Lori Glenn
MOULTRIE — Georgia’s first lady commended the efforts of a crowd of child advocates at the Colquitt County Arts Center Tuesday evening. It’s a cause near and dear to her heart, and she’s making it her mission to call Georgians to protect and defend the littlest among us.
Mary Perdue knows the system inside and out. The Perdues were foster parents in the late 1990s, taking in eight infants until the state found them a permanent home. Perdue said she carries with her the joy on the faces of adoptive parents taking the babies as their own. The experience has forever changed her, and now as the state’s first lady, she has the influence to really make a difference for Georgia’s children.
Georgia’s largest challenge in foster care, Perdue said, is retaining good foster parents. Last year saw a net gain of about 100 foster families, but the state lost 500, she said. Even though the numbers have been sustained, more support is needed to keep positive homes open to state wards, she said.
More than 16,000 of Georgia’s children are in foster care, she said. Every 20 minutes brings a confirmed case of child abuse or neglect in the state. Perdue is calling for all Georgians to do what they can to save the life of a child, some of whom have suffered abuse that would challenge the coping abilities of the most capable of adults, she said.
“This is my focus, this is my only focus, and it will always be my focus as long as I have this opportunity. And why is that? Because these children need me. There are lots of other causes — worthy causes — but the foster children in Georgia have been so easily overlooked and pushed aside,” she said. “... It’s a call that Sonny and I take very seriously,” she said.
Perdue launched the Our Children Campaign in 2003 to encourage partnerships such as the one in Colquitt County with child advocacy centers, the business community and faith-based organizations to address the needs of children in state care.
One of the first lady’s initiatives is the formation of the Children’s Cabinet composed of agency and state department heads dealing with children in any way. The Children’s Cabinet is set to meet once a quarter.
Resulting from that meeting of the minds is the recent launch of the Foster Family Foundation, set up to eventually take over the recruiting, training and maintaining foster families from the Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS). The focus of the foundation is to place sibling groups together and to place teen-agers, the more difficult challenge, she said. By summer, the foundation will begin transitioning the responsibility from DFCS. The overall transition will take a couple of years of phasing in, she said.
The Colquitt County DFCS office currently has 168 children in state custody, said Director Sandra Rogers. Rogers is looking forward to the shift. The money and effort for recruitment will be taken out of the county department’s budget. Often, recruiting foster families takes a backseat to working child protection cases, she said. Needed is an active effort at recruitment and retention, she said.
In 2005, the Colquitt County Child Advocacy Center interviewed 78 children in abuse or molestation cases, said Executive Director Jeri Croyle. That figure is down 21 from the prior year, Croyle said, but 2006 already has the makings of being a heavy year of abuse in the county. Some of those children will end up in need of a safe, nurturing home through the foster care system.
But the average person in Georgia really has no connection with children in foster care, Perdue said. It’s very easy to turn a back, she said.
“My desire and my thrust is to make sure that Georgia knows what our needs are. I’m convinced that when Georgia knows what our needs are, Georgia will step up and help,” she said.
