Carson City June 20, 2022
The Nevada Division of Child and Family Services is partnering with NyE Communities Coalition to host a Foster Care Panel, June 25, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Coalition’s Pahrump location, 1020 E. Wilson Road.
The panel discussion is free, open to the public, and will include a question-and-answer session featuring foster parents, social workers, and department officials. No commitment is required but families can learn about the many ways to help foster children in rural Nevada through fostering, volunteering, or organizing service projects.
Foster parents can be single or married, work full or part time, and rent or own their own home. Foster parents also receive a stipend to help with food, housing, clothing, and educational supplies.
June is National Reunification Month, a time celebrating foster children’s return to their families and an opportunity to highlight the need for more foster families throughout the state.
“Foster families provide a safe and temporary home to children whose parents or caregivers may be struggling. They help keep children in their own community, close to their friends, adults they know and in the schools they’ve been attending,” said Shelby Riley LSW, rural foster care recruiter for Division of Child and Family Services. “All of these factors lend a sense of normalcy and stability. Parent visits and reunification are easier when children can enter foster care in their home communities.”
Foster care training is entirely online and starts July 12. The 20-hour training program, video conferenced over Microsoft Teams, includes instruction, discussion, small-group exercises, films and presentations by current foster parents, grown-up former foster youth, birth parents and family court judges.
About 400 children are in foster care in rural Nevada. The highest percentage (64%) of children were removed for neglect — inadequate supervision and shelter, medical neglect, and failure to protect from harm. Neglect can occur because of poverty, parental substance abuse or incarceration, domestic violence, and mental health troubles.
Most of the children in rural Nevada foster care will spend about 14 weeks with their foster families before reunifying with their first families. About 57% of children entering Nevada foster care reunite with their family.
Pahrump illustrates the dire need for more rural Nevada foster families. Currently, Pahrump has seven family foster homes licensed to take children into care; six are full or on hold.
Visit www.RuralNVFosterCare.com or call 888-423-2659 to learn more about Division of Child and Family Services and upcoming foster training sessions.