Utah Foster Care celebrates 10th anniversary

MURRAY — Before Ricky Ballesteros stood to speak to the room of well-wishers and TV cameras at the Utah Foster Care Foundation offices Wednesday, he said he couldn't help but think of all the other places he might have been — none of them good.

"Mostly, I'm just grateful to be in this place," Ballesteros said, noting his gratitude to his foster parents, Rachel and Don Wilson, who gave him and his brother, Eddie, a place to call home and the personal space to prepare for a future they deserved, not one denied because of childhood abuse.

"My grades were bad enough I wasn't going to graduate when I got there," he said. "Once we figured out that we weren't just on an extended sleepover, we decided we might as well make the best of it."

Not only did he graduate from high school, he said, the world he feared as a child taken into state custody because of abuse at home now has a welcome mat. He's planning an LDS Church mission, and before that, a stint in the National Guard.

"I don't know what I'd be or what I'd be doing if we hadn't had our foster folks," he said, noting that any families thinking about taking in a foster teen "should know that things will work out in the long run. It might not feel like it sometimes, but we have been blessed and so will the families."

The brothers are among the lucky teens in state foster care who found a permanent placement and a life-long relationship with, as Eddie put it, "that person you can call who will help you so you won't turn to things that aren't good for you."

Of Utah's 2,600 plus children who are in foster care on any given day, more than 1,100 are 14 or older. Between 300 and 400 aren't in a family setting, and between 200 and 300 will turn 18 or age out of the system without finding a permanent placement.

"You can see the difference it makes," said Duane Betournay, a former caseworker who is now director of the state Division of Child and Family Services. He and the foundation staff were in a celebratory mood Wednesday as they gathered to mark the 10th anniversary of the agency that recruits, trains and retrains Utah foster care families.

That work was turned over to the foundation in part as a response to a class action lawsuit accusing Utah of not keeping children in state custody safe.

"The foundation was just a bold new experiment back then," Betournay said, adding that he has nothing but praise for foster families and the foundation.

Maryanne McFarland, a foster mom in Centerville, has had 30 foster teens over the past seven years, all girls.