Foster Parent Support

On each of our Facebook Live videos, we ask our guests a series of questions about how and why they got involved with foster care and why they chose to be involved with The CALL. When responding to the latter question, the most common answer we receive is centered around the support provided by our organization and the community that comes with it.

Because we are not a placement agency, we are not responsible for actually placing kids in homes. Instead, we specialize in training, supporting, and providing resources for foster homes in our community.

Ann Book and Brandy Shioyama recently went live on Facebook to talk more about how The CALL supports its foster families. Ann is the Northwest Arkansas County Coordinator at The CALL, and Brandy is our organization’s Program Coordinator. In her position, Brandy is responsible for almost all of our support directed towards our foster families.  

Our support begins the moment you start your 30 hours of training through The CALL. Before the pandemic, we met in person for our training, and while we are currently conducting these through Zoom, we hope to transition back to in-person training soon. Many trainees would begin building their support network and community during these classes. It provides an initial group of people to share your experiences with and grow together.  

Once your family receives a placement, Brandy continues to offer support by answering questions, calming concerns, and talking you through difficult situations you might encounter. Because of the way our organization is structured, Brandy can be more available for these types of inquiries than most caseworkers you’ll interact with through DHS.

It is very common for open families to need supplies, furnishings, clothing, and much more when they receive a new placement, and we can help with that at The CALL. We have a clothing closet that we keep stocked with seasonally appropriate clothing for your foster kids, and we can help provide furniture or other supplies through our widespread network of volunteers and donations.

While most of our support is available year-round, we like to provide our foster families with a special gift every May, which happens to be Foster Care Awareness Month. Brandy puts together gift bags for all 175 foster families we have in Washington, Benton, Madison, and Carroll counties. The bags typically include coupons for local restaurants, gift cards, makeup, snacks, jewelry, and any other goodies we can get our hands on.  

If you are interested in donating goodies for this year’s gift bags, please contact us today!