This is a great understatement: Being part of a foster family is tough.
It is also accurate to say that many foster kids have special needs that make acclimating to a foster family challenging for both the children and parents.
It’s also fair to say that parents with experience fostering, adopting, and building their families with these children have knowledge and wisdom that can be extremely useful.
This is where two Lowell women, each with years of parenting experience, come in.
Jennifer Anderson and Tabitha Goldsmith have created the group Stronger Together – in Lowell to support foster, adoptive and special needs families in the community.
After initially working as a ministry through Impact Church in Lowell, Anderson and Goldsmith decided to branch out in January 2024 in hopes of meeting the needs of additional community members. The women first met as foster care mothers, and the support and community they found amongst themselves evolved into wanting to help more families and to get more people interested in helping to support those in the foster care community.
“We want to create that for people who are not only in it, but to create a buzz or opportunities for other people who might have the seed planted,” Goldsmith says. “To give them an opportunity to dip their toes in, to ask open-ended questions and potentially walk alongside families who are doing it.”
“We’re hoping to wrap around the people already in the arena, and we’re giving people purpose in where they’re feeling called to walk alongside the vulnerable,” she adds.
Stronger Together wants to give support to families who don’t attend a church that has an active special needs specific ministry. Because of the nature of foster care, family needs often overlap regardless of children’s different issues – whether those be physical disabilities, neurodivergence, or emotional trauma.
One of the ways they help families currently raising foster children is by creating “care teams” that families can rely on for support and help. These care team members can be people from the community who don’t think they themselves can foster or adopt a child but want to play a role in helping those who do.
Goldsmith says burnout is unfortunately a common occurrence in those who choose to become foster parents, as 50% quit in their first year. What’s more, many never get an actual placement or only have one placement. Stronger Together hopes to come alongside to extend the life of that foster family through education and support.
“We hope to create a village so that they can stay in the game as long as they are called,” she says.
Care teams can include a large variety of support roles such as making a meal for a family or being available to watch the children, either for a few hours or as a longer-term respite care volunteer for the foster parents. There is also a need for parental mentoring and academic tutoring for the children.
Stronger Together hopes to fill the gap between parents and the foster care system.
“We have lots of nets, but they’re just nets so people fall through,” Goldsmith says. “We want to create a safety net to hold up stronger so the system is stronger for families to feel supported.”
“Our dream is to have a team around each of the families that we’re trying to support,” Anderson says. “And these teams and roles might change over time because needs change.”
Stronger Together is holding an informational meeting on Feb. 16 at 2 pm at Garden Foundation on Hudson Drive. The meeting is for people interested in hearing about how they can be a part of supporting foster families in the community. It will include a slideshow presentation, information on “trauma training” needed when interacting with some foster children, and a question and answer period.
Anderson and Goldsmith hope they are creating something that will be able to be replicated and adjusted to meet the wide variety of needs a foster and adoptive family may have. They hope to be the support they lacked or experienced when they were new to foster parenting.
Goldsmith has eight children with a “variety of needs” while Anderson fostered, then adopted, two toddlers while being pregnant. She says her family is very supportive which is why she understands how important it is to have help.
“That support is huge, and it’s hard for people to ask,” Anderson says.
Anderson and Goldsmith say they have no way of knowing how many foster families are in the Lowell area, although they have identified 15 local families to support. Currently, they have a care team in place for one local family. A care team consists of one lead worker and 3 to 4 support members. They don’t have a target number of families in mind and said they don’t know how large their project could become. The State of Michigan reports there are 10,000 children in foster care on any given day.
“We want to be an established go-to support when people feel called [even if] they don’t know what that looks like,” Goldsmith says.
“We want to have a system in place that is duplicatable,” she adds. “Not just Tabitha and Jennifer. Plus, we want people to know you don’t have to attend Impact (Church) or any church to be involved and serve or to be supported if you are fostering,”
“We welcome any and all. It’s community, it’s relationship, it’s connection. I think we’re all seeking on a human level to feel seen, to have purpose, to be a part of something.”
To learn more about Stronger Together — in Lowell, follow the group on Facebook.
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