Foster parents need a support system and a new group hopes to do just that for those in Covington, Maple Valley, Black Diamond and surrounding areas.

Stephanie Swallow, King County Coordinator for Bellevue-based Fostering Together, has teamed up with Lisa Wiscomb to start the  support group.

“In the state foster care system they’re starting a new program called Family to Family,” Swallow said. “It’s all about keeping kids in their communities. What Lisa is going to do is form a little community. It’s a support network.”

There are at least 30 families in this area that are foster or adoptive parents or relative caregivers for children who have been removed from their homes.

“One night a month foster parents can come in and they don’t have to cook dinner, they have someone to take care of their kids for two hours,” Swallow said. “We have (groups) all throughout King County and we see the benefit of retaining foster parents and the ability to recruit more.”

This group is being started because there are so many families in this area that need the support.

Wiscomb said the last time she went to a Fostering Together group meeting in Kent there were three families from Maple Valley.

So, it’s clear there is a need, Wiscomb explained.

Swallow knows something about the need for a support system having served as a foster parent for 13 years.

“Many of us have strong family support bases, but, (with foster kids) it’s different,” Swallow said. “You’re dealing with behaviors your bio kids don’t have and they don’t understand that. Your families don’t understand the kind of structures you have to put in place. So, every foster parent needs a support system.”

When Swallow got her first referral, she added, she started a support group.

Wiscomb, who serves as a Court Approved Special Adovocate (or CASA) for children, has a deep passion for helping families in crisis.

“Somebody said to me, ‘What do you want to do for the rest of your life?,’” Wiscomb said. “I said, ‘I want to do something where kids can stay in their school when they get put in foster care.’ It’s hard enough when they get yanked from their homes. So, that’s the goal, to keep kids in their same community when they are removed from their homes.”

Retired after 32 years of work, Wiscomb has gone through training with DAWN to help domestic violence survivors, and has nearly completed a degree in self and society.

“From there, I started doing volunteer stuff, anything to do with kids, anything to do with domestic violence,” Wiscomb said.

Not too long ago she ran into Swallow, a high school classmate and friend, and both said that meeting was some divine intervention at play.

“We got together and we started talking about it,” Wiscomb said. “She said, ‘We need a group (in Maple Valley)’ and I said I wanted that group. I was ready to call up the CASA office to tell them I wanted to take on two more kids and we ran into each other that day. We’re both Christians and right off the bat we said that was God’s work right there.”

The group met for the first time on Tuesday and will continue to meet at 6 p.m. on the fourth Tuesday of the month at the Greater Maple Valley Community Center through September when the meeting will move to the Lake Wilderness Lodge.

Because Wiscomb wants to provide child care and a meal for parents the group will need community support. She is in the process of connecting with volunteer organizations in the community.

Swallow added this could be a great opportunity for students in the Tahoma and Kent school districts to help out and complete required community services hours.

“For kids who don’t know anything about foster care, it’s a real eye opener for them to there are kids who don’t have what they have, that don’t have moms and dads and their own homes and bedrooms,” Swallow said. “It’s also a great place for people to come and get their questions answered about how they can support a foster family.”

Ultimately Wiscomb would like the group to meet its full potential.

“If this could grow even more, I’ll let it go as far as it can go,” Wiscomb said. “When somebody says ‘Im a foster parent’ there’s a little bit of a dark cloud over them because of what people have heard. I also hope that this grows enough that it becomes important to the whole community, that it raises the awareness, that there is a community here.”

For information about how to support the group, contact Wiscomb at lisawiscomb@earthlink.net.

For more information on Fostering Together log on to www.fosteringtogether.org or call 866-958-KIDS (5437).