The Racine County Foster Care Program has launched a new campaign to help keep Racine County foster children in the community.
The Bring Them Home campaign has two central goals: to recruit and license new foster homes in Racine County and bring back local children who were placed in homes outside the county. The campaign comes as the county has experienced a foster care crisis, seeing both a rise in the number of children placed in foster care and a decline in local foster homes.
Keeping foster children in the community allows siblings to stay together and potentially shorten the length of time children are in out-of-home care, officials say. Siblings being separated from each other deepens the trauma facing foster children, who already are
forced away from their family home.
“If we Bring Them Home, settling into a foster placement is less traumatic. If we Bring
Them Home, the likelihood of sibling groups remaining together is increased. If we Bring
Them Home, their emotional and mental wellbeing is more stable,” said Marie Hargrove,
Racine County Foster Care Recruitment and Retention Specialist. “If we Bring Them
Home, children are more likely to be reunified with their birth families more quickly than
those who are placed outside of their community.”
The Bring Them Home campaign represents a rebranding of the county’s foster care
work. The effort will include a social media blitz, videos, grassroots outreach, advertising, and much more. Racine County Foster Care is working with filmmaker Joey Papa, who previously produced a short film, (Un)wanted, about the local foster care crisis.
If you would like to join Racine County Foster Care in the Bring Them Home Campaign, contact Marie Hargrove at 262-638-6595 to find out how you can be involved, and visit BringThemHomeRacine.com for more information.
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The Racine County Human Services Department is located at 1717 Taylor Ave. Racine, WI. The department assists thousands of families each year to help improve their lives and the lives of their families and loved ones. They host a variety of programs and services aimed at assisting families on the path of self-sufficiency and improving the well being of the most vulnerable residents of Racine County.