We recently took a COVID portrait of the entire King family from their lawn.

This Foster Parent Appreciation Month is happening in unique times with unique demands. Our foster parents have amazed us with how they’ve risen to the challenge of caring for youth in foster care and managing their homes during quarantine. Today, we wanted to share the story of one family who’s been particularly successful during this time, and the creative approach they’ve taken to raising foster children in quarantine.

Carlotta King and her husband Kwesi have been foster parents with CFCS for four years now. Carlotta and Kwesi specialize in fostering youth ages 12 and older, and balance foster parenting with working full time jobs and caring for their two biological children, a teenage son and a daughter in college.

Many parents are in similar situations to the Kings right now – balancing work and kids – but Carlotta hasn’t experienced the stresses many other parents have. In fact, you could say Carlotta is thriving right now. In a recent interview, she surprised us when she said, “I’ve been living my best life. If it stays like this for another year, I would truly be happy.”

Carlotta does have a bit of an advantage during this time, not due to any external resources, but just because she’s a self-described homebody, happy to spend her time indoors. And she’s doing a great job making all this indoors time fun not only for her but for her foster kids, too. “We’ve been doing a lot of artsy projects,” she says. “The kids have gotten to make their own birdhouses, which we put out in the garden, and they’ve made personalized signs for their bedroom doors. We’ve been gardening and cooking together, making their favorite meals. We had an indoor birthday party with lots of games I ordered from amazon. Every Friday we do movie nights too.” Even before the quarantine, the Kings had movie night every Friday – a tradition the family is happy to continue.

Carlotta has also done an exceptional job making it easy as possible for her kids, both foster and biological, to focus on their schoolwork at home. “I love to clean and love to cook, so I take care of things around the house so all the kids have to do is, their number one job is their schoolwork. [My foster daughter] Amy’s been doing really well. Her principal called to tell me she’s one of the only kids who’s logging in every day to do all of her work for school.”

But the Kings have done their fair share of problem-solving during this time, as well. Carlotta has worked out a system to minimize the distractions for each high schooler in her home. Carlotta’s son, who goes to a different school than his foster siblings, does his schoolwork mainly in his room. The teens she’s fostering, Amy and Lionel, work downstairs at the dining room table. While Amy is happy to sit in one spot during the school day to finish her work, Lionel, who is a ball of energy, needs a lot of space to move around. He’ll go from table to sofa to floor to table again. But it’s all good with the Kings, as long as everyone’s getting their work done. On top of all of this, the Kings are continuing to both work their full-time jobs.

Making sure everyone has their own space – to work, to relax, to have fun – has been a huge part of Carlotta and Kwesi’s strategy in keeping their home as happy as possible during this time. Carlotta and Kwesi let their high schoolers sleep in on weekends, and they encourage individual activities for each of their kids in addition to family time. Kwesi regularly takes Lionel to the skate park so he can practice skateboarding and get his energy out. Amy, on the other hand, likes to rollerskate and go for walks with the family dog.

Clearly, the Kings put a lot of love and attention towards caring for their foster and bio kids, regardless of the quarantine. And we’ve seen a lot of growth in Amy and Lionel thanks to these wonderful efforts.

Amy has been in foster care for only three months, but already Carlotta is helping her come out of her shell. Together, Carlotta and Amy have set up a virtual summer job for Amy, and Amy really likes learning about exercise with Kwesi, who coaches track.

“My number one thing is that kids feel happy in my home. Because if they’re not happy, they’re going to act out.”

Lionel has been with the Kings for a year, and is becoming more in touch with his feelings. “When he first got here, he would shut down and not talk to us [when he was upset],” Carlotta says. “Sometimes he’d go a week without talking to us.” But after carefully working with his therapist, Carlotta and Kwesi have helped Lionel learn how to deal with his emotions. “Sometimes it will take a while but he’ll come to me about how he’s feeling, or why he’s upset,” says Carlotta. “He’s learning that sharing about his feelings can be healing for him.”

During our conversation, Nicole Purcell, the Kings’ Family Service social worker, commented on what makes the Kings so special: “The beautiful thing about the King household is, these kids come into their home with some really heavy things on their back. And what they get from Carlotta and Kwesi is, it doesn’t matter where you come from, who you are, what you’re dealing with, you’re going to be loved and cared for,” says Nicole. “Ultimately, they’re always listening to the kids and advocating for what the kids need. They give the kids an opportunity to truly be heard and taken seriously, which is huge, especially for teenagers.”

“My number one thing is that kids feel happy in my home,” Carlotta said in response. “Because if they’re not happy, they’re going to act out. They come from places where probably their happiness was not important. So that’s the first thing we talk to them about. And we just try to understand them and where they’re coming from.”

Check out Carlotta’s YouTube channel for ideas for fun things to do in quarantine!

On top of everything else, Carlotta has started a YouTube channel where she uploads short videos with creative ideas for fun family activities during quarantine. Check out her channel here!