April 1, 2025 • 28 mins
Every foster parent knows that fostering comes with challenges you’re not always equipped for. Jill Ayers and Foster ICT can help. Jill is a Foster Care specialist whose mission is to give every child hope and a future. Foster ICT is here to equip, empower, and provide resources for currently licensed foster parents, kinship placements, and adoptive families. She stops by the Wichita Weekend studios to explain how healthy parents and homes provide healthy and lasting relationships in caring for foster children! www.fosterict.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is the Wichita Weekend Podcast from iHeartRadio Stations ninety
seven point nine, B, ninety eight one, O two one,
The Bowl, Channel nine six three, and All one oh
seven three. I'm your host, Don Guidis, Thanks for joining us.
Our guest today is Jill Airs from Foster ICT, a
very special group that does some invaluable work in our
(00:24):
community with foster parents. Jill, Welcome to Wichita Weekend Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
It's wonderful to have you here. You've been a good
friend of our show. We've had you in a few
times before, and I know you're doing great work in Wichita.
But for those of us, who of our listening audience
that have never heard of you before, why don't you
lay it out for us? How did Foster ICT come
to be in the first place.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Well, I was living in Omaha, Nebraska, and about seven
years ago I got a phone call from a friend
of mine here in Kansas and she said, Jill, any
idea what the foster system is like in the state.
And God said, right then, pay attention. Didn't know why,
just said, pay attention. I had no thought of moving,
(01:13):
I had no I thought of changing anything in my life,
but he just said pay attention. And she called me
back about three days later and she said, there were
one hundred and eleven kids on the list last night.
And what that meant was there were one hundred eleven
kids that didn't have a home for that night in Kansas,
and they were bouncing around the state living in different
(01:35):
homes offices. And something told me, well, God told me
you're going to Kansas. Didn't know why, didn't know what
that was going to look like, just knew that I
needed to come to Kansas and do whatever it was
that I could do, and everything kind of fell into place.
Ended up in Witch Talking, Kansas. About three months later.
(02:00):
I went to work for an agency and what I
did was recruit and train foster homes and loved doing that,
but I wanted to be able to work for all
foster kids and all foster homes and recruit good Christian
foster homes and help those foster homes find the right
agency to support them, different things like that. And while
(02:23):
I was working with the agency, I started working with
Nathan Paulus from Radiant Church.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
We know Nathan y Yes, he's.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Wonderful, his heart and his vision, his ministry their church
is all about foster care and we worked very closely.
When I left that agency, Nathan and I got to
talking and just decided to build a platform that would
(02:51):
recruit good Christian strong foster homes and we also wanted
to support the good homes that we had. So it
was about four years ago and we started out very small,
and we have over the last four years, we've been
able to support a lot of foster homes, a lot
(03:13):
of foster kids. We have a Christmas event each year
and this year we had about over fourteen hundred kids.
We had almost five hundred foster homes.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
That is bad.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
That Christmas event, it's wonderful. It's called Hope in a
Future Sure and it's at the Witchita Sports Forum and
all of the kids get gifts and we have many churches,
many businesses come together and put on this event. And
our goal is to have just one night that these
(03:49):
kids can really just speak kids, and we try very
hard to show them Jesus in many different ways for
one night and have wonderful churches come together and that's
what makes it happen. And businesses have a lot of
businesses come and have booths and interact with the kids
(04:09):
and do different things, but a large piece of what
we when we started was kind of focused on recruiting
and training foster homes. We realized very quickly that we
needed to really focus on retaining the homes that we had,
and we realized in the last four years we had,
(04:31):
last twenty five hundred foster homes had closed their doors
and that was largely because the lack of support. So
we kind of started focusing on retention and retaining the
homes that we have and supporting those homes. Also, we
realized that the bio parents, we really needed to figure
(04:52):
out how to bring bioparents into the churches, bring the
churches into the bioparents' life and support them to keep
the kids in the home or bring the kids back
in the home, kind to.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Bring that family together before the need for a foster
situation would even arise.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
R right, So had we've had some wonderful churches respond
and like, one of the things that we really would
like to do is every church to agree to sponsor
or sponsor to support the bio homes and foster homes
within a five mile radiance of their church and radius
(05:33):
of their church. Yeah, and we have been able to
kind of pin where the foster homes are, and so
we're trying to get into the churches to get them
the information about where these homes are, and you know,
just figuring out how to connect the churches and the
homes so that they can support these families.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
I don't know exactly how to phrase this question, so
let's just try something here and see how it works out.
There's no one perfect blueprint of a perfect foster parent,
is there. I mean, there's all kinds of different people
make great foster.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Parents, correct, absolutely, and you know, not everyone's called to
be a foster parent. Absolutely, we understand that. I believe
that everyone is called to do something for the widows
and orphans, and so part of what we are trying
to get the information we're trying to get out there
is you know, when you hear foster care, it's not
(06:36):
just being a foster parenthre there are so many things
you can do if you can't be a foster parent,
which you know, a lot of times people think I
can't be a foster parent because I'm single, or I
can't be a foster parent because I live in an apartment,
or and I always say, you know, if you have
the heart to be a foster parent, and you can
(06:58):
pass the background, you can probably be a foster parent.
