Another Fostering Option: URM

This week I heard about something called the Unaccompanied Refugee Minor (URM) foster-care program, a network of specialized foster-care agencies. Kids in this program range from about 4 to 20, with most in their teens. They may have come to the US as survivors of war or trafficking (slavery). They may have come alone or with a caregiver who then abused or abandoned them, or who otherwise couldn't meet their needs.

Here's how it works:

"URM programs follow the same state or county laws and regulations that govern domestic foster care. The children in the URM program are eligible for all of the same services as an American born youth in a state foster care program… 

URM programs are funded by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, via the State Refugee Coordinator's office. This office oversees the administration of the URM programs. All URM programs are licensed and monitored regularly by their state child welfare authorities. In addition, LIRS and USCCB provide quality control and serve as an ongoing resource for the programs."

LIRS is the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, and USCCB is the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. If I'm interested, the next step would be to contact them for more information.

And I am interested. I'm actually really interested.

I mean … not yet. We'll have to see where the TTC path leads first, because it's the one that's time-sensitive, and I dearly hope that it leads to a child of my own. But fostering in general, and this type in particular, doesn't feel like a substitute for having my own child. It doesn't feel like a consolation prize. It just feels like a very different path ... which I know I don't have energy to pursue very far right now, but which also (Thank God!) makes me feel some genuine excitement. I want to do BOTH of these things.

I'm still sorting out why I feel so drawn to the URM option and how much of that attraction is realistic. Some of it comes from reading Half the Sky a few years back. I stayed up literally all night reading that book, with its stories of women and girls forced into prostitution and exploited in the countless other ways that people can abuse each other. It was one of the most nauseating, heartbreaking, infuriating, energizing things I've ever read.

It was also wonderful to learn about the ways that people have been fighting back. I actually decided that night that if my dreams to have my own child couldn't be fulfilled, then my next step would be to spend a few months working for one of the groups in that book. Why not? I'd have no strings to tie me down; I'd be just the kind of person who could actually go and do it: working on contract, single, no kids of my own. Why not at least try to do something useful for someone's child? Meanwhile, it might keep me from drowning in self-pity at the time when I'd be most tempted.

And now … here is this option, right here in my own country.

I sense that my excitement is terribly naïve. I mean, I've never really pictured myself fostering a teen or pre-teen domestically, and now all of a sudden I'd consider fostering what's likely to be an even-more traumatized teen who speaks just a few words of my language? What on earth am I thinking???

What am I thinking? I'm thinking that I care. I'm thinking how many of the URM kids come from Central America, and how I have two years' worth of rusty Spanish that it wouldn't be too hard to resurrect. I'm thinking of these ads, and the fact that agencies provide some training. I'm thinking first of the reasons why it actually might work, which has not been the norm for me lately.

And I'm thinking, too, of the reasons why it might not work. My mind knows that there would be some special challenges, which I may decide I'm not truly able to meet once I find out more. And yet my heart still feels called—that's the only word that fits here—to take the next step and find out more anyway.