August 25, 2020

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
Hi, I’m Meaghan Mullally-Gorr. Welcome to “Sullivan 180 Presents… Take Five!” Our guest today is Leelani Voigtland. Welcome, Leelani! Thank you so much for joining us today.

Leelani Voigtland:
Hi!

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
Can you please introduce yourself? Let me know your title and tell us about your organization.

Leelani Voigtland:
Yes, again, my name is Leelani Voigtland. I’m a home-finder and trainer with Children’s Home of Wyoming, but I am contracted here in Sullivan County. My position works directly here with the home-finding team to recruit and certify homes for Sullivan County.

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
Can you tell us about the current need for foster families in Sullivan County?

Leelani Voigtland:
So the need for foster parents in this area has been rising within the last two years, and it’s only gotten worse with the pandemic. The need was pretty great just due to the opioid crisis going on. We currently only have about 35 county homes and over 130 kids in care. So it’s really super important that we find more foster homes here in Sullivan County to keep kids close to home and to be able to give these kids a safe place to be until they’re ready to return home.

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
Because Sullivan County doesn’t have enough families, are they taken to bordering counties? How does that work?

Leelani Voigtland:
Yes, unfortunately, when children come into care, if we don’t have a home in that school district, that’s open to that certain age range or that number of children, children are being moved all across the County. But then even worse, they’re being moved outside of the County, to other districts. I mean, other counties such as Orange and Ulster, and we really want to keep the kids as close as possible to their communities, because when children are coming into care, they’re losing everything.. All at once. They’re losing being their family and their homes, their pets, and so any consistency that we can keep for them, keeping them here in their community is what we want to do. And the only way to accomplish that is by having so many homes in every single school district.

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
So who should consider opening their home to a foster child.

Leelani Voigtland:
So we actually have been really lucky: something good of COVID is that teachers have been home a lot. And so we’ve gotten a lot of preschool teachers and regular school teachers who have been home and able to take classes with us online, and now has been a great time for them. But what I always say is that we have ’empty nesters’, we have young families just starting out, we have families that are in the thick of it, you know, with four children. And they’re like, “Hey, what’s one more?”. That everybody.. There is a need, and what I really always say is if your heart, if you were like, “I can’t do this, I’m going to have a broken heart”. Then you’re who I want to talk to. I want those who are going to have a broken heart, because that means that you are really, really going to care about children in your home. And we need people who really care about kids right now. So we want to talk to you, and I promise you, we’ll try to help you through it and guide and support you. I’m a foster parent, myself and I have adopted children and foster children. So when I talk to you, I’m going to tell you all the good, all the bad, everything you want to know about foster care, honestly, and support you, if this is something you think you want to do.

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
Can you tell us a little bit about the process of becoming a foster parent?

Leelani Voigtland:
I work with a great team here at Sullivan. So what happens is you send in your application, and we are able to set you up with your classes. Your classes are all done via Zoom. We do home inspections in person, obviously. There’s some paperwork we do along the way, as long as, as well as the criminal background checks. The whole process from start to finish is 10 weeks of classes. And then depending if you’ve done all your paperwork on time, depends how soon you could be open after that. We also are conducting online ‘informational meetings’, so I do them weekly. So anytime anybody inquires about becoming a foster parents, I go ahead and I set up times to come on Zoom and chat with them. So it’s really, really simple right now. We definitely are walking you through the entire process. The team here at Sullivan is great. We all do the trainings together, so it’s a great time to become a foster parent as well as… There’s just a huge need right now.

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
Can you tell us, is there a stipend for each child in foster care? Can you give us some details about maybe daycare assistance and health insurance for a child you’re taking in?

Leelani Voigtland:
You do receive a monthly stipend and that stipend is nontaxable. It goes to helping towards the care of the child in your home. You’re going to be feeding extra and have all of that going on. Daycare is paid for as long as you’re working. You go through the Sullivan County Child’s Counsel, and we’ll try to help you find a daycare provider. Health insurance is also covered. So all children in care do have health insurance, either Medicaid or managed Medicaid, so that is not a worry at all. And the one other thing is WIC, (Women and Infant Children), you can receive assistance with formula and milk and cereal and some basic things for children under five when you’re a foster parent as well, we know ‘formula’ is always a big expense. We have a lot of babies coming into care that need homes.

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
Can you tell us how anyone who’s interested can get in touch with you or keep up to date on when those intro sessions are happening?

Leelani Voigtland:
Yes!. So what you can do is you can contact Sullivan County Department of Social Services, and let them know that you were interested in becoming a foster parent. You can also follow Sullivan County Government’s Facebook page. They also post when we have things going on as well, and they will let us know that you are interested. We will send you a Zoom link and times for all our upcoming meetings. There are lots of options. And if an option doesn’t work for you, you can just shoot me a message and say, ‘Hey, that’s not going to work’. And I will schedule a one on one time. You have classes starting September 8th. So right around the corner, Tuesday nights from six to 9:00 PM, via Zoom. So we want to make sure that if that’s something you think you can commit to for the fall, that we have you all signed up and have all your questions answered.

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
Is there anything else that you’d like to share? Any, any major points that maybe we missed?

Leelani Voigtland:
Just that if you’ve been thinking about this, please take the time to explore it, take the time, sit down, tell me what your biggest worries are. I’ll tell you, you our thoughts on it. Tell us any concerns, because right now is a huge need. There is just such a need and there are so many kids coming into care and we need some really good people, and some really good homes to step up. Everything is on your terms. As far as age.. We want you to be successful. So if you’re like, ‘Hey, I think I can do this, but I only can help one girl age three to five.’, that’s okay! You tell us what’s going to work for you. We want your home to be successful. There are also kids becoming available for adoption, who haven’t returned home. And that’s some of our older age kids. So if adoption is also something you’ve ever thought about and you were interested in, possibly an older child, definitely reach out to us as well. It’s the same classes.

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
Leelani thank you so much for all of your work in Sullivan County, and thank you to the Children’s Home of Wyoming Conference and to Sullivan Family Services. Thanks so much for being with us today.

Leelani Voigtland:
Thank you.