You know, we have single foster parents, we have people
who who live on Social Security are foster parents. I
mean that all different people can be foster parents. But
there's so many other ways you can support and help
foster kids and foster parents and bio parents without being
(07:22):
a foster parent.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Now, you do presentations at churches, right, you have a
presentation that you do, and we need to create some
awareness to get you some more invitations to come out
to these churches, because it's really a worthwhile presentation you've got.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
I've done many I've presented at many churches, and you know,
if we can get in the door, I think people
are genuinely usually surprised because people don't, like I said,
people hear foster care. They don't realize that there's a
whole bunch of pieces to that. And when I resent
at a church, you know, I've been a foster parent
(08:02):
for a very long time. I spent time in the
foster care system myself when when I was a juvenile,
but and being a foster parent for a very long
time and I've had over three hundred children in my home.
I just adopted my fifth daughter out of foster care.
I have six stories about five of them, yes, are
adopted out of foster care. So telling story. You know,
(08:27):
I have a lot of stories, and they're real stories,
and many of those stories are about our kids. Right
here in Sedgric County. There are kids, and people don't
realize what these kids are going through. How many of
them are out there that just need a home, just
needs somebody to love them, just need somebody to stay.
(08:50):
You know. They're bouncing home to home to home every
night there, you know. And when I go in and
I talk at a church, I tell stories, real stories,
and it moves hearts, it really does, and people realize,
these are our kids. This is really happening right here.
It's not statistics, it's not you know there, they're real
(09:13):
little faces right here, and they realize that there are things.
You know, might be an elderly lady that you know,
doesn't have anything to do all day and she's never thought,
you know, about what she could do to help a
foster child, and she, you know, realized that she could
(09:33):
she could pick this child up and bring them home
and bake a pie with them. She could go sit
with the teenager after school. So if foster parent can work,
she could. There's so many ways that people can help,
and and people realize that when I come in and speak,
and we always have a tremendous response from people afterwards
(09:55):
saying I had no idea. Tell me what I can do.
Tell me I want to get involved, you know, just
tell me what I can do.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
So this is Wichita Weekend podcast and we're visiting with
Jill Ayres from Foster's Ict. Foster Ict, like to get
that right, And the website is fosterict dot com. Correct, correct,
And that is where if anybody is interested in contacting
you to come make a presentation at their church or
(10:22):
to their organization. That's where they go, right. Yes, some
contact info.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yes, all of our contact info is on the website. Also,
we're all over Facebook. A lot of people just contact
me directly through my personal Facebook. There's a lot of
ways to contact us if they want to find us.
I'm my phone number is everywhere. My personal number. Just
(10:49):
reach out. You know, if they have a question, I say,
no question is stupid, you know, I know people have
I've had many people say to me, well, I've always
wanted to know this, but I didn't want to ask,
or you know, if they feel like they're going to
be judged by you know, asking a question. Well, what
if I don't want this kind of kid in my home?
(11:11):
What if I things like that? Don't be afraid to ask,
just ask, you know, yes, and there's probably nothing that
that we haven't already answered. And you know our website,
there's an SOS button on our website and that SOS
button is manned solely by season foster parents, and we
(11:34):
want any foster parent that has any issue, has any question,
has any problem, wants to talk anything. They that number,
that phone number when they go into that SOS button
is man twenty four to seven. And it seems like
for some reason, most of my calls are at two
o'clock in the morning. I don't know what it is
about two o'clock in the morning, but we want people
(11:58):
to or people wanting to be foster parents and you know,
have questions can also go through that line. Bioparents can
call that number. We're always always always going to answer
and if for some weird reason it doesn't get answered,
we will call you right back. But it's very helpful
(12:18):
for people, especially new foster parents. You know, sometimes they
may have a child out of control in the middle
of the night. They don't know what worker to call,
they don't know what to do, they can't get or
they can't get a response or whatever. They call that number,
and we will be there to walk them through that.
We will go in person if we need to. If
(12:41):
we don't have the answers, we will find who does.
And so we really want people to foster ict to
be a net for because, like I said, we don't
have all the answers. We don't have all we don't
know everything, but we will find who does.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
So excellent and keep that in mind. Fosterict dot com. Jill.
A question that just popped into my mind is when
you become a foster to a child, how long are
you signing up for? Are you going to be with
them through high school graduation? Or does every it is
(13:18):
a different situation every time. How does that work?
