Looking for a way to share your love for foster parenting?
Eager to help provide a realistic view of foster parenting to the community?
Want to be a part of the Foster Care and Adoption Recruitment Team?
If you love talking to others about why foster parenting is the hardest job you’ll ever love, then becoming a foster care ambassador is a great opportunity for you!
Patricia Aviles-Cubillos, agency foster care recruiter, explained, “We only have three foster care ambassadors supporting Fairfax County Foster Care now. As we are coming out of COVID and moving back to in-person events, we could use more people on the team.”
The three current ambassadors eagerly opened up about what their role is, why they enjoy it, and why they believe you should join them.
Marla Emmer became a foster care ambassador, because, as she said, “One of my favorite parts of training is hearing the experiences of real-life foster parents. It helps you to understand what it is really like.”
Emmer continued “I enjoy being an ambassador as a way to give back. It is rewarding to encourage the foster parents to connect with each other and build a rapport.”
Pre-COVID, and hopefully again soon, ambassadors will help conduct outreach at farmers’ markets, community events, schools, churches, and more.
As Emmer said, “Our impact is limited now, but the more volunteers who become ambassadors, the more events we can attend and the wider our message can spread.”
If this sounds like a lot, don’t worry. Sabrina Darden explained that the commitment is a “few hours a month for the month you signed on. It rotates. The team is awesome. I love working with them. I love the people, and I love to talk. I love to share what a great opportunity it is to give back to these kids. That makes it worth it.”
Foster and adoptive parent Randy Smith confirmed that “The commitment is as much or as little as you make of it.”
In addition to speaking at info meetings and attending public events, Smith has been a parent co-trainer for PRIDE Pre-Service Training for several years, which he loves. Smith feels that the role of an ambassador in the training is really important, because “there is an element of trust, that parents think we are being honest and telling them like it is.”
Smith nailed the challenges of foster parent recruitment, stating “A lot of folks don’t realize that the county needs foster parents, because they think that Fairfax is one of the richest counties in the country, and we don’t really have issues. But in reality there are a lot of kids who need homes, and we always need foster parents because there is turnover.”
Darden who is very passionate about foster care summed it up this way, “I became a foster parent over 30 years ago, because I didn’t have a lot growing up, and I didn’t want any kid to go through that. I advocate for DFS because they are supportive of the whole family not just the child. Recruit for the department and advocate for the children. That’s what I do!”
We would love for you to do that, too!
Learn more about becoming a foster parent ambassador by contacting Dr. Patricia Aviles-Cubillos by email or at 703-324-7919.
This article posting is part of the Foster Family News monthly newsletter designed to keep foster parents informed about all the new and notable happenings in Fairfax County.
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