Friday, January 07, 2000
County advertises for foster parents
BY DAN KLEPAL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The singer croons as a close-up of a crying infant pans out to a scene of desolation:
An overflowing garbage can stands next to the baby, who squirms on a bare mattress lying on the floor. A single light bulb casts harsh light in the room. Torn sheets cover the window.
This terrible scene is resolved 60 seconds later, when the television commercial shows the infant smiling in the arms of a new foster mother.
The TV spot is part of a $1.3 million advertising campaign, to be launched Monday, that is meant sell people on the idea of becoming foster parents in Hamilton County.
In addition to three commercials, the county has billboard and newspaper advertisements that will run throughout the year.
It's a million-dollar gamble, says Hamilton County Human Services Director Don Thomas. But with more than 100 children in the county needing foster homes, something radical had to be done, he said.
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FOR INFORMATION
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• For information on how to become a foster parent, call 632-6366. The county will send a package of information to interested parties. A training period of about six months is required before certification can be obtained.
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“You can either fail by doing nothing at all or fail by trying,” Mr. Thomas said. “I'd far rather put forth our best effort and see if we can do something meaningful for kids.
“There is some risk inherent, but it's more of a gamble for us not to try it.”
The shortage of foster homes is a nationwide crisis, and one that is growing.
Officials at the Child Welfare League of America say nationwide there are 546,000 children in need of foster families but only 150,000 foster homes are available.
“There isn't a jurisdiction in the country that has the number of foster homes they need,” said Kathy Barbell, director of foster care for the CWLA.
“Many states have done advertising on some level,” she said. “We've found that for it to be effective, you have to get the message to the public over and over and over again. Most people hear the messages 19 or 20 times before they pick up the phone and call.”
In Hamilton County, the foster home shortage means children are sent outside of the area to “network homes,” which cost about $90 per day.
It costs about $25 per day to keep children in the county's system of foster homes.
Department of Human Services spokeswoman Mindy Good said the goal is to get 100 new foster families into the program. That would save about $2.3 million of taxpayer money every year.
The television ads will be broadcast on all four network affiliates, during programs such as Rosie O'Donnell, 7th Heaven and prime-time news.
Most of the newspaper ads will be in Sunday editions.
Elizabeth and Chris Bolls of Forest Park are featured in separate billboard ads. In one, Elizabeth Bolls is seen holding her 4-month-old biological daughter, Christyana.
Ms. Bolls said foster parenting has become a family tradition. Her sister is a foster parent, and they learned about foster parenting from their mother, Carolyn Moore, who has taken in more than 800 foster children since 1967.
Ms. Bolls would like to see Christyana take up foster parenting someday. “I hope that when Christyana grows up, she is in a position to make a difference.”
Ms. Moore said she thinks the advertising will help draw people into the system.
“When I became a foster parent, they didn't have anything like that,” Ms. Moore said. “Now I know it is my role in life. But when I started out, I did it for selfish reasons — because I didn't want my daughter to be alone.
“It turned out to be my calling, but I didn't know that at the moment.”
Still, some critics wonder if selling people on an idea of becoming foster parents should be packaged with pretty pictures and sentimental music, then thrown all over the media.
Mr. Thomas says there is a lengthy certification program that will weed out people whose hearts aren't really in it.
“We want to convince people to try something they hadn't thought about before,” Mr. Thomas said. “The training process will separate people who are really interested from those who thought they were.
“And maybe there are other things those people can do short of becoming foster parents.”
Ms. Barbell agreed, but said the advertisements should be careful to sell the fulfillment foster parents get, rather than the idea of saving lost children.
“The most effective campaigns show what foster parents get out of it,” she said. “You have to get people to take that first step, so it's OK to tug on their heartstrings.
“But they've got to be doing it for the right reasons.”
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