ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Belmont County marked Foster Parent Appreciation Month Wednesday, recognizing the families who have opened their arms to children who have experienced trauma at home, compiled with being removed from their birth parents.

The county commissioners heard from Belmont County Department of Job and Family Services Director Jeff Felton and staff including Children Services Administrator Christine Parker

Felton said the county currently has 31 licensed foster homes, and more are expected to be available soon.

“Seven more are in the pipeline to be certified. They went through training and have to do home studies, background checks and references,” Felton said.

“As of this moment,we have 32 children in … agency custody,” Felton said, adding the number is comparatively low. “We usually run maybe 37 to 42 so we’re down a little bit. We had a couple of adoption finalizations and a larger sibling group (of three children) went home … that made a significant difference. … I don’t want more kids in care, that’s not a good thing to have happen.”

He said the coronavirus pandemic may also be impacting numbers.

“I think part of it is COVID-related. Our reports of abuse and neglect or suspected abuse and neglect is climbing back up to where it was, but with kids not being in school for a long period of time. They weren’t there.

“The other thing is in Belmont County we have a lot of in-home supportive services with the Mental Health Board putting services in place with providers,” he said. “We’re able to provide more support to families who might otherwise not be able to handle the kids.”

Felton said the pandemic has not been a significant obstacle in training.

“We’ve done our pre-service training primarily in person and families have been more than willing to come, especially now with vaccination rates being a little bit higher. For ongoing foster parent training the state has allowed more virtual learning, either teams training or video training or online training. That’s made it easier for foster parents to get their required hours in.”

He said older foster parents or potential foster parents have not voiced concerns.

“We have a child in care, we try to find out what home would be best suited to meet the needs of the child,” Felton said.

“I think the bigger concern earlier on in this pandemic was having all the schools being virtual, so if foster parents have to work and the kids are at home doing their education, that makes it really, really hard on the family. It makes it impossible to accept a child into their home. But now that kids are going back and actually in the classroom, that pressure to have somebody at home all day, watching the child and helping with their education is becoming less of an issue,” he said.

He said the children in custody range from unruly teens who have not committed any or serious delinquent acts, to newborns whose parents have drug issues and are born with neonatal ailments.

“About 25 percent of the kids we have in care are under the age of one, primarily due to substance use/substance abuse,” he said.

Parker added the need is great and situations are different. Some foster parents only choose to foster once or twice. Others foster multiple children, some of which maintain elationships after being reunited with their biological parents.

“What we are asking the community to do and our foster parents to do is step up and care for kids that aren’t there, but treat them as their own. To work with the courts. To work with the guardians. To work with the agency. To work with the birth family,” Felton said.

For more information, call the DJFS office at 740-695-1075.

Due to a scheduling conflict, the commissioners’ next meeting will be at 9 a.m. this Tuesday instead of the normal Wednesday, at the courthouse at 101 W. Main Street, St. Clairsville.