A Safe Place to Call “Home”

Linda Wilson
Nov 4 · 8 min read

Washington State’s foster care system is in crisis. An overwhelming 10,000 children are in the state’s care as of August 2018, taken from their homes because of suspected abuse or neglect. And yet, there aren’t enough social workers to look after their cases. More importantly, there aren’t enough foster homes where these kids can lay their heads and feel safe.

As a result, a great number of these children spend their nights couch-surfing in child welfare offices. Otherwise, they’re checked into local hotels where they’re supervised by an attending social worker. As of August 2019, fostered youth have spent an average of 1,500 nights in hotels or in offices. Not only does this cost Washington taxpayers millions of dollars, it also causes a great deal of emotional instability in these children.

For Megan Malinoski, program director of Holt International’s Foster Care and Adoption Program in Washington State, it’s her job to find the kids that come her way a safe place to call home. But it’s become more than just a job. It’s become Megan’s personal mission to fight for these vulnerable kids so they can have homes to stay in for as long as they need them. More importantly, Megan is on a quest to find foster families who can meet a variety of needs, so she can put more kids in more homes.

The lack of foster homes keeps fostered youth in a vulnerable state of instability

Megan has spent most of the past ten years working in child welfare, both in foster care and in adoption. Her experience is marked by working with expectant mothers considering adoption, as well as with parents choosing to adopt. She has worked internationally as well, giving her time to orphanages in impoverished countries, as well as consulting with foreign governments on child welfare matters.

More recently, however, Megan worked for the Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) supervising social workers and many cases in Washington State’s foster care system. That particular experience opened her eyes to the plight of foster children in the state. She continues to address their issues now that she’s part of Holt.

“Every day that I’m at work, I receive multiple requests from the state to find homes for the kids who are in immediate need of placement,” Megan shared. “Usually that’s about 50 to 60 children. And most days I have to respond that I don’t have a home available for any of them.”

Megan said it’s always because the licensed foster homes that Holt works with are often full with other children. Additionally, the vast majority of these families are working towards adoption.

“We absolutely need families to adopt children from the foster care system,” Megan assures, “including sibling groups and older youth.”

The purpose of all foster care, however, is to reunite children with their biological parents whenever possible. Given the clear need for families to welcome children into their home, whether their permanency plan includes reunification, placement with other relatives, or adoption, Holt has chosen to expand its search for families.

Megan further clarifies regarding the need for foster parents, “I want to say to families that this really isn’t about you and your potential heartbreak.”

“When you say no to a child because reunification is a possibility, what I’m hearing you say is the possible heartbreak I will suffer is of greater importance than the reality that this child will continue to bounce through the system with no stability.”

Megan deems this lack of stability to be more harmful to foster kids than anything else.

“Imagine that you’re a child of any age,” she said. “You don’t know from one night to the next where you’re going to lay your head. You don’t know if or when you’ll be changing schools or communities, whether you’re still going to be near your friends and family. But you’re still expected to do well in school, to maintain good grades, to attend your extracurricular activities.”

She added, “And you’re a child who’s not really been taught healthy coping skills to express your frustrations and your sadness. So, you’re just not going to perform at your best. You’re going to default to fight, flight or freeze.”

Megan stated that every time a foster child exhibits challenging behaviors, it’s often documented in their file. Potential fostering families will read some of this information when they consider their ability to parent a particular child. Thus, children are being judged based on their worst days. The rejection that the child faces from potential foster families only adds to their instability and makes them even more vulnerable.

Megan states, “at Holt, our staff works very diligently as we prepare families to consider not only the behavior, but the motivations behind that behavior. When we do that, then we see each child in an entirely new light, understanding that they are responding to an unstable environment and a history of trauma. At Holt we’re looking for the type of parents who are willing to consider the strengths of a child, as well as their history, to identify how to approach parenting children in a trauma-informed manner.

Holt International works to put foster kids in safe and stable homes

Like other private, not-for-profit agencies assisting the state with foster care, Holt International actively recruits families that can welcome children in need. Megan, however, identified a number of factors that differentiate Holt from other similar agencies.

