Andy and Christine Albea started opening their homes via Families 4 Families after moving to the Augusta area in September 2020. The couple fostered their first child around 2012.
Families 4 Families is a faith-based, nonprofit child placing agency based in Loganville, Ga., founded by Wayne Naugle in 2017, with six offices throughout the state.
Andy Albea, a youth minister, notes that fostering can be challenge, especially considering one doesn’t know what issues a child may come with — whether it be severe trauma or mental health issues.
But ultimately, he says, the commitment is worth it. He recalls their most recent placement, three brothers, severely malnourished. The youngest was only a few weeks old, and the oldest and middle children had delayed speech.
“It was just constants and syllables,” Albea said about the two-year-old middle child. “Vowels just thrown together no real words.”
Albea recalls a significant turnaround after lots of speech therapy. By the time the brothers eventually left their home, he could have conversations with the boy.
“‘Hey, tell me about ‘Paw Patrol. What do you like about this? What happened on that episode? What are you playing?’ Conversations that you could not have when they first came to us because either they didn’t know the word or they didn’t know how to talk, or you just could understand them,” he said. “That right there is an example of watching these boys grow to get the care the treatment that they needed, to be able to, to get the different diagnosis for the different boys, and to hand that off to the next foster parent, and say, ‘You’re not walking this blind, we’ve done all the hard work for you. Here are the medications, this is what he’s taken. He’s taken.’ This is what we’ve learned to help… We were able to answer all those unknowns. Because no one knew these boys better than we did.”
May is National Foster Care Month. According to the Georgia Division of Family & Children Services (DFCS), as of the second quarter of 2023, more than 400 children in Richmond and Columbia counties are in the foster care system.
The experience of some working on the front lines of children services indicates most of these cases are due to substance abuse or neglect on the part of their caregivers, usually reported by teachers.
“Then DFCS will get that call, go out to the home to investigate, and oftentimes they’ll find that there are drugs in the home, or when they drug test the adults in the home they will find several different drugs in their system,” said Erin Larisey, recruitment and retention coordinator for Families 4 Families Augusta. “And then we have seen some where it’s deplorable living conditions… whether it be no electricity, no running water, or whether it be just a really filthy disgusting environment for kids to be living in.”
Larisey, a former middle-school math teacher, launched the CSRA branch of Families 4 Families in July of 2021. She and her husband had already been foster parents for several years, and had been operating a ministry at their church recruiting foster families.
“A lot of people think that agencies are in competition with DFCS, but I look at it more like a partnership,” Larisey said. “Our goal is to help DFCS by recruiting our own foster homes.”
Collaborating with DFCS, the agency will conduct license checks, fingerprinting and home study for prospective foster families.
The process to become a foster parent is long and formidable, taking an average of four to six months. Alongside a rigorous background check, there are many questionnaires, interviews and investigations into medical histories.
“It’s basically your whole life being submitted to the state for review,” said Larisey.
Larisey recalls the differences she encountered in how she was expected to care for foster kids — such as having fire extinguishers and escape ladders, locking certain cabinets, and keeping sharp objects and medications secure.
“Because we know that these kids that are coming into our homes are oftentimes coming from hard places, it makes sense that you would protect them in a different way than maybe you protected your own biological kids,” she said.
Procedures don’t just have to consist of prodding and paperwork, however. Agencies like Families 4 Families also tend to develop a connection with potential parents and offer support through what can often be a tedious and frustrating, as well as eye-opening, progression.
When DFCS places a child, case managers will visit at least twice a month to check on the children’s safety and well-being, and to deepen rapport with the families.
“Usually, a friendship relationship forms with the family,” said Jessica Stanton, a case manager with Families 4 Families, who, as of writing of this article, has roughly 11 kids currently in her caseload. “Our families will advocate strongly for other services that are needed, whether it’s therapy, or speech therapy, or occupational therapy, or counseling.”
As a faith-based agency, Families 4 Families prioritizes church attendance, and requests references from pastors or other church leadership to vouch for parenting styles and church participation.
“A lot of people find it to be somewhat divisive that we are selective of who we will open homes for,” said Larisey. “However, being Christians ourselves, we look at it as: these kiddos that are coming into foster care definitely need a safe home, a safe place to live, a warm bed and food in the pantry and a shower or a bath, those physical needs being met; but they also have a spiritual need.”
Rather than advertising, the non-profit recruits mainly through local churches. Outreach to ministers and congregations is paramount to raising awareness among potential Christian parents to support children in need, said Stanton.
“Motivating foster parents, I think, is just seeing and learning what so many children go through,” Stanton said. “I think people like to live in their little content bubble a lot of times and don’t really see that… Unless someone like our organization comes and teaches people, this is what’s really happening, this is the need that these children have, people just don’t know.”
Larisey estimates that roughly one third of cases result in reunification with the original caregivers, such as when biological parents have successfully gone through rehab, for example.
In some cases, another relative is located who may take guardianship of the child; and sometimes, again roughly a third of the time, reunification is not possible, and the foster child becomes adoptable.
Families 4 Families has proven a boon for those who seek to care of children amid these transitions, not only for the kids, but for the foster parents, because of what the agency can provide beyond what DFCS is capable of.
“There’s a lot of hard days as a foster parent, but because of Families 4 Families, it’s not a lonely time,” he said. “From the case managers, to recruiters…we felt all that love, all that support. We felt their prayers, and I cannot say enough good things about them.”
The CSRA office for Families 4 Families is at Warren Baptist Church at 3203 Washington Road in Augusta. For more information, visit https://www.families4families.cc/.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