Speaker 2 (13:21):
It is different every time, and it's kind of you know,
there are different kinds of foster parents. You can if
you decide you want to open your home to a child,
you can be a full time foster parent. You can
be just you can get licensed to just do respite,
which is the kids that are bouncing around that don't
(13:41):
have a home. You can. They will call you and say, look,
we have so and so child that needs a home
for tonight. They'll tell you about the child. You can
decide if you if it'd be a good fit to
take into your home. You can get licensed just to
do respite for other foster parents. When foster parents need
a break, you can just take those kids. We have
(14:02):
non related kinship foster homes. If you are a nurse
or you're a school counselor or and you have a
relationship with a child and that child goes into care,
you can become a no unrelated kinship home, which just
eliminates you having to jump through some of the hoops
that other foster parents do, and it gets that child
(14:24):
into a home where they know they're not going into
a stranger's home and being removed from their community and
everything they know. And then of course we have the
relative kinship homes that other actual relatives and we always
try to place They always try to place kids with
relative homes before stranger homes. But when you decide that
(14:45):
you want to become a foster parent. Hopefully you reach
out Foster ICT. We'll sit down with you and we'll
talk about the different agencies. We'll talk walk you through
the trainings, what the trainings will look like. We do
tip SMAP training. I'm a tip Smap trainer and that's
the foster care training and so foster ICT we are
just getting ready to start our offering our tips map
(15:07):
training through us. But we'll get you. We'll walk you
through the training, what that will look like, will help
you pick an agency. There are many agencies. There are
wonderful agencies in Wichita and in Kansas, and you know
they're all all of them. Have you know some some
homes fit better with one agency then another. We want
(15:30):
to tell you about each agency and help you the
foster home pick what home would be best for them,
and I mean what agency would be best for them.
And so we we do that. But then we we
we support the foster home the home through the training process,
we support them when they get licensed. We do a
(15:52):
lot of different things like door drops. We we you know,
if we have a family that's going through a difficult time,
they can get nominated for a doordrop and we will
take things over there and leave them on their doorstep,
and people like that. So many many things that we do.
But one thing that people I get asked a lot is,
(16:14):
you know, if I become licensed to I have to
take whatever child they get me. Whatever child comes great
and absolutely not. You know, you can be very very
specific in what you feel like, will we'll fit in
your home? And if you there's a checklist that you
fill out has every behavior, every mental disorder, whether you
(16:37):
want male or female, what ages can be very very
specific and your worker, when you get licensed with an agency,
your worker is going to know that they don't have
all that information. So when a child comes in that
they think would be a good fit for your home,
they're going to call you so and you can always
say no. You know, if they do call you with
(16:59):
a with a child that they think is a good fit,
you know you can say no, I just don't feel comfortable.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
So yeah, having yourself having fostered three hundred, are you
still in touch with a lot of those young people?
And so you've got to see how your good efforts
early on in their life have paid off later in life.
I'm guessing so if you're in touch with some of
these folks as adults now.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
And some you know. I always tell people, you never know.
You could have a child in your home for two
hours and possibly say something or do something that will
change the trajectory of their lives, and you'll never know it.
But it happens. God knows. God puts these situations, puts
(17:50):
you in situations to make those those things happen. I
tell this story. Had I spent time, like I said,
in the foster care Sam Sure, I was younger, and
I was that youthful in Newton which is now ember Hope,
and wonderful place lived that place, but there was a
foster or a family teacher there, that house parent, and
(18:15):
her name was Geraldine, and I was I remember one
day I came bounding down the stairs and came around
the corner and Geraldine was standing there, and she came up,
a wonderful little German lady, and she put my face
in her hands and she looked at me and she said, oh,
little one, you're the one I want to see in
(18:36):
fifteen years. You're going to do good things. And she
never she just passed away recently, and she never had
any idea. How powerful that was, and it was so
powerful at that time. I needed that somebody saw something
in me, and it resonated it. But I still to
this day think about that. And you know, so many times,
(19:00):
you know, in hard times, her her words just read,
you know, why me? Why does she see in me?
And you know, so that's just a good example. She
never knew, never had any idea. But you can make
such an impact in these kids' lives and you may
never know it. And the biggest h I don't know,
(19:24):
I want to say victory. The thing that is the
most powerful for me, the most touching for me, is
when I have a child that was in my home
a long time ago and has now grown up and
they will call me at a difficult time in their life.
And you know, I had one little girl, she was ten,
She was with me for three years. Didn't feel like
(19:46):
I really connected with her too much. She she was
very guarded, she was a rough kid. But she three
years later went through a really difficult time. My phone
rang at one o'clock in the morning and it her
and so at one of the worst times of her life,
she reached out to me because she knew I was
(20:06):
a safe person. So those things, you know, that's that's
the you know, being a foster parent isn't always always joy,
it's not always rewarding, but the joy and the blessings
far outweigh the heartbreak.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
If you've got the heart, and if you've got the courage,
and if you would like to investigate and learn more
about becoming a foster, go to fosterict dot com. It's
that simple. Yes, get in touch with Jill Ayres, have
her come present to your church or your organization, learn
about it and learn how you can help. You know, Jill,
(20:47):
I'm thinking about when you got that first call and
you were in Omaha and they said the list is
what sixteen hundred I think you said, or there was
a waiting list.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
There were one hundred and eleven kids on the list
that night that didn't.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Oh, okay, one eleven. What's the status of that list? Now?
Are we seeing a decrease in that?
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Oh? No, there. You know, I had been a foster
parent in Omaha for sixteen years at that point, had
had several children in my home. But you know, in Nebraska,
we didn't have the kids bouncing around the state and home,
you know, night to night, and different homes in different towns.
