Foster Care Through Samaritas

May is Foster Care Awareness Month. We are joined by local parents Annemarie and Brad Jordan to discuss their journey with foster care and adoption through Samaritas.

More information can be found here: https://www.samaritas.org/fostercare

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Month of May is Foster Care Awareness Month, and to
talk about that friends through Samaritas in studio. This is
West Michigan's Morning News. Stee Kelly and Brett Makita Schmidty
is back with us soon. The Jordans are here. Brad
and Anne Marie. Thank you both so much for coming
in today.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Thank you for having us.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Anne Marie. I want to start with you because I
think this may have been more of your idea. But
how do you get this idea that you're going to
bring family members into your home?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
We always knew we wanted to adopt in some fashion
or form, and then when I went to school for
social work and was a CPS investigator, it just was
on our heart that this is how we're meant to
give back, and it just kind of became a no brainer.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
So, Brad, you get this idea, you have this conversation,
what's the next step? I mean, how do you decide? Yeah,
this looks like a good idea, we have the heart
for it. Where do you go next?

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Yeah, that's a great question. I think looking into different
resources trying to find Okay, if I wanted to foster,
what agencies out there would allow me to, you know,
intake on this journey. So we went through Samaritas and
Marie literally saw a billboard that said Samaritas and she's like,
oh my gosh, there's a message. Let's reach out and

(01:24):
shout the story.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
To recap it was a radio commercial for Samaritas that
you heard, Yeah, sorry from the station.

Speaker 4 (01:33):
Funny how that happens? Well, I want to ask you guys.
You know, you had mentioned your background and you just
felt the need to do this as you were going
through and obviously seeing some of the things that you saw,
But did you have any other foster experience in your family,
like relatives or friends that you knew who had done
this or was this just a leap of faith where

(01:54):
you didn't know a lot Because I look at it
like when I was growing up, everyone in my family
went into education, right, so I would just assumes you're
going to be a teacher and everything, and I was like,
I'm gonna be a radio guy, and they're like, what
you know? But I had to do that journey by
myself because I didn't really know anybody who was in
that field of career. This is obviously much different, but
there's that step, right, that leap of faith.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, I mean it was pretty regular for me. But
my grandmother actually fostered special needs kids for a long time,
and she'd always had you know, they're just my aunts
to me, but she had special needs people in her
house and you know, they they lived with her long term.
So I mean, we we had seen that. I'd always
been on my heart because of that. You know, I

(02:37):
always look up to my grandparents and they were amazing.
But we also had friends, you know, Pastor that we
knew growing up. He had foster kids, and Amory was
very close to those foster kids, and so it felt like, yeah,
let's let's do this. We've had so many good experiences
in our life. Why can't we do this and give back?

Speaker 1 (02:58):
You know well, and speaking of that, we all know
the importance of family and what it means for kids
moving forward, for their success rates when it comes to
health and mental health, and how they do in school,
and it sets them up for the future. But what
about for you the foster parent, talk to us a
little bit about what this family means for you.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
I can't imagine any other way of doing life this.
We have a biological son, Elijah, and then our two
other forever kidls that we foster and end up adopting
Ariana Easan sibling sense. We got to stay together and
they we all just have such a beautiful life together
just by saying yes. You know, saying yes doesn't mean

(03:40):
you're signing up for thirty kids that you know you can.
Just one yes is all it takes to make a difference.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
And what about resources? If you're listening right now, how
does Samaritas that's who you all went through, how do
they help support you through this process? It's a lifelong journey, right, And.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
That's I think Samara Test has done such a good
job of having there be a culture of support and
finding support with each other. Samaritests when we were fostering,
had a support group and those people became some of
our best friends. Samara Test has tons of trainings, their
licensers have been amazing. I've called them during some most

(04:22):
stressful times and they've just always been there for us
during this wild journey.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Other couples talk to other couples about the process too, Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
All the time.

Speaker 4 (04:31):
Yeah, those are some of our best friends now And
is that very helpful? Real quick as far as different
age groups, right of the child that you're or children
that you're hoping to adopt, right because it could be teenagers,
it could be young children.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yes, you are allowed to specify what you'd like to
accept that. You know, they still call you outside of that,
and but they have a ton of support, support and
all those different avenues.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
And everything really is on your terms. Like if if
you have that bug, you can decide, you can reach out,
you can get the information, and then if you don't
want to, you don't have to. It's not for everybody,
but it is amazing. I mean people say that the
kids were the lucky ones. We're the lucky ones. We
get to experience this, that those kids are amazing. Our
lives would be so much less without those kids.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Wow, a great conversation. A beautiful couple Brad and Anne
Marie Jordan asked to see pictures of the kids. Uh
samaritasi is. The organization will post the link at woodradio
dot com to find out if it's right for you.
Thank you guys for coming in.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
Thank you