Foster Parent Well
Foster Parent Well is the go-to podcast for foster and adoptive parents who are navigating the complexities of parenting children with trauma while trying to stay sane in the process. Hosted by Nicole T Barlow, a foster and adoptive mom of six, parent trainer, and wellness coach, this podcast is where faith, resilience, and practical strategies come together.
If you're feeling burnt out, overwhelmed, or just plain exhausted from the daily realities of foster care and adoption—you're not alone. Here, we have real conversations about the hard stuff: attachment struggles, secondary trauma, parenting beyond behaviors, and the deep emotional weight of loving kids from hard places. But we also talk about you—your health, your nervous system, your faith, and the small, sustainable ways you can care for yourself so you can keep showing up for your kids.
Expect practical tips, faith-based encouragement, expert insights, and zero sugarcoating—just real, honest talk about what it takes to foster well, adopt well, and most importantly, stay well in the process.
Because parenting kids with trauma is a marathon, not a sprint—and you were never meant to run it alone.
🎧 Subscribe now and let’s do this together!
Foster Parent Well
Inside A Faith-Driven Boys Ranch Transforming Foster Care
Teen boys who’ve bounced through dozens of placements don’t need another bed; they need a family that endures. We sit down with Stacey Cooper, executive director of Goshen Valley Boys Ranch, to unpack a hybrid model that feels like home and delivers the services that help healing stick. Instead of rotating shift workers, married house parents live with the boys, building daily rhythms around school, chores, sports, and shared meals. It’s a peaceful campus with fishing ponds, basketball courts, and even a couple of donkeys—but the real difference is trauma-informed care rooted in TBRI, faith, and consistency.
Stacey walks us through the first 72 hours—medical check-ins, school placement, counseling, and a simple yet powerful ritual: boys choose their own bedding and essentials from community-made welcome baskets. That early voice and choice matters. We dig into why teens sometimes struggle in traditional foster homes, how repeated disruptions damage attachment, and how thoughtful matching places each boy with house parents whose strengths fit his needs—from career coaching and trades to special education expertise. The conversation also opens the hood on caregiver support: weekly training, respite rhythms, extra staffing, and a culture of adult connection that prevents burnout and stabilizes kids.
Faith runs through the work in everyday ways—gentle words, patient correction, showing up again tomorrow. Youth group nights, church camp, and weekly Compass Groups add community ties beyond campus. Whether permanency comes through reunification, adoption, or enduring relationships with the ranch into adulthood, the target never changes: help each young man learn to give and receive love. Curious how to help? There are many on-ramps: house parenting, respite care, fostering siblings, tutoring, therapy roles, Second Saturday service, or building welcome baskets.
If this conversation moved you, follow the show, share it with a friend who cares about foster youth, and leave a review to help more listeners find these stories. Your steady support helps boys find belonging.
GOSHEN VALLEY: www.goshenvalley.org
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Welcome to the Foster Parent Well Podcast, where we have real, candid, faith-filled conversations about all things foster care, adoption, and trauma. I'm your host, Nicole T. Barlow. I'm a certified parent trainer, a certified health coach, and an adaptive parent myself. This is a space where you can find support so that you can care for your kids with a steadfast faith, endurance, and joy. I want you to foster parent well. So let's jump in. And I think that that is so, so important. I know the podcast episode this week is a couple of days late. This week has been kind of hectic in a very good way, um, but it's been kind of hectic. So I was kind of a couple of days late putting this out. But you guys, I am so excited about our guest today. I'm talking with Stacey Cooper, who is the executive director of Goshen Valley Boys Ranch. She leads a team dedicated to providing safety, stability, and belonging for teen boys in foster care. So I think you're really going to enjoy hearing from her. So let's get a cup of coffee, sit down, get under a cozy blanket, and enjoy this conversation with Stacy Cooper. Stacy, welcome to the podcast. I am, I'm really looking forward to our conversation today because I think it can be really beneficial for people to understand the foster care and adoption space like more in depth, some sides that they may not be familiar with. So tell us a little bit about you and what you do.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. My name is Stacy Cooper. I'm the executive director here at Goshen Valley Boys Ranch, and I've been here for a little over 12 years now. So my role is to oversee this boys ranch that's up in Waleska, Georgia. Uh, we have 42 boys who live with us in six homes where we have house parents who take care of our kids.