(21:30):
And I think that's what when she said she had
told me that every day they all the agencies got
a list of the kids that didn't have a home.
For that night, those agencies went through their list of
foster homes and to see if there was a home
for that child for the night. If there wasn't, the
(21:50):
child sleeps in the office and wherever that is. And
so that particular night she called me and she said,
there are a hundred and eleven kids on this this
last night. Well, when I got here to Kansas, I
realized that's every night, and they you know, there are kids,
hundreds of kids all over this state bouncing that don't
(22:11):
have homes. Some of those kids had been bouncing for months.
I started taking some of those. I had nine children
placed in my home when I first got my license
here in Kansas, and six or three and under in diapers.
It was along here, but it was wonderful, wow. But
I was taking some of those kids that were bouncing,
(22:32):
and I got a little four year old boy showed
up at one o'clock in the morning and doorbell rang,
and I opened the door, and I said, asked the
driver I said, you know, he was supposed to be
here at seven. Why is he just getting here? And
he said, well, he's from Hayes and he's been in
the car with me dropping kids off in other counties
all night. This a four year old. He was from
(22:53):
Hayes and which tah was the closest home they could
find to take him for the night. I had another
eleven year old girl. The story has haunted me because
this eleven year old girl came and it was right
before school started, and she had been living out of
an office in another county for months. And I asked
(23:13):
the worker because I only took her for the weekend
because I was full, and I said, who's going to
buy her school supplies? In her backpack? Nervery I can
go do that school's going to you know, because she's
living in the office. And the worker looked at me
and she said, oh, Jill, you don't have to worry
about that. She can't go to school. She doesn't have
an address. She had been out of school for months.
(23:34):
I recently found out that that little girl never did
get a home. She's still bound, she's getting ready to
age out, she's still bouncing, so you know, there's almost
seven thousand kids in statecare in Kansas, we have less
than twenty four hundred foster homes. These kids are bouncing.
(23:54):
In Sedgwick County, we have about thirteen hundred kids in
state care and we have that five hundred and fifty
foster homes. And so, you know, the need for homes
is great. The need for people to support the good
homes and maintain those homes is huge.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Yeah, yeah, So please, if you're listening to our podcast
today and we've struck a chord with you and you
maybe would like to get in touch and see how
you can be a part of the effort to help
all these kids that need your help so desperately, please
go to fosterict dot com. Check out Jill Air's website
(24:35):
and see all the great things she's doing. And if
you are already a foster, get familiar with what's going
on with the website with the SOS button and make
full use of that because that's why it's there.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
We can give you ideas of other little things that
you could do for foster parents. We have some churches.
Crossroad Church is amazing and they recently had a rest
at Night for foster parents and so they had there
and we went in. I went in and did some
TBRI training ahead of time for the staff that we're
(25:11):
going to man that and so they felt prepared for
the kids that were coming and they, you know, on
a Friday evening, foster parents could just drop the kids
off there and go have some alone time for the evening.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Have a little break.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Little things like that are very powerful because you can't always,
you know, getting people to watch your foster kids, especially
if you have several like right now, I have seven
kids at my home. Getting someone to watch all the
kids at one time is very difficult and you don't
want to split them up all over town. So things
like that that churches can do, our individuals can do
(25:47):
is great.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
So get on the website. Fosterict dot com helped Jill
Ayres and the folks at foster ict get their mission accomplished,
and we thank you so much for being with us.
Anything you'd like to add about what's going on with
your efforts there here in Wichita.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
On mainly just like I said, we really want to
wrap around bio parents as well. And I know sometimes
people don't realize that many of the bioparents who have
children come into foster care. We're foster children themselves, and
they want and need the same things that the kids do,
and we can as adults come in and nurture that
(26:31):
and help them become most probably ninety ninety nine percent
of people parents want to be good parents and they
love their children. They just need a little help. And
you know, sometimes we have kids transitioning home from foster
care and those parents, you know, little things like getting
(26:51):
the kids enrolled in school can be really overwhelming and
huge things. We are looking for people like in the
churches to go in and take those parents by the
hand and walk them over that bridge and get those
kids home, keep the kids in the home, wrap services
around them, churches wrap around them and help keep those
kids in the home. So lots and lots of things
(27:13):
that people can do, and if they want ideas, absolutely
reach out to they can. They absolutely can reach out
through foster ict. They can reach out through my personal
Facebook page. They can call me, they can text me,
lots of ways to get a hold of me.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Just for those who may want to look you up
on Facebook, what's your personal page?
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Jill Airs, j I L L A y R E. S.
And I think I'm the only one with that spelling, okay,
And there will always be my my profile picture will
always have something to do with foster care.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
So it's easy to find well worth your while to
get in touch with Jill Airs. Let's just leave it
at that. Thank you so much for being with us
on which Stoe Weekend today.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Thank you so much. I really appreciate you that.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
We'll do what we can to get the word out
about fosterict dot com. And will you come back sometime
in the future.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
To absolutely we'll be back to talk about the Christmas event,
probably in November.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
There you go, Let's see if we can double that
last December's attendance, right yeah, all right, thanks again Jill.
