This year we had the great pleasure of presenting our first ever Foster Parent of the Year award at our annual Voices for Kids Breakfast. With it being our first award we wanted to make the moment extra special and surprise our foster parent recipient.
Our first recipient of this award is Nadene Sullins who has been fostering with CHOICES for nearly 22 years. Nadene has shown a great commitment to our youth and has touched the hearts of an estimated 272 youth who have been placed in her home. A good majority of the kids being teen girls…and as you know the difficulties of parenting teen girls are endless.
Prior to presenting her Foster Parent of the Year our audience heard from former CHOICES youth Megan, who was placed in Nadene’s home. We invite you to watch the clip below to hear Megan’s speech and see Nadene’s award presentation.
Nadene believes in showing every child that they are loved and shares the same philosophy as CHOICES…she wants to say YES to our kids. Nadene is the foster parent who will always pick up a 3 am phone call for a youth who needs a bed for the night. She has had 115 emergency foster care situations where she will pick up a child in the middle of the night from juvenile court and give them a place to stay until she takes them to their hearing in the following days.
Nadene will exhaust every bit of knowledge she has in relation to treatment foster care before giving up on a child. She is interested and engaged with the therapeutic and counseling needs of youth in her home. Our staff member Jessica shared a story about a girl who was placed in Nadene’s home, and this young girl was very emotional and tearful that “no one cared about her now that she is in foster care”. As Nadene’s eyes filled with tears she jumped up and hugged the girl, reassuring her that she was cared for and she could make herself comfortable in her home. This is what foster parents are made of, and from that day forward Nadene made sure this girl was part of her family and loved.
If you have ever considered becoming a foster parent we invite you to learn more about the process and would be happy to answer any questions you may have. Contact our Licensing team for more information at (937) 264-0084 ext. 111 or fill out an application form by clicking here.
[kad_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXXM0NSJH2Y” ]
