Fostering with pride: Agency trains LGBTQ adults to foster Tennessee children
“All the kids who come into our house have left an impact on us.”
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) - When the annual Nashville Pride festival opens at Bicentennial Capitol Mall on June 22, 150,000 attendees will be greeted by a group of people hoping to encourage them to become foster parents.
“There’s a huge need,” says Michelle Samples, a foster care specialist with the Tennessee agency Youth Villages, which sets up a booth at Nashville Pride each year.
In 2020, Clarksville couple Travis and Michael VanZant approached the booth. They decided six years earlier to become parents but had never found the right opportunity. This weekend marks four years since that conversation under a tent at the Pride festival.
“We discussed kind of our options of the different agencies out there and what exactly we wanted to do,” says Travis VanZant. “We felt we could better relate to the kids who came through our home because we’ve been through experiences.”
Since then, the couple has fostered twenty children in their home and adopted three. Three of their fosters have gone on to graduate high school, two have gone to college, and one has graduated college and begun a career.
Brothers Andrew and Lucas, ages 10 and 9 respectively, started as fosters in the VanZant home in 2021. The brothers were with them for 434 days as foster children before they were officially adopted by the couple on March 25, 2022.
MORE: Nashville couple fosters ‘medically complex’ children
Part of the couple’s success is in the care they take to make the house feel like home for each new placement.
“I’m a stay-at-home dad, so I like to make the spaces that they live in, theirs,” says Michael, who enjoys taking on building projects to turn the child’s space into a place that feels special.
“Sometimes I get backlash [saying] ‘they need a mother figure, they need a father figure, they need this, they need that,’” says Travis. “No, they don’t. They need love [and] structure. That’s all they need.”
AGENCIES AND TRAINING
Youth Villages is one of 22 approved foster care agencies in Tennessee, which are all considered ‘therapeutic agencies,’ according to the TN Department of Children’s Services (DCS). Eleven of the agencies serve Middle Tennessee.
Each agency will lead prospective parents through the state’s training portal, known as Tennessee Key. According to TN DCS, there is an online orientation which then includes four class modules that are about 2.5 hours in length. Part of the training includes a CPR certification class and a medication class.
After the online portion, the state requires prospective parents to go through a home study that requires three contacts with the family. Two are home visits and the other contact can be virtual. The home visit timeframe can vary in length depending on the amount of family members and information to gather.
Many of the 22 partner agencies require additional training. For example, Youth Villages provides an additional 15 hours of training to parents so they are more prepared to handle the trauma a child has experienced.
MORE: State requirements to become a foster parent
“When a child is first placed, we visit 1 to 3 times a week depending on the needs of the child who’s been placed,” says Samples who is assigned to families and performs the necessary therapy for the children and their foster parents. Her role is to support the parents and help them best advocate for the children.
THE NEED IN TENNESSEE
As of May 31, 2024, there are currently 6,264 children housed in foster homes in Tennessee. According to DCS, there are still 170 children in state custody with no home to go to. This problem led to shocking images released in December 2022 showing unhoused children making beds under desks in DCS offices. Other images showed office refrigerators filled with junk as the only access to food.
“We especially need foster homes in the rural areas,” explains Samples. “When kids come into custody, we have to place them in homes that are available, and sometimes that means that the children are placed several hours away from where they’re coming from and they have to move schools, they have to make friends and all of that is more trauma added on to what the child has already experienced.”
Tennessee has a list of requirements for a person to become a foster parent. You must be at least 21 years old and be a resident of the state. You must have space in your home for at least one child and be able to show you can financially support a child without the state stipend. You must be able to show you can care for the emotional needs of a child.
Some agencies have more requirements as qualifications for the parents and children they serve.
“All the kids who come into our house have left an impact on us,” says Michael.
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