For 35 years John and Cathie Ridgeway have opened their home to children needing temporary care.
In fact, over the years the Mount Forest couple has housed 501 children ranging from 15 months to 17 years old – and they plan to continue.
Cathie said she doesn’t recall how she and John became foster parents, but, “I’m glad we did.”
“I enjoying helping and working with young children,” she explained.
The Ridgeways will be among several foster parents recognized on Oct. 20 at the annual Families To Permanence Appreciation Event in Ariss hosted by Family and Children Services of Guelph and Wellington County.
The event recognizes foster parents for all their efforts throughout the year in providing safe, nurturing and secure homes for children in need.
The Ridgeways started by offering a regular foster home, but after a few years they decided to become part of the Receiving Assessment Foster Treatment (RAFT) program, volunteering to take children on an emergency and as-needed basis.
“We would get calls in the middle of the night and it certainly made us a lot busier than taking regular (foster) children,” said Cathie.
Kirk Jenkins, a families to permanence worker, said a good foster parent requires care and compassion.
“Many foster parents hope to make a difference in the child’s life,” said Jenkins.
Cathie said fostering requires empathy towards the children that come through her doors.
“I think the greatest thing to do is to accept them,” she said.
“You can’t mould them into you’re own home because they only know what they’ve lived and experienced and they’re not familiar with regular bedtimes or whatever they had been doing and you just have to win them over and accept them the way they are.”
To get their house ready, John and Cathie set out toys and décor based on the age and gender of the child. She said she hopes to make their place comfortable for the incoming child.
The hardest part is letting them go, she said.
Cathie and John, along with their son Jamie, say they are honoured to be recognized by Family and Children Services.
John said by sharing their story they can inspire more people to become involved “because there’s a shortage of foster parents.”
Jenkins said Cathie and John have become advocates for the program.
“Cathie is very passionate about fostering; she’s always been available to take a child. She’s very child-centred,” he said.
Irene Bard of Harriston, who is being recognized for five years as a foster parent, has a pretty clear idea of what it takes to succeed in the role.
“You don’t need a big fancy home, you don’t need to be making a six-digit income,” Bard said. “You just have to be willing to open your home and take care of these children like they’re your own. That’s all you need to do.”
Bard joined the program shortly after moving to Harriston from Walkerton about seven years ago. Though she had long been interested in being a foster parent, single parents used to be excluded from the participating.
When Bard’s youngest son moved away from home, leaving her with an empty house, she looked into it again and discovered she was eligible. It’s a job, she discovered, that requires a unique outlook.
“It’s a job that you don’t want to have to do, because if there’s no kids (that need the service) then it’s a good thing,” she said. “It’s a job that you go into hoping you’re not needed.”
Bard however, has been needed on numerous occasions. She has cared for six different children over a five-year span, sometimes having two in her home at once.
Some stayed only three to four months; another stayed three years.
“It all depends on the circumstance for the child,” she explained.
While children coming into care are often troubled, that doesn’t mean they are trouble-makers.
“They’re really good kids that just need some direction … and someone to give them the feeling that there’s somebody there for them,” she said.
Bard says the most rewarding part of the job is seeing kids move on to permanent homes or out of the system, having made progress. However, she notes, progress isn’t always evident right away.
“My theory always was … no matter how many kids come. If they don’t get it, somewhere down the line a light’s going to turn on and they going to say, ‘Oh I remember Irene telling me that,’” said Bard.
“So if I help one child out of all the kids, out of all the years I do it, then it was worth the job, because you’ve saved one. And that’s really the goal, you’re just trying to redirect them.”
The flip side of the coin is, “You have a very small window of opportunity to teach the child, to catch them up on all the years … You don’t get them long enough to teach them everything they need to know to send them out into the world.”
The need for new foster parents is ongoing and Bard encourages anyone interested to consider all the implications.
“Think it through and make sure you have the support system around you with your family and friends … You have a lot of support from the CAS … But you really do need your family and friends to be part of it,” she said.
