The different ways you can help foster children
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) —May is National Foster Care Awareness Month, which has local organizations doing what they can to stress the importance of foster parents.
More than 1,200 children are in foster care in South Dakota each year.
'These are kids that are dealing with circumstances that are well beyond their control. And in order to have a healthy community, a strong community, it's important. It's critical to make sure that those kids have the same opportunities that everybody else does,' Executive Director, The Foster Network, David Moody said.
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Becoming a foster parent is one of the most obvious ways to help. Without foster families, children don't have many options.
'They can go to shelters. And so there are a few youth shelters here in the state. And so those youth are homeless. They stay in DSS offices, with caseworkers. Not always is it their own caseworker, so it could just be somebody that they don't know in a DSS office and then hotels,' Children's Home Society, Community Health Worker Team Lead, Jenica Woods said.
Children's Home Society offers Therapeutic Foster Care services for foster children and their foster families.
'So we provide 24/7 support to the child and to the family. And then, we provide therapeutic services. So the therapy is in-house. That's individual and family therapy,' Woods said.
If you can't become a foster family, at The Foster Network, there are also volunteer opportunities. One thing volunteers help with is 'The Closet', but there are also other ways to help out.
'So, depending on what their interest is, they can absolutely contact us, find out what meets with their schedule, with their expectations, what's meaningful to them. And we will provide those opportunities if they want to assist here,' Moody said.
It's a way to help some of South Dakota's most vulnerable children by giving them the stability and safety that they need.
'Because they are just kids that are in a system no fault of their own,' Woods said.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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