ILLINOIS – As National Kinship Care Awareness Month comes to a close, representatives from Brightpoint are sharing more about their work to keep kids with family members.
As an organization, Brightpoint provides foster care and support services to kids and families across the state of Illinois. Loni Wilson, LCSW, Statewide Director of Foster Care, shared that while there will always be a need for traditional foster parents, Brightpoint makes kinship care — foster care that places a child with a relative or someone else known to the child — a priority.
“We know that outcomes for our families are going to be so much better if we can keep families together at their core,” Wilson explained. “We really do try to make sure whenever possible we can keep kids with their family, however that is defined for them…Our goal is always to ensure that our kids are stable and that they are loved and that they’re able to maintain those cultural connections, community connections, where they’re going to feel the safest and the most at home.”
Brightpoint currently has 540 youth in care. Between 75–80% of these kids are placed with relatives or others “who they identify as family.” This might be a teacher, coach, or someone else who is close to the child.
“There’s really nobody that’s off the table,” Wilson said. “If a family comes to us and says that these people are close to them, that matters to us.”
The ultimate goal is to reunite parents with their children when possible. Outcomes are better when parents can still be involved in their child’s day-to-day activities.
Wilson noted that there are many misconceptions about the families they serve. She clarified that most of the parents they work with need support above all else.
“There’s a lot of myths out there about our parents being dangerous or aggressive, and it’s just not true in the majority of the situations,” she said. “When they can still remain actively involved, that’s when we notice that parents are more engaged in the services that they need in order to rectify the reason for why the kids came into care in the first place.”
She added that most people can relate to experiencing “really, really difficult times,” but a lot of folks are fortunate enough to have support systems that can help them through it. As part of their services, Brightpoint helps families build those supports.
The organization is focused on identifying and building on families’ strengths, and they work closely with parents, kids and kinship caregivers to create the best situations for the kids. National Kinship Care Awareness Month shines a light on this work.
“Our role is to partner with our families and really meet them where they’re at and see what it is that they think that they need, because they’re truly the expert of their lives,” Wilson said. “Our families just need a little bit of help, as so many people in the world do right now.”
She added that Brightpoint can always use help from the community, whether that’s through monetary donations or by signing up to be a foster parent. For more information about Brightpoint and their services, including how you can give or receive help, visit their official website at Brightpoint.org.
