Parties helping to foster child care

Earlier this year, Clark County Department of Family Services recruiter Gina Shanks found herself on the receiving end of those most personal, and effective, of sales pitches: the Pampered Chef party.

As she sat there hearing about the latest in cookware, she thought, "Hmm. They've got me here, and I'm eating, and I'm listening, and I'm giving them my money."

Enter the "fosterware" party.

Faced with a shortage of foster parents and a new mandate to avoid placing children in the overcrowded Child Haven, county officials are now trying her approach to find adults to care for Southern Nevada's neglected children.

Rather than having potential parents sit through dull, impersonal recruiting seminars with dozens of other people, officials are sending recruiters into the homes.

Recruiters bring food, drinks and a gift for the host, and the host brings friends, who hear the pitch to become a foster parent.

In these new "foster care parties," which Shanks believes are the first of their kind, the goal is to recruit more of the best families: those who are already friends with current foster parents.

"The best foster parents, we're finding, are the ones who have been recruited by foster parents," Shanks said.

Starting April 3, at the Peccole Ranch home of physical therapists Cindy and Cef Villafuerte, Shanks took her new method to the test, and likely netted two more foster families.

Shanks brought sandwiches, chicken wings, chips and other food, courtesy of the Department of Family Services, and even a gift for the party's hosts.

The Villafuertes, who have two children, 5 and 8, have been fostering a 5-month-old since the girl was just 2 days old.

"She brings a smile to my face every day," Cef Villafuerte, 39, said.

In 2006, the couple was looking to adopt a child from overseas, likely from Asia. But during that summer, the news media published a rash of stories highlighting overcrowding at Child Haven, the county's temporary shelter for children taken from their families.

Images of children sleeping on cots in crowded rooms flickered across television sets and appeared in newspapers.

"We're like, 'Why not help out some child here in our community?'" Cindy Villafuerte, 39, said.

They invited two friends to come hear the pitch by Shanks that evening.

One, physical therapist Corie Malitz, said she and her husband had been wanting to become foster parents and were waiting for something like the party to get them started on the process.

"It did (help) because I didn't know where to go," Malitz said. "I didn't know the first thing about what agency to contact."

She and her husband, who have three biological children, are in the process of becoming licensed foster parents. They also recruited two friends to become foster parents, too, she said.

Clark County has roughly 3,000 children in foster care, and only about 1,000 licensed foster families. About half of those 1,000 families are people who aren't related to the child, such as the Villafuertes. The other half are made up of group homes and biological relatives of foster children.

The county would like to have at least an additional 250 homes, Department of Family Services spokeswoman Christine Skorupski said.

"The more we have, the better we can serve children," she said.

Foster homes and foster parents can provide a crucial intermediate step during a trying time in a child's life.

When a child is taken from their parents, for reasons ranging from parental abuse to substance abuse, county officials first will try to place a child with a relative, according to Skorupski.

If that fails, then the child is placed with a foster family, who, along with county workers, will eventually try to reunite the child with the biological parents.

The Nevada Legislature in 2007 handed down a mandate that all children under the age of 6 should not spend any time in Child Haven or another form of congregate care, making the need for more foster parents even more important, Skorupski said.

The foster care parties are being held at the homes of current foster parents, so that friends who come to the party can see what it's like to foster a child and have a contact for foster parenting advice when they become a parent.

Eventually, the foster care parties will be hosted at the house of anybody who is interested in becoming a foster parent, Shanks said. All they need to do is find a few friends who are also interested, she said.

Those interested will still need to complete many hours of classes in order to become licensed.

To schedule a party, call the Department of Family Services at 702-455-0181.

Contact reporter Lawrence Mower at lmower@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0440.