Newly-formed Orem family touts need for more Latino foster parents

OREM — Gerardo Rodiles was the youngest of eight children. His wife, Sandra, was the eldest of three. They have strong ties to families and they have very much wanted one of their own.

In one fell swoop, on their very first placement as foster parents, two boys and a girl entered their lives.

It was life-changing for all of them, Gerardo Rodiles said. By the time the children entered their care, their parents had relinquished their rights to them. They had been in two other foster care placements. Jordan, 10, Ashley, 5, and Eddie, 3, were available for adoption and the Rodiles felt they were prepared to be their parents.

"We were finally able to adopt three wonderful children," Gerardo Rodiles said. The Utah Foster Care Foundation provided them with the training and support they needed to "become a family of five."

The Rodiles are somewhat of a rarity in the Utah foster care system. Statewide, just 6 percent of the available pool of foster parents are Latino. Meanwhile, 24 percent of children in foster care are of Latino or Hispanic origin, according to the Utah Division of Child and Family Services. 

The Utah Foster Care Foundation wants to encourage more Latinos to consider becoming foster parents so that children can be placed in homes that help them maintain their cultural identities. Later this month, the foundation will host two "Ask a Latino/Hispanic Foster Parent" nights on Oct. 12 in Ogden and Oct. 17 in Midvale to provide more information about becoming foster parents. 

Christina LeCluyse, foster parent recruiter and trainer for the Utah Foster Care Foundation, said placing foster children with foster parents of like ethnic backgrounds can help the children better cope with the significant life changes they experience when they are removed from their birth homes and placed in the foster care system. It is helpful when parents and children speak the same language, when foster families prepare foods children are familiar with or observe similar traditions.

Gerardo Rodiles agrees.

"For them, it's very important to get acquainted with their backgrounds, what they could accomplish in life, what their parents could give them — what it is to be Latino or to be part of a family of a similar background," he said.

The Rodiles children, for instance, do not speak Spanish. But their parents are teaching them. "And they can learn it very easily," Gerardo Rodiles said. "We're working on that."