The nonprofit Children’s Bureau is searching for potential foster and adoptive parents from Santa Clarita to open their homes and their hearts to a child in need.

As a child abuse prevention organization, a big part of the mission of Children’s Bureau is to provide permanency plans for displaced children — whether that means finding temporary foster homes until they can be reunited with their birth family or permanent adoptive homes.

“These are children who have been exposed to abuse and neglect and trauma,” said Bernadette Boylan, a foster program supervisor. “They’ve had a lot of loss in their life, and they’re really needing a family to care for them.”  

Related: Foster-Adoption Organization To Hold Informational Meeting In Santa Clarita

Boylan noted a lot of people don’t realize they could qualify to become a certified foster or adoptive parent if they’re over 21 years old, whether they’re married, single, or co-existing with a roommate.

Children’s Bureau officials ask that foster and adoptive parents be willing to do five things:

1. Protect and nurture the child;
2. Meet the child’s developmental needs and address any delays;
3. Support the child’s relationship with their birth family;
4. Encourage and maintain a relationship with the child intended to last a lifetime; and
5. Do all of this as a member of a professional team with a supervisor and social worker.

One of the most important of these qualifications is being supportive of the child’s relationship with their birth family, even in the case of adoption, according to Boylan.

“The reality of it is, even if the children end up moving on to permanency for adoption, they still came from somewhere — they have a birth mom, they have a birth father, they have a grandmother, aunt, uncle, siblings,” Boylan said. “You need to be able to support that relationship while the children are with you.”

For anyone interested in becoming a foster or adoptive parent, Children’s Bureau is planning to hold an informational meeting on Saturday at 10 a.m. at COC’s Dr. Dianne G. Van Hook University Center.

“There are too many children in the system and not enough families,” Boylan said, noting Children’s Bureau gets at least 30 calls a day from the county trying to place children in need.

Boylan called Saturday’s meeting the first step for potential foster and adoptive parents to have their questions answered with no obligation.

“It’s basically a big ‘Q & A’ and it will answer a lot of the basic questions for you,” Boylan said. “Is this right for you, because it’s not right for everybody. But you don’t know unless you come.”