New initiative working to help foster children in the system

GREENEVILLE, Tenn. (WJHL) — Every Child TN is introducing Phase Two of an initiative to bring awareness and provide support to children in foster care.

“It’s a very sophisticated kind of foster care recruitment tool,” said Lance Villio, executive director of the Governor’s Faith-based and Community Initiative.

Villio told News Channel 11 that through Every Child TN, people who are interested in helping children in the foster care system can easily find opportunities in their local community to lend a hand.

“Recruiting new foster families, but also recruiting new volunteers and then retention,” Villio said. “We know that about 50% of foster families often turn over within the first year and so we want to retain those families and make sure that they get really good community support.”

Every Child TN has four priorities.

“We think of it as a single front door and so no matter where you’re at in the state of Tennessee, all 95 counties now, there’s a singular front door that if you want to engage in foster care you can,” Villio said. “Whether that is actually becoming a foster parent, supporting a foster parent, meeting tangible needs to keep families together, or even to keep kids out of foster care.”

Holston Home for Children is a foster care service in Greeneville that is benefiting from this new initiative. Bradley Williams, president of Holston Home for Children, said that getting the community to connect with helping foster children is crucial.

“Right now there are 169 children in state’s custody and there are only 100 foster homes in Greene County,” Williams said. “Our dream would be that there are homes waiting for children instead of children waiting for homes.”

Williams said the initiative is still getting up and running on the local end but believes it will be a huge help.

“There’s just a lot of ways for people to get involved and what this initiative does is bring awareness to the need,” said Williams. “Also reaching out both to churches and faith-based organizations, as well as the community at large.”

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