Church, state meet to help cause of unadopted children

Stephen Curran

Tuesday, June 7, 2005 | 11:06 a.m.

The Interfaith Roundtable will be rebroadcast on Clark County Television, cable Channel 4, Wednesday at 6 a.m., Thursday at 10 a.m. and 8 p.m., Friday at 7 a. m. and 5 p.m., Saturday at 8 a.m., and Sunday at midnight It can also be viewed at the following times or on the county's Web site, www.accessclarkcounty.com

The county early last month launched an advertising campaign to draw attention to what County Manager Thom Reilly has repeatedly called a "crisis" that has threatened to choke public children's service programs.

Since then, hundreds of area residents have contacted the county or attended a meeting sponsored by MGM Mirage for more information about the program, Susan Klein-Rothchild, director of the county Family Services Department, said.

Exactly how many of those will turn into foster or adoptive parents is hard to pinpoint, but previous estimates peg the number at less than half, Klein-Rothchild has said.

That's where the roughly 10 faith leaders at Monday's Interfaith Roundtable at the County Government Center come in, she said. Future meetings are expected later this summer, although an exact date had not been set.

"We have a mandate, legal and ethical, to keep children within families," Klein-Rothchild said.

It's a call many families, no matter how well meaning, are reluctant to take, the Rev. Gard Jameson of Grace Community Church said.

Jameson, who said families with whom he's spoken are often worried about the legal and financial burden a foster child can place, suggested the county keep an online database of ages and descriptions of would-be foster children now in the county's care.

"We need to tell them, that's how easy it is to step in that role," he said. "There's a lot of fear in families."

According to Family Services, potential foster parents need to be at least 21 years old, a U.S. resident and must complete government-mandated training to apply. Applicants need not be married.

Legal restrictions keep the county from posting photographs and names online, but a database with ages and descriptions is something the county could work to establish, Klein-Rothchild said.

County officials would also be wise to expand its target from strictly would-be foster and adoptive parents to include those who wish to help other families share the cost of adopting or taking in a foster child, Rabbi Gary Golbart said.

"There are a lot of people who move here of means," he said. "We need to look at how people of means can help."

Relief may also lie in members of faith-based service groups helping care for and spend time with children already in the county's care, even if they do not plan to foster or adopt them, said Rick Perry, director of Family Services for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"It could just be that they're reading to them or holding them," he said. "Frankly, the county's kind of fallen short on that."

Perry suggested holding orientation meetings at churches, LDS bookstores and credit unions.

The acute need for foster or adoptive parents has swelled in part due to sharp increases in methamphetamine use among parents of small children, a pattern that has left 40 infants in the county's care, Reilly said.

The number of children needing shelter care increased 29 percent between 2003 and 2004, from 3,513 to 4,548, according to Family Services. The average age of a child in the county's care is 6 years old.

It's caused a previously unheard-of demand for adoptive parents, who often scramble to adopt young or newborn infants, Klein-Rothchild said.

"We're having so many infants come to us, it's unbelievable," she told the panel. "I never in my life thought I'd say, 'I don't have a home for an infant.' "