They know they’re making a difference

Sarah Mooney got a taste of what living in a foster home was like when her biological parents, Eric and Tammy Ledford, decided to take the plunge.

“They became foster parents when me and my older sister, Olivia, were in middle school,” said Sarah, who is the Social Services case manager for Region 1 of the state Department of Family and Children Services. “My three younger siblings are adopted, so I’ve lived that life, and then God brought me here to this work … and it was such a positive thing me and my sister took from that. It really made me the person I am today.”

Currently, there are 55 children in foster care in Gilmer County. However, only 10 of those children are actually placed inside the county “because we don’t have enough foster homes to support children we have in care,” said Sarah. “Fifty-five is probably the lowest amount we’ve had — we can get over 100.”

That means, at this point in time, 45 kids have to be placed elsewhere. When asked if that meant surrounding counties, she replied “not very likely.”

“They’re normally placed in south Georgia just because we don’t have enough homes in our region,” Sarah explained.

Why are kids having to be placed in homes away from their parents anyway?

“The drug problem is completely out of control, (that affects) 98 percent of the kids we have in care,” Sarah noted. “We try to work with those people to help them, but it comes to a point where you’ve got parents using drugs (and) you can’t leave kids in that type of environment. That’s across the board — every county — that’s just how it is.”

While she believes “we have such a great community in Gilmer County,” Sarah is also aware many adults may not understand what kids are going through in school. She also serves by directing the DFACS caregiver recruitment and retention unit.

“Parents get a per diem, and I hate the outlook some people have, (that) ‘They’re just in it for the money.’ You don’t ‘make’ money, you get a per diem for each child you have,” she pointed out. “You’ve got to consider (foster children) come with nothing, so you’re buying them clothes, socks, shoes, underwear and you’re upping your grocery bill. Everything is changing … the per diem is just to help — to try and help — the foster kids not to be a burden.”

When asked about her background, Sarah stated she attained a degree in criminal justice and initially wanted to pursue a law enforcement career, possibly with the GBI. Then a friend approached her at a ball game and told her she thought an open position at DFACS would be perfect for her. Sarah “began to pray about it.”

“It’s not just a job with me, and now I’m very bonded with our foster parents,” she said. 

When a foster child is taken out of a home to another county, Sarah noted, they are also being taken from familiar places like their school, their sports and possibly their churches, “everything that they’ve known.”

Her advice for foster parents is encouraging and edifying.

“I want you to get in love with these kids so much it’s like you birthed these kids,” Sarah said. “I’ve always said there’s a season, and there’s a reason, those kids are in your home, whether they’re there for an hour, a day, six months, two years or they’re there forever — there’s a reason. 

“Foster children will remember, ‘We all sat at the table for dinner’ or ‘We all said the blessing.’ Those are things that kids have actually said. So I want people to think about these kids. Think about when they’re getting ripped from their family, and they’re just hoping someone will take me in who’s going to love me.”

She confesses she gets “emotional about it.”

“Because not only did I live that life and see how we took in my (adopted) siblings, there’s no telling where they would be (if we had not done that),” Sarah continued. “Because they’re great kids. They’re growing up, they’re playing sports, they’re going to college. They’re doing all those things that I know if they had stayed in that environment, they wouldn’t do.” 

How can the community help?

“I just wish the churches would step up,” she replied, mentioning Fostering Roots, a foster parent support group begun by Katherine Moyer (lijfosteringroots@gmail.com).

“If the churches just supported one foster family each, that would be a ton of homes in Gilmer County,” she was quick to say.

Sarah was asked if she considered foster parents to be heroes.

“Absolutely, oh absolutely,” she said. “Because that’s exactly what they are … they continue to do this because they know they’re making a difference. That’s a hero to me.”

Sarah Mooney can be contacted at Gilmer DFACS by calling 706-273-1621; another number is 1-877-210-KIDS. Her email is sarah.mooney@dhs.ga.gov.

 

‘Informationals’ about foster care available

Sarah Mooney, the Social Services case manager for Region 1 of the state Department of Family and Children Services, offers “informationals” that help prospective foster parents make a decision about taking foster children into their home.

“It lets people know what the process is — this is what it’s like, this is how it is, this is what you have to do, this is what you can do,” she explained. “When you tell me you’re interested in becoming a foster parent, I immediately set up an informational.”

There’s also a standing date for local informationals. In Gilmer County, it’s every first Tuesday of the month at the DFACS office at 6 p.m., 222 Highland Crossing South, Suite 100, (across from the tiny homes business, next to Piedmont medical building).

The informationals are every fourth Tuesday at the Fannin DFACS office at 6 p.m., located at 990 E. Main St., Suite 100, in Blue Ridge. No appointment is necessary in either county, and prospective foster parents can drop in to get information. 

“Of course, we need foster parents, and I know that the biggest thing is fear,” Sarah shared. “Because you just don’t know what you’re getting into, and you’re fearful of what it’s going to be like and how the foster kids are going to affect your own kids, and all those kinds of things. I know it’s superscary.”

Attending does not “lock-in” a couple to be a foster parent, it’s just an explanation of what it requires, the process and how the system works, she said. 

 

Volunteering to help foster parents

Sarah Mooney said you don’t have to be a foster parent to help foster families.

“You can help in so many different ways,” she said. “There’s tons of things you can do without being a foster parent. You can be a volunteer.

“I would love for our community to support the foster parents more, because I feel like foster parents have this label on their backs. And I feel like the only people they believe they can reach out to is me, and the other foster parents. I think they kinda feel like outcasts, because no one understands.”

Sarah shared the story of one woman in her 80s — with six foster children — who can’t take them to six different sports venues. 

“Volunteers help with that,” she noted. “Or you can help by taking kids to doctor appointments or with diapers, since the DFACS office does not reimburse for those. We rely on the churches to help us with diapers for foster parents.”

Sarah Mooney can be contacted at Gilmer DFACS by calling 706-273-1621; another number is 1-877-210-KIDS. Her email is sarah.mooney@dhs.ga.gov.