If you have been anywhere near Nashville recently, you more than likely have seen signs advertising the growing need for foster parents in Brown County.

Benchmark Family Services Regional Director Caitlin Sylvester said that they are a nonprofit therapeutic foster care agency that licenses foster parents and works with the Department of Child Services (DCS) to place children in homes.

“We train our foster parents to be able to be prepared to take the higher need kids if they feel like that is a good fit for them,” said Sylvester. “We always need foster parents, that’s why we’ve been putting out more signs to try and bring in more people that feel like they want to be foster parents because we need them really badly, we have hundreds of referrals for foster kids that need homes that come to us everyday and we just don’t have enough homes to have a place for them.”

Sylvester covers nine Indiana counties, Brown, Bartholomew, Johnson, Shelby, Decatur, Jennings, Jackson, Monroe and the south-eastern part of Morgan and has been displaying signs in each of them.

“We get them from all over, we get referrals from kids clear up in South Bend to almost in Kentucky desperate for anyone who has a home that can take the kid,” said Sylvester. “The kids don’t have to come from my counties, my (foster) homes are just in my counties.”

Sylvester explained there are foster homes in Shelby, Jennings, Johnson and Bartholomew counties but none as of yet in Brown County.

“We don’t discriminate, we take all backgrounds, all lifestyles,” said Sylvester. “You know, don’t have a felony type of thing, but we are accepting of all backgrounds of foster parents because we get all backgrounds of foster children. We’re what’s called a Licensed Child Placing Agency, which means we’re contracted to DCS but we’re our own company. One big thing with that is that we offer extra training and support. We have a 24-hour emergency phone that DCS does not provide. All foster parents have my personal phone number to be able to get in contact with me if they need additional assistance, we just try to be really available because we know a lot of these kids have extra needs and maybe they have needs that some foster parents have never encountered before. We want everyone to be successful. We want them to be successful as foster parents and for the kids to feel comfortable in the home, we always need more foster parents all the time.”

Sylvester said that Benchmark aims for a 45-day turn-around after applying for most foster families.

“We offer online training and try to be flexible to come to them if they need that, especially if they aren’t super close to the office (in Columbus),” said Sylvester. “As far as the finish line, it also depends on their availability to attend the training, we try to get the ball rolling super fast.”

According to the Department of Child Services, there were 48 children with Department of Child Services cases in the months of May through July in Brown County, a high for the year as of the time of this writing. The low for the year was January with 32.

These numbers include a child in need of services or a child whose mental or physical condition is impaired or seriously endangered as the result of neglect or abuse and court intervention is necessary for the child’s safety; collaborative care which serves youth between the ages of 16 and 21 that receive focused independent living case management to transition successfully to adulthood; and informal adjustment or a voluntary program of care, treatment and rehabilitation that requires court approval and oversight, according to the Department of Child Services.

The average number of placements, or the number of how many places a child stayed while in foster care in Brown County was 3.05 in July with a high in June of 3.07 and the low in May at 2.67.

Van Buren Elementary Principal Greg Pagnard told the Democrat that they have not seen an influx of children in the foster care system at Van Buren.

“I have not noticed an increase in it, but definitely feel that there is a need in it,” said Pagnard. “It’s hard, I think everyone knows it’s hard but we’re really grateful for the people who step up who do it.”

People can sign up to receive training as a foster parent through Benchmark’s website at benchmarkfamilyservices.org/foster-care-indiana-kentucky or they can call the Columbus office at (812) 799-0871.