Foster care is all about the families

PROVO — He's under an umbrella, sheltered from the rain, but this 6-month-old baby can only go so long before he starts to cry.

He wants to be held.

His foster mother, Michelle Fordham, adopted two of his brothers after a reunification with their biological mother failed, and after only one month of being with them, he's starting to smile again — and crave attention.

"He wakes up and I just touch him and he grins and goes back to sleep," Fordham says of the baby, who, for privacy issues, cannot be named.

He is one of 358 children who are in foster care in the Provo area and represents one of the purple and white flags in the front lawn of the Provo City Library at Academy Square, which were put up to honor National Foster Care Month.

"I think (the flags) demonstrate in a very vivid and graphic way that there is a need (for foster parents) in our area," said Provo Mayor Lewis Billings during an event held to officially recognize National Foster Care Month. "When it comes to things that are important, there's nothing more important than our kids."

Out of the western region of the Utah Foster Care Foundation — which includes Utah, Wasatch, Summit, Juab and Millard counties — the most children removed from their families come from the Provo/Orem area, said Jessie Dudley, western region area representative for the Utah Foster Care Foundation. Statewide, about 2,300 children are in foster care at any given time.

Foster parents are reimbursed for the basic cost of caring for foster children, but proper parenting goes beyond providing food and clothing, says Margrit Newsome, who received recognition Thursday for her 38 years of involvement with the foster program.

"(Foster parents) need to be totally dedicated to the kids," Newsome said. "They are part of the family."

Newsome, who takes care of teenagers and children over 8 years old in addition to having raised four biological and two adopted children, said she and her husband took two of their foster children with them on their honeymoon to Disneyland.

Throughout her years of being a foster parent, Newsome says she's never had a bad experience, and when the children leave, she says, "I cry for weeks."

Many of the children in the foster program come from homes where they were physically abused or neglected. Older children, who may act out against their foster parents, are placed with specially trained foster parents.