Stories Underline Foster Care Need With Many Spokane Kids Waiting For Homes, Agency Asks, ‘Got Room For One More?’

After their own two children grew up, Michael and Brenda Kane had the time and freedom to do whatever they wanted. Everyone asked the 40-something couple why they would take in foster kids.

“You know, they had a need,” Michael Kane said. “And we were in a position in our lives to help. We had the space and the energy.”

It ended up giving his life new meaning, Kane said.

The Kanes and several others shared stories about either giving or receiving foster parent care during a panel discussion Friday called “Got Room For One More?”

The event was sponsored by the Spokane Division of the Department of Child and Family Services and Child Placement Services.

The point was to show the positive side of foster parenting, said Valerie Marshall, a foster parent recruiter who organized the event.

Spokane currently has about half the foster homes necessary to meet the demand, Marshall said.

From 40 to 90 foster care placements take place each month, said Laurie Palmquist, a worker with Child and Family Services.

There are 390 foster homes in Spokane. From 90 to 100 provide short-term, regular care. The majority are full most of the time, Palmquist said.

Last year, only seven new foster homes were added in the county. A total of 99 foster care licenses were given in 1999 in Spokane County, but 92 homes were closed, Palmquist said.

The situation is critical, Marshall said.

The panel members explained how being a foster parent was difficult, but also rewarding in unexpected ways.

Randy Shaw, news anchor for KHQ-Channel 6, moderated the panel and explained that he has three teenage foster children.

“We have crises every day,” Shaw said. Everyone laughed. But he said he can see improvements all the time.

He insists they all dine together at the dinner table every night, he said. Giving that structure and routine sometimes makes all the difference, he said.

District 81 worker Francine Felice was 12 when her mother died. She became an angry child who didn’t listen to anyone, she said.

“I just started running away,” Felice said. “I visited almost every girls home in Spokane.”

When she demanded emancipation at 16, moved into her own place and got pregnant, her foster family found her and helped support her.

Foster parents are lifesavers, she said.

“Without them, some of us would not be where we are today.”

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MORE INFO

The Spokane Foster Care Recruitment Line can be reached at 1-800-558-3040.