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Winter Garden nonprofit looking for families to help migrant children fleeing violence

Orlando Sentinel - 7/2/2019

Jul. 2--While thousands of Americans have decried conditions for migrant children at the nation's southern border, one young Orlando mother decided to do something about it.

She and her husband are now serving as foster parents for what the federal government calls "unaccompanied alien children" -- minors detained after trying to cross the border, either on their own or with someone besides their parents. Some of them are victims of human trafficking; others make the trek to escape violence in their homeland.

"Just seeing the lines of people walking toward the border, and the desperation in their faces, especially the children ... my husband and I felt we had to do something," the Orlando woman said.

It turns out the government needs more people like her.

The woman -- who cannot be publicly identified under federal guidelines -- is one of only a handful of families in Central Florida who have enlisted to help through the global humanitarian nonprofit Bethany Christian Services, which has an office in Winter Garden. Bethany is the lone Orlando-area social-service agency partnering with the Office of Refugee Resettlement, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to offer the kids a temporary home while they await placement with a U.S. sponsor, typically a relative.

In recent years, escalating violence in Central America has dramatically increased the number of cases. Last year alone, the Office of Refugee Resettlement processed over 49,000 unaccompanied children. Their average foster stay is one to two months.

Despite the national picture, though, there have been just 14 children placed in Central Florida homes since January, when the program launched here. But Bethany is hoping to recruit at least two dozen more foster homes initially and eventually many more.

It's not a small ask. Prospective foster parents have to enroll in training, undergo background checks and become licensed. Many of the children they will care for have been abused. Nearly all have been traumatized.

"We're doing a lot of trauma-informed care," said Laurie Stern, Bethany's executive director for Florida. "There's going to be some anger and confusion. It's wrapping your arms around that child and letting them know they're safe."

Bethany has a team of experts to aid both the children and the foster parents, and there is a small stipend for the care. While it's helpful for foster families to speak Spanish, it's not a requirement.

For the Orlando mom and her husband, who both work and who have two children of their own under age 6, the experience has been both sobering and deeply rewarding.

"My husband and I had both imagined that the kids would come to us crying ... and we would just be able to cuddle and comfort them," she said. "But to be honest, they have just come out of a very traumatic experience. They don't know us, they don't know what to expect, and at least with the young kids we've had, they don't know how to process these emotions and what just happened to them at the detention centers. And we're the only ones here, so it comes out at us."

But as someone who lived in Central America for five years, this particular mom has both the language skills to communicate and the world experience to understand what the children have endured. Witnessing the transformation in the four children who have stayed with her family so far -- from age 6 to teenagers -- has made the challenge more than worthwhile, she said.

"Today I was at the park with one of the kids, and this was the first time he had been on a swing," she said. "This was a child who had been in a detention center only a few weeks ago, and it was just so amazing to see him laughing, without a care in the world. It was the best feeling ever to know that we had been a part of the journey."

You can find more information on the program at bethany.org/help-a-child/foster-care/transitional-foster-care or by calling (407) 877-4006.

ksantich@orlandosentinel.com

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