CARBONDALE, IL (WSIL) -- May is Foster Parent Appreciation Month.
It's a time to celebrate those who welcome children who need a stable home. It's also a time when local groups shine a light on the need for more foster families.
"Once you become aware of the depth of the need it's really a hard problem to ignore," said Melissa Triplett, a foster parent and president of the Williamson County , a group aiming to change the culture of foster care.
Triplett and her husband first became foster parents back in 2019.
"Foster parenting changes you, as a person," Triplett explains. "There's no way it can't."
The couple already has three biological children in their home but a desire to open their home to other children needing a home was something she couldn't deny.
"We just felt like we had the space in our lives to be able to help some other kids," said Triplett.
When they decided to be a foster family, Triplett says they didn't imagine where that journey would take them.
"We didn't plan on it being three right away, but that's our story and how it panned out," she said.
For the three children the Tripletts fostered, it ended up being a happy ending and the kids were adopted last fall by the Tripletts. But for too many kids, a happy-ever-after moment is hard to obtain.
"I think it's gotten worse," said Christine O'Dell. "There's more of a need for foster families."
Christine O'Dell and her husband founded the . They also own, . A Children's Resale Boutique at University Mall in Carbondale.
O'Dell explains the mission of the Foster Family Resource Center is to be a resource for those who are looking to be foster parents -- as well as aid those currently with foster kids.
"I don't know who is stepping up to help them," said O'Dell. "I know we're still helping several foster families through our resource center."
Right now the biggest need for kids in foster care are those four years old or older.
"Sometimes we think we are saving children from a bad environment and when we become trauma-informed and we really learn about these kids and their families," said Triplett. "I think we can shift our perspectives to loving them for where they've come from and even loving their birth families and wanting to support them."
The process to be a foster family can take anywhere from six to nine months to complete the process, and for every kid that finds a foster home, Triplet tells heartbreaking stories of kids waiting to be placed in a loving home.
"The need is so great that we’ve got kids sleeping in offices, sleeping in the DCFS offices because there’s no homes to take them and these kids have to sit in the DCFS case worker’s office listening to phone call after phone call after phone call and hearing no, no, no on the other end," said Triplett.
