in therapeutic foster care homes and have only one family available now to take another child.
“Most judges want to place the child within 40 miles of their own family so siblings can visit each other,” said Sitz. “This means that we need foster parents from across the state to meet the needs of children in their local area.”
The foundation website describes those who become foster parents in this way:
“Each child is a precious gift of God and by recognizing this and planting a seed of hope in the life of a child who has never known hope, you become a living, breathing testimony of the unconditional love of Jesus Christ to children who desperately need to know that they are loved.”
Anyone interested in becoming a foster parent or wishing to donate to the foundation can call Stephanie Sitz at 405-759-2670 or visit www.bair.org for more information.
Carol Brimm
Close your eyes and imagine yourself as a small child. Now imagine that your parents abuse and neglect you. You live each day in fear and pain until suddenly an unknown social worker appears in your room, stuffs all your clothes in a garbage bag and whisks you off to a group facility run by the Department of Human Services. You are scared and alone. You don’t know anyone. You don’t know what’s going to happen to you and you may never see your home again.
This happens every day to thousands of children across the United States. It is said that on any given day there are 1,500 children in Oklahoma alone waiting for a foster care family.
It is the mission of The Bair Foundation to bring hope into the lives of children who have long since given up hope by providing quality foster care to sexual, psychological and emotionally abused children.
Bill Bair knew that each child is a precious gift of god when he answered a call from the Lord to care for children. It has been almost 40 years since he quit his job and with his wife Marilyn, proceeded on faith to establish The Bair Foundation, a Christian foster care ministry. They began by taking troubled teens into their home and over the years God has truly blessed this ministry and allowed it to make a real impact on the lives of children and teens.
Today The Bair Foundation reaches out to children in seven states, finding homes and families to care for children who would otherwise have to face the world alone.
“Abused children often have behavioral or emotional problems that make it difficult for them to get the help they need in standard DHS foster care,” said Stephanie Sitz a foster family developer in The Bair Foundation’s Oklahoma City office.
The Bair Foundation fills that gap with therapeutic foster care parents and therapist who bringing hope into the lives of children who have long since given up hoping. Many of these children are school age or teenagers who are difficult to place because some foster families are afraid of what an older child will do. Without a foster family to care for them, some of these children will age out of the system at age 18 without ever finding the love and stability they so desperately need.
“Anyone can be a foster parent as long as they have room in their heart and their home for a child,” said Sitz.
The vision of The Bair Foundation is to provide the highest quality foster care to children across America. Foster parents in their organization come from a variety of family structures and range in age from 21 to 72. Each foster care applicant undergoes a thorough background check, including a search for criminal records and several home visits. Economic status is not a factor in becoming a foster parent; however the foundation requires families to have an income in addition to the monthly payments received from DHS to provide for the needs of the child.
Potential foster care parents must attend 6 weeks night and weekend classes provided free of charge by the foundation to prepare them for state certification in therapeutic foster care. These classes are important because they prepare therapeutic foster parents to deal with the behavioral and emotional problems often found in abused children. A licensed therapist counsels the children and families and makes regular home checks.
The Bair Foundation is a non-profit organization with offices in Tulsa and Oklahoma City which are funded by the state. They work with DHS to place children in therapeutic foster care. The Oklahoma City office serves Logan, Lincoln, Oklahoma, Canadian, Grady, Cleveland, McClain, Pottawatomie, and Seminole counties. They currently have 67 children placed in therapeutic foster care homes and have only one family available now to take another child.
“Most judges want to place the child within 40 miles of their own family so siblings can visit each other,” said Sitz. “This means that we need foster parents from across the state to meet the needs of children in their local area.”
The foundation website describes those who become foster parents in this way:
“Each child is a precious gift of God and by recognizing this and planting a seed of hope in the life of a child who has never known hope, you become a living, breathing testimony of the unconditional love of Jesus Christ to children who desperately need to know that they are loved.”
Anyone interested in becoming a foster parent or wishing to donate to the foundation can call Stephanie Sitz at 405-759-2670 or visit www.bair.org for more information.
0 comments
post a comment