The county is looking for more foster families.

The county is looking for more foster families.
By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR NEW CASTLE BUREAU
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- After meeting a foster family through her work, visiting nurse Joann Trodden knew foster parenting was something she wanted to do.
"I struggled raising my children as a single mother. I divorced very early on, and I saw what can happen to children without a support system," said the New Castle woman. "I always felt you could never do wrong by doing something nice for a child."
For the past five years, Trodden and her husband, Thomas, have been foster parents with Lawrence County Children and Youth Services.
The Troddens are one of 16 active foster families in Lawrence County -- a group not large enough to house all of the county's foster children, said Jane Gaida, Lawrence County CYS director.
In May, there were 68 children needing foster care in Lawrence County; 21 were placed in county foster homes, Gaida said. The others went to foster homes found by private agencies the county hires to help, she said.
Pay raise
CYS officials are hoping a recent increase in foster family pay will attract more people and allow the county to use fewer private agencies, which cost an average of $60 a day.
The county had been paying foster families $12 a day; it is now $18.
"I think it's a more realistic figure than what we have been paying. I think it will be a help for us to recruit more families, and it will be a blessing to people who have been with us," Gaida said.
There is also a $100 stipend given out twice a year for clothing, and those caring for young children are eligible for federal money.
But foster parents say the pay isn't why they do it.
"I would do this for nothing, but [the pay] definitely does help," said Lyn Kemp, who has been a foster parent for 21 years.
She estimates she has had 96 babies for periods ranging from 48 hours to three years.
The 53-year-old North Sewickley Township woman initially worked for private adoption agencies and came to Lawrence County CYS about three years ago when she learned it needed foster parents for babies with medical problems. She says she will remain as long as there is a need.
"When I get a brand new baby, the feeling is just unbelievable. To look at this helpless little infant and know you can love them and just help them right at the moment with what they need, there is nothing else in my life that is that great," Kemp said.
Her family
Kemp and her husband, Ross, who own a small grocery store in Beaver County, have two foster children, in addition to their three grown children and two adopted teenage sons who first came to them as foster children.
Her youngest adopted son, now age 13, was born prematurely to a drug-addicted mother.
"It's just very hard to see what these children go through. It affects them their whole lives," she said.
Her son was 3 pounds at birth and had an ear infection and fever. He has also struggled with learning problems throughout his life.
"But he's just the most loving child I have ever had in my home. We feel so blessed to have him," Kemp said.
Joann Trodden also knows about blessings foster children bring.
Molly, 3, came to the Troddens as an infant, and the family adopted her in April.
"When we first signed up for foster care, we had no intentions of adopting. We had a full family, but Molly has been with us for so long, and she knows no one else," Trodden said. "She just got to be so accepted, that we decided she wasn't going to go anywhere else."
And just recently Trodden's daughter-in-law and son, Barbara and Michael Norco of New Castle, decided to become foster parents.
It was her mother-in-law and another friend who is a foster parent that inspired Barbara Norco to look into foster parenting.
"It gives me a little peace of mind that I'm here, and I'm doing my best to get them back on the right track," Norco said.
And while they know that foster parenting is usually temporary, Trodden, Kemp and Norco say it is tough when the children leave.
"They become a part of your family in the blink of an eye, and the hardest part is letting go," Barbara Norco said.