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Shelley Osterloh Reporting The Utah Foster Care Foundation will honor five outstanding fathers from across the state during a two day family festival at the Gateway. It's designed to recruit more foster families for Utah children.
About 2-thousand kids are in foster care right now, and here's the problem: There are only 11-hundred foster families.
About 63% of those children will eventually return to their birth parents. But the others may be adopted.
Salt Lake City's Foster Father of the year knows what it's like to return a child to its birth parents, and adopt. James Shaw is single and 25 years old. But he says he has always wanted kids.
In three years, he's parented three foster children. The first, an infant, went back to its birthparents after a year. The second --- a little four year old --- he has adopted. He also has a teenager living with him who is still in state custody.
Shaw says it has enforced what he already knew - the importance of family.
James Shaw/ Salt Lake Foster Father of the Year: "When I started I wanted to help children in the system that were in need. And through that, the rewards of creating my own family and my own legacy is the greatest thing I think anyone can feel in this life."
The greatest need for foster parents is for children over 8, siblings, and Latino or Hispanic families.
Nearly one-fourth of the children in foster care are Hispanic -- that's more than 200 children. Yet there are only about 25 Latino foster families.
Experts say placing children in foster homes is important, and that the goal is to return them to their birth parents if possible.
Deborah Lindner/ Utah Foster Care Foundation: "It makes a huge difference. Being part of the family is part of the healing process for them. And so being in a family rather than an institution or a facility is really the best thing for children."
James Shaw/ Salt Lake Foster Father of the Year: "We uphold families as much as we can, and when they are not able to take care of these children, they fall back on us. We're there to make sure they have permanency, stability, and most of all love."
Now if that's tweaked your interest about becoming a foster parent, the Gateway is the place to be Friday night or Saturday.
A special event here on the streets of the Gateway --- the KSL Family Fair and the Chalk Art Festival. Lots of things going on, including people from the Foster Care Foundation here to answer your questions about being a foster family.
