Natasha Jordan is an advocate and writer who serves as a beacon of hope for those navigating life’s hardships and challenges.
Jordan, who experienced the foster care system firsthand as a child, wants to create safe spaces for foster care children and vulnerable people.
In her book, From Foster Care with a Purpose, Jordan detailed the changes she would like to see in the foster care system.
What made you become an advocate for those who have gone through the foster care system?
Well, it started when I was young. I went into foster care, so my mother couldn’t take care of me at around the age of 12. She had a mental illness, so she was very physically abusive. The Department of Children and Family Services got involved, so I was court-ordered into a shelter. From the shelter, I ended up going to foster care, so because of my mom’s illness, I wasn’t able to return home to her. My mom and my foster mother agreed that I would stay in foster care. Based on my foster care experience and the foster care mother that I had, I had no choice but to continue working in this field. I work in the community and human service field, so I work with foster care children, and I work with adults who have developmental disabilities.
How should the foster care system update its requirements for potential foster parents?
I think the training could be a little more intense, but because of funding, they give the bare minimum training. I think it could be more funding, more sporadic training, and more visits from higher-ups to check on the foster homes. I think that the background could be more extensive. I think there should be some system in place where you interview the family members of the foster parents. We should look more into the people who are saying that they want to be foster parents and we should look more into their backgrounds, because [taking] a simple 20-hour course, pass[ing] a background [check], and prov[ing] you have no criminal record, and then you become a foster parent [isn’t enough]. Sometimes it’s not just about the criminal record, it’s about us finding out more details about the individuals. When people are getting government jobs from my understanding, they dig into their their lives. I think it should be the same for the foster parents because the children are our future.
What do you want to see change in the system overall?
I’d like to see more minorities being foster parents. I think that we need more of a balance because sometimes foster kids are placed in the homes of other races or ethnicities, and sometimes I think that our children need to be placed in environments that are similar to us.