We'll talk with you so.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
This has been the Wichita Weekend podcast produced by iHeartRadio
Wichita
This is the Wichita Weekend Podcast from iHeartRadio Stations ninety
seven point nine, B, ninety eight one, O two one,
The Bowl, Channel nine six three, and All one oh
seven three. I'm your host, Don Guidis, Thanks for joining us.
Our guest today is Jill Airs from Foster ICT, a
very special group that does some invaluable work in our
(00:24):
community with foster parents. Jill, Welcome to Wichita Weekend Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
It's wonderful to have you here. You've been a good
friend of our show. We've had you in a few
times before, and I know you're doing great work in Wichita.
But for those of us, who of our listening audience
that have never heard of you before, why don't you
lay it out for us? How did Foster ICT come
to be in the first place.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Well, I was living in Omaha, Nebraska, and about seven
years ago I got a phone call from a friend
of mine here in Kansas and she said, Jill, any
idea what the foster system is like in the state.
And God said, right then, pay attention. Didn't know why,
just said, pay attention. I had no thought of moving,
(01:13):
I had no I thought of changing anything in my life,
but he just said pay attention. And she called me
back about three days later and she said, there were
one hundred and eleven kids on the list last night.
And what that meant was there were one hundred eleven
kids that didn't have a home for that night in Kansas,
and they were bouncing around the state living in different
(01:35):
homes offices. And something told me, well, God told me
you're going to Kansas. Didn't know why, didn't know what
that was going to look like, just knew that I
needed to come to Kansas and do whatever it was
that I could do, and everything kind of fell into place.
Ended up in Witch Talking, Kansas. About three months later.
(02:00):
I went to work for an agency and what I
did was recruit and train foster homes and loved doing that,
but I wanted to be able to work for all
foster kids and all foster homes and recruit good Christian
foster homes and help those foster homes find the right
agency to support them, different things like that. And while
(02:23):
I was working with the agency, I started working with
Nathan Paulus from Radiant Church.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
We know Nathan y Yes, he's.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Wonderful, his heart and his vision, his ministry their church
is all about foster care and we worked very closely.
When I left that agency, Nathan and I got to
talking and just decided to build a platform that would
(02:51):
recruit good Christian strong foster homes and we also wanted
to support the good homes that we had. So it
was about four years ago and we started out very small,
and we have over the last four years, we've been
able to support a lot of foster homes, a lot
(03:13):
of foster kids. We have a Christmas event each year
and this year we had about over fourteen hundred kids.
We had almost five hundred foster homes.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
That is bad.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
That Christmas event, it's wonderful. It's called Hope in a
Future Sure and it's at the Witchita Sports Forum and
all of the kids get gifts and we have many churches,
many businesses come together and put on this event. And
our goal is to have just one night that these
(03:49):
kids can really just speak kids, and we try very
hard to show them Jesus in many different ways for
one night and have wonderful churches come together and that's
what makes it happen. And businesses have a lot of
businesses come and have booths and interact with the kids
(04:09):
and do different things, but a large piece of what
we when we started was kind of focused on recruiting
and training foster homes. We realized very quickly that we
needed to really focus on retaining the homes that we had,
and we realized in the last four years we had,
(04:31):
last twenty five hundred foster homes had closed their doors
and that was largely because the lack of support. So
we kind of started focusing on retention and retaining the
homes that we have and supporting those homes. Also, we
realized that the bio parents, we really needed to figure
(04:52):
out how to bring bioparents into the churches, bring the
churches into the bioparents' life and support them to keep
the kids in the home or bring the kids back
in the home, kind to.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Bring that family together before the need for a foster
situation would even arise.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
R right, So had we've had some wonderful churches respond
and like, one of the things that we really would
like to do is every church to agree to sponsor
or sponsor to support the bio homes and foster homes
within a five mile radiance of their church and radius
(05:33):
of their church. Yeah, and we have been able to
kind of pin where the foster homes are, and so
we're trying to get into the churches to get them
the information about where these homes are, and you know,
just figuring out how to connect the churches and the
homes so that they can support these families.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
I don't know exactly how to phrase this question, so
let's just try something here and see how it works out.
There's no one perfect blueprint of a perfect foster parent,
is there. I mean, there's all kinds of different people
make great foster.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Parents, correct, absolutely, and you know, not everyone's called to
be a foster parent. Absolutely, we understand that. I believe
that everyone is called to do something for the widows
and orphans, and so part of what we are trying
to get the information we're trying to get out there
is you know, when you hear foster care, it's not
(06:36):
just being a foster parenthre there are so many things
you can do if you can't be a foster parent,
which you know, a lot of times people think I
can't be a foster parent because I'm single, or I
can't be a foster parent because I live in an apartment,
or and I always say, you know, if you have
the heart to be a foster parent, and you can
(06:58):
pass the background, you can probably be a foster parent.
