PALMDALE – Authorities are hoping to spread the word about the critical need for more loving foster and adoptive families in the Antelope Valley.
The Los Angeles County the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) will hold a foster and adoptive care workshop this Saturday entitled “Share Your Heart…Share Your Home.”
The workshop is scheduled from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, June 27, at Legacy Commons for Active Seniors, located at 930 East Avenue Q-9 in Palmdale.
The workshop is free, and lunch will be served. To RSVP, call 888-811-1121 or visit www.ShareYourHeartLA.org.
A panel of foster and adoptive parents as well as ex-foster youth will be on hand to discuss their experiences.
Representatives from the Palmdale School District, Antelope Valley College, Los Angeles County Fire Department, City of Palmdale, City of Lancaster, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich’s office will also be participating to help get the word out about the urgent need for foster and adoptive families in the Antelope Valley and how people can become a foster or adoptive parent for abused and neglected children.
“It all started with a small meeting with the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and Antelope Valley Community partners who saw the critical need for more loving foster and adoptive families,” stated Palmdale’s Community Programs Supervisor Trish Jones. “The Antelope Valley is a tight-knit community and it’s been wonderful to see how everyone cares about finding families for children in the Valley.”
DCFS currently receives more than 10,000 reports of suspected child abuse and neglect each month. After social workers investigate, it is often necessary to remove children to keep them safe. Whenever possible, they are placed with relatives, but when there is no family, there needs to be safe and loving foster homes for these children. More than 500 children in Los Angeles County are waiting for a caring adoptive family that can provide much needed love and stability.
For more information, contact Neil Zanville at 213-351-5886, or Sari Grant at 818-642-8897.
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LaLa says
You share your heart, your home, offer guidance and security and those little ungrateful kids turn on you and fight you every step of the way… The county doesn’t support the foster parents, the ones doing the Real Work. The system is designed to fail the good hearted foster parents and the foster children.
JOn doe says
Being a foster parent is very rewarding but you have to be careful to know who is you’re fostering because if the family or the kid does not like you. they will make false allegations until your reputation is ruined and you are black listed.
claudia Richmond says
I was a foster parent for over 10 years, I’m happy to spread the word,
#1 – DCFS treats foster parents like trash, criminals.
#2 -once you get a placement, is not the kids that are the problem, it’s all the adults around them that will give you hell, that includes( DCFS case worker, placement agency worker, therapist, birth parents and family members)
#3 DCFS social workers are a piece of work
#4- warning, if you choose any of the agency’s here in the AV their all in it for the money.
Experienced says
Why should anyone help you steal more children and then treat foster parents as if they are dirt or have committed a crime? Jeanne Cates of Inner Circle is a real piece of work. We saw her abuse both foster parents and bio parents on her caseload, telling them (the foster parents) that they had no rights.
korina says
there is a lot of people that don’t do this by heart they only do it for the money I have seen so many sad cases with these people who foster kids. they are fake.
Annon says
so so true korina, but when a person like me does it from the heart as i did and get screwed over by DCFS and betrayed by two boys with no repercussions to them, to hell with the system and truly caring for those foster kids vulnerable in need. I now am helping a young man from the streets who has been living with me for over two months, and he is just a perfect match for my household. Watching his transformation is truly a blessing. He has a job, a car now and is so respectful. I would NEVER trade him for a foster boy…. and all i did was just open my door as i did for those two disrespectful foster boys i use to have. (you can keep them DCFS). Its more rewarding this way.
Annon says
I use to do foster care. Until a few of the kids betrayed me. Then DCFS played the wild card, of politics. What a joke it was. And i wasn’t doing it for the money, i was doing from my heart. But to be screwed the way i was, especially by DCFS Rebecca Kintenara, what a joke that place is. So is Penny Lane.
THINK GOOD AND TWICE BEFORE YOU DO IT….. FAIR WARNING.