Guelph is the new home to Satori, a therapeutic foster care agency that works with some of the provinces most vulnerable young people.
Licensed by the Ministry of Child and Youth Services, Satori will operate a small agency providing placements for children and youth ages five to 18.
They are currently in the middle of a large recruitment campaign. Satori also hopes to show the community that almost anybody can be a foster parent.
The majority of people still believe they need to be married, heterosexual and have their own home to be a foster parent.
Satori owners and operators Stephanie Goudie and Lori Warmington say this is not the case. Many agencies across the province, Satori included, invite couples and single applicants to become foster parents. Factors such as: income, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, home ownership and age are not considered.
Satori views their foster parents as professionals and recognize that it is a big job.
“Some people may balk at the concept of paying foster parents but we know fostering is not regular parenting… It’s a big job and a big responsibility,” say the women.
In some cases, Satori may also require at least one parent not hold a full time job outside the home as they need to be available to the kid(s) at all times.
“Taking care of kids, especially those with complex needs, is stressful and costly. We don’t want to add financial stressors on top of it. We pay a high per diem to our foster parents because we recognize the added costs of caring for others in your home and we want our foster families to have the finances to cover the costs of activities, hobbies, family outings, and day to day needs. If foster parents have a lot of out of pocket expenses it makes it harder to retain them. Foster Parents that don’t stick around mean more placement changes for these kids. And more placement changes are the last things these kid’s need. It’s also important to us that our foster families know that we value their skills, support and hard work”
To ensure they recruit parents who have the right motivation, Satori uses a very thorough home study process. The home study program, SAFE, is also used by publically funded agencies such as the Children’s Aid Society and Family and Children’s Services. At this time, Satori can approve foster families in about eight to 12 weeks.
When they are not recruiting new foster families, they are focusing their efforts on changing the perceptions of foster kids.
They are kids, and they have potential. They just need caring adults in their lives to empower them, encourage them and give them a chance. At Satori, the belief is that when the stage is set for these kids to do good things, they will do good things.