You know, we have single foster parents, we have people
who who live on Social Security are foster parents. I
mean that all different people can be foster parents. But
there's so many other ways you can support and help
foster kids and foster parents and bio parents without being
(07:22):
a foster parent.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Now, you do presentations at churches, right, you have a
presentation that you do, and we need to create some
awareness to get you some more invitations to come out
to these churches, because it's really a worthwhile presentation you've got.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
I've done many I've presented at many churches, and you know,
if we can get in the door, I think people
are genuinely usually surprised because people don't, like I said,
people hear foster care. They don't realize that there's a
whole bunch of pieces to that. And when I resent
at a church, you know, I've been a foster parent
(08:02):
for a very long time. I spent time in the
foster care system myself when when I was a juvenile,
but and being a foster parent for a very long
time and I've had over three hundred children in my home.
I just adopted my fifth daughter out of foster care.
I have six stories about five of them, yes, are
adopted out of foster care. So telling story. You know,
(08:27):
I have a lot of stories, and they're real stories,
and many of those stories are about our kids. Right
here in Sedgric County. There are kids, and people don't
realize what these kids are going through. How many of
them are out there that just need a home, just
needs somebody to love them, just need somebody to stay.
(08:50):
You know. They're bouncing home to home to home every
night there, you know. And when I go in and
I talk at a church, I tell stories, real stories,
and it moves hearts, it really does, and people realize,
these are our kids. This is really happening right here.
It's not statistics, it's not you know there, they're real
(09:13):
little faces right here, and they realize that there are things.
You know, might be an elderly lady that you know,
doesn't have anything to do all day and she's never thought,
you know, about what she could do to help a
foster child, and she, you know, realized that she could
(09:33):
she could pick this child up and bring them home
and bake a pie with them. She could go sit
with the teenager after school. So if foster parent can work,
she could. There's so many ways that people can help,
and and people realize that when I come in and speak,
and we always have a tremendous response from people afterwards
(09:55):
saying I had no idea. Tell me what I can do.
Tell me I want to get involved, you know, just
tell me what I can do.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
So this is Wichita Weekend podcast and we're visiting with
Jill Ayres from Foster's Ict. Foster Ict, like to get
that right, And the website is fosterict dot com. Correct, correct,
And that is where if anybody is interested in contacting
you to come make a presentation at their church or
(10:22):
to their organization. That's where they go, right. Yes, some
contact info.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yes, all of our contact info is on the website. Also,
we're all over Facebook. A lot of people just contact
me directly through my personal Facebook. There's a lot of
ways to contact us if they want to find us.
I'm my phone number is everywhere. My personal number. Just
(10:49):
reach out. You know, if they have a question, I say,
no question is stupid, you know, I know people have
I've had many people say to me, well, I've always
wanted to know this, but I didn't want to ask,
or you know, if they feel like they're going to
be judged by you know, asking a question. Well, what
if I don't want this kind of kid in my home?
(11:11):
What if I things like that? Don't be afraid to ask,
just ask, you know, yes, and there's probably nothing that
that we haven't already answered. And you know our website,
there's an SOS button on our website and that SOS
button is manned solely by season foster parents, and we
(11:34):
want any foster parent that has any issue, has any question,
has any problem, wants to talk anything. They that number,
that phone number when they go into that SOS button
is man twenty four to seven. And it seems like
for some reason, most of my calls are at two
o'clock in the morning. I don't know what it is
about two o'clock in the morning, but we want people
(11:58):
to or people wanting to be foster parents and you know,
have questions can also go through that line. Bioparents can
call that number. We're always always always going to answer
and if for some weird reason it doesn't get answered,
we will call you right back. But it's very helpful
(12:18):
for people, especially new foster parents. You know, sometimes they
may have a child out of control in the middle
of the night. They don't know what worker to call,
they don't know what to do, they can't get or
they can't get a response or whatever. They call that number,
and we will be there to walk them through that.
We will go in person if we need to. If
(12:41):
we don't have the answers, we will find who does.
And so we really want people to foster ict to
be a net for because, like I said, we don't
have all the answers. We don't have all we don't
know everything, but we will find who does.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
So excellent and keep that in mind. Fosterict dot com. Jill.
A question that just popped into my mind is when
you become a foster to a child, how long are
you signing up for? Are you going to be with
them through high school graduation? Or does every it is
(13:18):
a different situation every time. How does that work?
Speaker 2 (13:21):
It is different every time, and it's kind of you know,
there are different kinds of foster parents. You can if
you decide you want to open your home to a child,
you can be a full time foster parent. You can
be just you can get licensed to just do respite,
which is the kids that are bouncing around that don't
(13:41):
have a home. You can. They will call you and say, look,
we have so and so child that needs a home
for tonight. They'll tell you about the child. You can
decide if you if it'd be a good fit to
take into your home. You can get licensed just to
do respite for other foster parents. When foster parents need
a break, you can just take those kids. We have
(14:02):
non related kinship foster homes. If you are a nurse
or you're a school counselor or and you have a
relationship with a child and that child goes into care,
you can become a no unrelated kinship home, which just
eliminates you having to jump through some of the hoops
that other foster parents do, and it gets that child
(14:24):
into a home where they know they're not going into
a stranger's home and being removed from their community and
everything they know. And then of course we have the
relative kinship homes that other actual relatives and we always
try to place They always try to place kids with
relative homes before stranger homes. But when you decide that
(14:45):
you want to become a foster parent. Hopefully you reach
out Foster ICT. We'll sit down with you and we'll
talk about the different agencies. We'll talk walk you through
the trainings, what the trainings will look like. We do
tip SMAP training. I'm a tip Smap trainer and that's
the foster care training and so foster ICT we are
just getting ready to start our offering our tips map
(15:07):
training through us. But we'll get you. We'll walk you
through the training, what that will look like, will help
you pick an agency. There are many agencies. There are
wonderful agencies in Wichita and in Kansas, and you know
they're all all of them. Have you know some some
homes fit better with one agency then another. We want
(15:30):
to tell you about each agency and help you the
foster home pick what home would be best for them,
and I mean what agency would be best for them.
And so we we do that. But then we we
we support the foster home the home through the training process,
we support them when they get licensed. We do a
(15:52):
lot of different things like door drops. We we you know,
if we have a family that's going through a difficult time,
they can get nominated for a doordrop and we will
take things over there and leave them on their doorstep,
and people like that. So many many things that we do.
But one thing that people I get asked a lot is,
(16:14):
you know, if I become licensed to I have to
take whatever child they get me. Whatever child comes great
and absolutely not. You know, you can be very very
specific in what you feel like, will we'll fit in
your home? And if you there's a checklist that you
fill out has every behavior, every mental disorder, whether you
(16:37):
want male or female, what ages can be very very
specific and your worker, when you get licensed with an agency,
your worker is going to know that they don't have
all that information. So when a child comes in that
they think would be a good fit for your home,
they're going to call you so and you can always
say no. You know, if they do call you with
(16:59):
a with a child that they think is a good fit,
you know you can say no, I just don't feel comfortable.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
So yeah, having yourself having fostered three hundred, are you
still in touch with a lot of those young people?
And so you've got to see how your good efforts
early on in their life have paid off later in life.
I'm guessing so if you're in touch with some of
these folks as adults now.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
And some you know. I always tell people, you never know.
You could have a child in your home for two
hours and possibly say something or do something that will
change the trajectory of their lives, and you'll never know it.
But it happens. God knows. God puts these situations, puts
(17:50):
you in situations to make those those things happen. I
tell this story. Had I spent time, like I said,
in the foster care Sam Sure, I was younger, and
I was that youthful in Newton which is now ember Hope,
and wonderful place lived that place, but there was a
foster or a family teacher there, that house parent, and
(18:15):
her name was Geraldine, and I was I remember one
day I came bounding down the stairs and came around
the corner and Geraldine was standing there, and she came up,
a wonderful little German lady, and she put my face
in her hands and she looked at me and she said, oh,
little one, you're the one I want to see in
(18:36):
fifteen years. You're going to do good things. And she
never she just passed away recently, and she never had
any idea. How powerful that was, and it was so
powerful at that time. I needed that somebody saw something
in me, and it resonated it. But I still to
this day think about that. And you know, so many times,
(19:00):
you know, in hard times, her her words just read,
you know, why me? Why does she see in me?
And you know, so that's just a good example. She
never knew, never had any idea. But you can make
such an impact in these kids' lives and you may
never know it. And the biggest h I don't know,
(19:24):
I want to say victory. The thing that is the
most powerful for me, the most touching for me, is
when I have a child that was in my home
a long time ago and has now grown up and
they will call me at a difficult time in their life.
And you know, I had one little girl, she was ten,
She was with me for three years. Didn't feel like
(19:46):
I really connected with her too much. She she was
very guarded, she was a rough kid. But she three
years later went through a really difficult time. My phone
rang at one o'clock in the morning and it her
and so at one of the worst times of her life,
she reached out to me because she knew I was
(20:06):
a safe person. So those things, you know, that's that's
the you know, being a foster parent isn't always always joy,
it's not always rewarding, but the joy and the blessings
far outweigh the heartbreak.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
If you've got the heart, and if you've got the courage,
and if you would like to investigate and learn more
about becoming a foster, go to fosterict dot com. It's
that simple. Yes, get in touch with Jill Ayres, have
her come present to your church or your organization, learn
about it and learn how you can help. You know, Jill,
(20:47):
I'm thinking about when you got that first call and
you were in Omaha and they said the list is
what sixteen hundred I think you said, or there was
a waiting list.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
There were one hundred and eleven kids on the list
that night that didn't.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Oh, okay, one eleven. What's the status of that list? Now?
Are we seeing a decrease in that?
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Oh? No, there. You know, I had been a foster
parent in Omaha for sixteen years at that point, had
had several children in my home. But you know, in Nebraska,
we didn't have the kids bouncing around the state and home,
you know, night to night, and different homes in different towns.
(21:30):
And I think that's what when she said she had
told me that every day they all the agencies got
a list of the kids that didn't have a home.