One of these factors is that Holt goes beyond the minimum standards when assessing potential foster families. Holt exerts more care in making sure that the foster families with whom we work are truly capable of providing the care needed by children from hard places.

Another factor is the level of support that Holt provides to families. Where Washington State only requires quarterly visits, Holt staff visit monthly, sometimes even weekly depending on the fostered child’s needs.

Holt additionally talks about adoption more transparently. If a family is seeking only to adopt, Holt steers the family towards sibling groups and youth who are legally free for adoption, with the understanding that no placement is without risk that a child could be placed with biological relatives. But Holt also encourages families to flip the story, inspiring families to begin to view this journey through the eyes of a child, who needs someone to commit to them for as long as needed. Sometimes, that is forever. Most often, though, it is temporary.

Most importantly, Holt prepares foster families with unique skills and perspectives in order to care for children from hard places. According to Megan, Holt trains its families from a trauma-informed perspective and to incorporate the latest research regarding brain development, attachment styles, and positive discipline techniques. Holt currently holds an eight-hour training curriculum held in person at its office, though Megan and her team want to expand the curriculum further to 24 or even 36 hours.

Megan avows that Holt needs all the funding it can get to keep its foster care program running. Through continuous funding, Holt can provide better training for the foster families it recruits. It can also provide better support for these families once they start taking on kids.

However, Megan identifies a need much greater than funding — and that is the need for more foster families. “We can’t serve more children without more families,” she said.

Megan also identifies a way to get more foster families working with them. And that’s by educating corporations on what’s happening in their community. She hopes that corporations would invest in their community by allowing their employees the flexibility to become foster parents, even give them incentives when they open their home to kids in need.

A safe home for all kids is possible

Even though the work ahead of her is challenging and there’s so much to do, Megan has seen success stories come to life through Holt’s foster care program.

One such story is that of a pair of siblings, four and five years old, who had been shuffled through the system ten times in six weeks before they came to Holt. The uncertainty of their situation caused the siblings to develop sleeping problems. It took them five hours to settle down and couldn’t sleep through the night. It was too much for the foster family handling them, so they kept moving around.

That’s until a Holt family took them in. The family understood these siblings’ needs and weren’t fazed by their sleep issues. The parents did everything right — by sleeping on the floor near the kids so someone would be there when they wake up, by calmly reassuring them whenever they screamed and threw tantrums.

These siblings participated in court-ordered visitation with their biological parents, who were offered services by the state in hopes of eventual reunification. Sometimes, their parents were able to participate in scheduled visits, but other times they were not. And, for these kids, visits that parents missed were particularly soul-crushing.

At one such instance, the children’s response was complete meltdown. The Holt worker supervising the visit felt she couldn’t take the kids back to daycare in such a state. She called their foster mother to inform her of the situation. The foster mother asked her to bring the kids home, where she’d be waiting.

When the social worker pulled up the driveway of the foster home, she found not just the mom but also the dad waiting for the siblings. At the sight of their caretakers, the kids bounded out of the car and into the parents’ arms.

A year later, the kids are now consistently sleeping through the night without any extra supports or medication. Though their biological parents continue to struggle, and often miss scheduled visits, these siblings are learning to trust adults in their lives. Their foster parents have taught them how to express emotions in healthy ways and are helping them remain connected with their family of origin while their plan for permanency begins to change, focusing increasingly on adoption.

“These parents just get it,” said Megan. “They have been consistently available for these kids, no matter their need. These siblings don’t just know they are safe, but they feel safe, which makes room for children to learn better methods for expressing their needs and their grief. If I could replicate this family multiple times, I would do so in a heartbeat.”

Holt International CSR

At Holt, we go to the hardest-to-reach and most under-resourced places to give orphaned, abandoned, abused and marginalized kids everything they need to reach their full potential in 14 countries. We are there for as long as it takes to create systemic, sustainable change.

Linda Wilson

Written by

Holt International CSR

At Holt, we go to the hardest-to-reach and most under-resourced places to give orphaned, abandoned, abused and marginalized kids everything they need to reach their full potential in 14 countries. We are there for as long as it takes to create systemic, sustainable change.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade