I am a social worker with the State in Family Voluntary Services. I always wanted to make a difference and make things better. And I thought the way to do that was to be a police officer. What I discovered is that it is the most unlovable children who need the most love. I was working in a group home with kids who had nowhere
Growing up, I never imagined that as a teen, I would find myself a ward of the state, living with strangers, never understanding what was happening to my family or me, and then aging out of the foster care system when I wasn't ready. 10 years after I aged out, I received a call asking me to be a part of a study on foster
As soon as I learned about fostering and adopting, I was sold! From my first day of graduate school at the University of Washington’s School of Social Work. It’s all about helping a child on a local level who needs a loving home. And Amara is inclusive. When I was in school, I heard a lot of stories of discrimination against same sex couples at
I was in and out of the foster care system for the first 11 years of my life. At 11 years old, I entered the system permanently. My sister and I were in foster care for two and a half years before we found our forever family (through Amara!). My foster/adoptive parents were told not to expect much from me as I would likely not
When we choose a community partner for Tutta Bella to work with, we ask them, “What are some of your challenges?” Amara told us that for the kids who cannot return to their families, there’s a lot of anxiety for the families and the children who go through the adoption process: months of vetting, paperwork, meetings at the office. But the day comes when the
It’s interesting how life prepares you for things. I became an accidental relative caregiver in 2004. A couple of my relatives were placed with me and the state said it would just be a little while -- which turned into forever because I wound up adopting them. So that helped me in the work I do now. I work with the Children’s Administration at DSHS
When I first moved to Seattle in 2009, I joined the Seattle Fire Department. A buddy of mine said let’s go to a concert in Ballard. So we’re standing around having fun. I was single. During intermission, a couple of girls were standing by us and I said, “Hey, how you guys doing? What do you guys do?” They said, “We work for a foster
I’ve been at Amara 31 years and I still get excited when I am meeting a family for the first time. Our families come in and we’re with them for two--sometimes three--years. We do monthly home visits so I get to see children grow over that time. When families come to Amara events, parents put their kids in front of me and ask, “Do you
Five years ago, our daughter Kari and her husband Kelly adopted Michael through Amara. They were his foster family for a year. He’s now seven years old. Kari and Kelly fostered a few young children before Michael came to them. We simply wanted to support them as a family through that process. It’s an emotional time and when a little one comes into your life,
“Suffering as becoming is the only way to fully become.” When I was at an Amara mentorship outing recently, one of the kids who had been adopted from foster care --he was 11 years old--asked me about my tattoo. For me, the idea of “suffering as becoming” is the notion that each individual will go through a set of trials and tribulations. The truth is
