Our Impact on Foster and Adoptive Families
Our Family Services program works with anyone who wants to become a foster or adoptive parent. This includes biological family members of children in foster care, people with no personal connection to the child welfare system who just want to support youth, and everyone in between. There are very few requirements to become a foster or adoptive parent, and there is no singular quality we look for in a foster or adoptive parent.
Family Services Program Director Sarah Medrano-Palmer
“There’s not really any one thing all our adoptive and foster parents have in common,” says Sarah Medrano-Palmer, our Family Services Program Director. “There’s so many motivations to come to foster parenting or to adopt. There’s some trends, some demographics who have more of an interest. But I think the diversity of our families is pretty cool.”
Sarah joined Bridges Homeward in 2010 as a Clinical Coordinator, working with prospective adoptive parents under our Adoption program. At that time, another staff member was working with foster parents separately under our Intensive Foster Care program. Sarah saw an opportunity for growth: there are different motivations when working with adoptive parents versus foster parents, but the components of working with these parents are essentially the same, from background checks and training to preparing parents to support children in their home. So we pulled it all into one program called Family Services in 2018 under Sarah’s leadership.
Since the program’s inception, we have become more efficient in serving both foster and adoptive parents. The program has grown to include three staff, and Sarah only sees more growth on the horizon.
“I hope we get the word out, really, just become more visible in the community,” she says. “I hope people will know us and think to come to us when they’re ready to foster or adopt. I want our numbers to grow.”