According to state data, more than 700 children are living in foster care in Delaware and Madison counties combined.  As IPR’s Thomas Ouellette reports, organizations in each county are planning a welcoming facility that will help make the traumatic experience of entering foster care better for local children.

“The goal is to ease children into foster care and make their transition into foster care a little bit easier and less traumatic than sitting in an office for days,” said Tracy Walters, founder of the non-profit organization Turn Away No Longer in Anderson.

Walters recently received a donated house from Unified Group Services.  The non-profit has spent the past few weeks converting it into a temporary home for children waiting for foster housing placement. 

That’s so children in emergency removal situations don’t have to stay in a social worker’s office for up to a few days.

 “So instead of going back to the office, the case manager can bring the child here, you know, just let them take a shower, sleep in a warm bed, play video games, watch TV, play in the backyard,” she said. “Just be a kid and not think about what’s going to happen.”

The house will include enough space for up to 10 kids at once, two living rooms and a specialized nursery for children under a year old. Walters says there will also be around-the-clock security making sure the environment remains safe and ready for new arrivals.

Placement for a child is typically found in one to three days.

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Next door in Delaware County, another foster care organization is using funding from the county and donations to build a similar house for displaced kids. 

The Isaiah 117 House’s main goal is to provide a more homelike experience to children in emergency removal situations.

A blueprint for the Isaiah 117 house that will be built in Delaware County. (Courtesy of Isaiah 117 House)

Expansion Coordinator Hannah Coffman believes it will help overcome difficulties that arise from emergency removals.

“No more placement families will be getting 3:00 AM calls of kids coming in 30 minutes with lice, drug-contaminated clothes, and pest-infested belongings, and no more kids being shuffled around the state in the middle of the night meeting at Walmart’s and truck stops with nothing but shattered hearts,” said Coffman.

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Turn Away No Longer hopes to have its house up and running by early December. 

Isaiah 117 House hoped to have their house built by December of this year, but difficulties with county zoning pushed back construction. Coffman says it hopes to break ground in the coming months. While waiting, the organization says volunteers are bringing backpacks and tote bags full of new clothes to children waiting for foster placement.

The Indiana Department of Child Services reports nearly 1,000 calls were made to a state child abuse hotline from Madison and Delaware counties in the month of August 2024 alone.

Thomas Ouellette is our reporter and producer.  Contact him at thomas.ouellette@bsu.edu