For that night, those agencies went through their list of
foster homes and to see if there was a home
for that child for the night. If there wasn't, the
(21:50):
child sleeps in the office and wherever that is. And
so that particular night she called me and she said,
there are a hundred and eleven kids on this this
last night. Well, when I got here to Kansas, I
realized that's every night, and they you know, there are kids,
hundreds of kids all over this state bouncing that don't
(22:11):
have homes. Some of those kids had been bouncing for months.
I started taking some of those. I had nine children
placed in my home when I first got my license
here in Kansas, and six or three and under in diapers.
It was along here, but it was wonderful, wow. But
I was taking some of those kids that were bouncing,
(22:32):
and I got a little four year old boy showed
up at one o'clock in the morning and doorbell rang,
and I opened the door, and I said, asked the
driver I said, you know, he was supposed to be
here at seven. Why is he just getting here? And
he said, well, he's from Hayes and he's been in
the car with me dropping kids off in other counties
all night. This a four year old. He was from
(22:53):
Hayes and which tah was the closest home they could
find to take him for the night. I had another
eleven year old girl. The story has haunted me because
this eleven year old girl came and it was right
before school started, and she had been living out of
an office in another county for months. And I asked
(23:13):
the worker because I only took her for the weekend
because I was full, and I said, who's going to
buy her school supplies? In her backpack? Nervery I can
go do that school's going to you know, because she's
living in the office. And the worker looked at me
and she said, oh, Jill, you don't have to worry
about that. She can't go to school. She doesn't have
an address. She had been out of school for months.
(23:34):
I recently found out that that little girl never did
get a home. She's still bound, she's getting ready to
age out, she's still bouncing, so you know, there's almost
seven thousand kids in statecare in Kansas, we have less
than twenty four hundred foster homes. These kids are bouncing.
(23:54):
In Sedgwick County, we have about thirteen hundred kids in
state care and we have that five hundred and fifty
foster homes. And so, you know, the need for homes
is great. The need for people to support the good
homes and maintain those homes is huge.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Yeah, yeah, So please, if you're listening to our podcast
today and we've struck a chord with you and you
maybe would like to get in touch and see how
you can be a part of the effort to help
all these kids that need your help so desperately, please
go to fosterict dot com. Check out Jill Air's website
(24:35):
and see all the great things she's doing. And if
you are already a foster, get familiar with what's going
on with the website with the SOS button and make
full use of that because that's why it's there.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
We can give you ideas of other little things that
you could do for foster parents. We have some churches.
Crossroad Church is amazing and they recently had a rest
at Night for foster parents and so they had there
and we went in. I went in and did some
TBRI training ahead of time for the staff that we're
(25:11):
going to man that and so they felt prepared for
the kids that were coming and they, you know, on
a Friday evening, foster parents could just drop the kids
off there and go have some alone time for the evening.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Have a little break.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Little things like that are very powerful because you can't always,
you know, getting people to watch your foster kids, especially
if you have several like right now, I have seven
kids at my home. Getting someone to watch all the
kids at one time is very difficult and you don't
want to split them up all over town. So things
like that that churches can do, our individuals can do
(25:47):
is great.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
So get on the website. Fosterict dot com helped Jill
Ayres and the folks at foster ict get their mission accomplished,
and we thank you so much for being with us.
Anything you'd like to add about what's going on with
your efforts there here in Wichita.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
On mainly just like I said, we really want to
wrap around bio parents as well. And I know sometimes
people don't realize that many of the bioparents who have
children come into foster care. We're foster children themselves, and
they want and need the same things that the kids do,
and we can as adults come in and nurture that
(26:31):
and help them become most probably ninety ninety nine percent
of people parents want to be good parents and they
love their children. They just need a little help. And
you know, sometimes we have kids transitioning home from foster
care and those parents, you know, little things like getting
(26:51):
the kids enrolled in school can be really overwhelming and
huge things. We are looking for people like in the
churches to go in and take those parents by the
hand and walk them over that bridge and get those
kids home, keep the kids in the home, wrap services
around them, churches wrap around them and help keep those
kids in the home. So lots and lots of things
(27:13):
that people can do, and if they want ideas, absolutely
reach out to they can. They absolutely can reach out
through foster ict. They can reach out through my personal
Facebook page. They can call me, they can text me,
lots of ways to get a hold of me.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Just for those who may want to look you up
on Facebook, what's your personal page?
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Jill Airs, j I L L A y R E. S.
And I think I'm the only one with that spelling, okay,
And there will always be my my profile picture will
always have something to do with foster care.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
So it's easy to find well worth your while to
get in touch with Jill Airs. Let's just leave it
at that. Thank you so much for being with us
on which Stoe Weekend today.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Thank you so much. I really appreciate you that.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
We'll do what we can to get the word out
about fosterict dot com. And will you come back sometime
in the future.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
To absolutely we'll be back to talk about the Christmas event,
probably in November.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
There you go, Let's see if we can double that
last December's attendance, right yeah, all right, thanks again Jill.
We'll talk with you so.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
This has been the Wichita Weekend podcast produced by iHeartRadio
Wichita
Popular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!