SPEAKER_01:I love it. So we went some leadership, foster care ministry leadership from our church went and visited the boys' home, y'all. And I was so impressed. It's a beautiful space. Like they really have created beautiful space to care for these boys. And I thought their structure was so unique and has some elements to it that one, we can implement in our homes or be thoughtful about in our own homes, even as we're, you know, just doing typical foster care. But I also think it's important for us as foster parents to understand the broader picture of foster care and maybe some sides that we're not used to. So, Stacey, tell us what is like a boys ranch? What is the purpose of a boys' ranch and why do you have things um, you know, why do why do they exist? I guess basically.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. So we're a little bit unique in the way that we do this. A lot of places who work and do group care have something called a staff model where you've got people who come in for eight-hour shifts, and then someone else comes in, and you have staff who are rotating through taking care of these kids. Um, but we are kind of, I always say we're kind of like a hybrid model. We're in between foster care and a group home setting. Generally, a group home setting is for kids who have higher levels of need, um, who might need additional services, more supervision than you would find in a typical foster home. Uh, we are a little bit of an in-between space for that, in that we do have, like I say, that family model where we have a married couple who live in the home with the boys. They do get breaks, um, where a respite house parent couple, who's another married couple, comes in and takes care of the kids for that week. But they generally have two couples that they're working with as opposed to having that rotating shift model where you have a change in expectation each time people come in and out of that setting and not kind of promoting that attachment when we talk about TBRI in that same kind of way. It's also teaching our kids how to interact in a family system while providing some of those additional services. Our kids generally are kids who might have struggled in several foster homes and need a little bit more of that supervision and intervention. Um, but for us, our goal is always not to have those kids end up in an institutionalized setting if possible, so that they can create those attachments and really learn what it is to be a part of a family with the goal of them being able to transition into a forever family, which happens with many of our kids who don't find permanency by going back to their biological parents.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, thanks for explaining that. You know, I think statistically we know that kids do better in a family setting than they do in a group setting. But also, group settings sometimes are needed because some of our kids have a higher level of need, like you said, and need those extra supports. But also, there just aren't enough foster homes either, you know? And so do y'all ever see kids come in that could be in a foster home, but are not just because there's not enough homes?
SPEAKER_00:We do. Um, a lot of times that's because there's a larger sibling set. We might have a sibling set of two, three, four brothers, and also I think teen boys can be scary to some foster parents. And so, um, so maybe there's just not an appropriate placement based on and match based on the age of the children. We do actually have a foster care branch of what we do, Goshen Homes, that specifically works with reunifying sibling sets. And so there are times when we've got a a brother set who have a sister or two sisters, and we're able to reunify them within one of our foster homes. We have, I think, 90 foster homes now. So we do have a good many of um, a good many possibilities and opportunities for those kids to transition. I think I like that about what Goshen does is that we have the group care side of what we do, we have the foster care side of what we do. We actually have an independent living program that has a transitional living program built into it. So it's got for kids who are 17 and a half up to 21, they can live in a home with adults if they need that level of assistance within that program. And then they actually have an apartment setting there. And then we recently, a few years ago, added a therapeutic services side to what we do. And so actually, all of our therapeutic services that we get, including psychiatry, counseling, behavioral aid, CSI, substance use, all of that comes from Goshen Therapeutic Services. So we're able to really control kind of the quality of those services and consistency of that. So we have sort of this net, safety net, and continuum of care, where depending on what a child needs, we can get them where they need to go.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's amazing because that that care is so, so important. Um, now I know that you understand a lot about trauma. I mean, living in this world, right? Um, but for people that maybe don't have as much information about trauma and how trauma affects the brains, why is this level of care needed for some kids?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think that um for kids, ideally, yes, they would go into a foster home where the parents would even be willing to adopt if that ended up being the option. And then you have this kind of seamless transition to a family that they're already attached and connected to. But we know that um for some of our adolescents, they're not really open to adoption. There aren't always foster homes for those children. Yeah. And we also know that kids bouncing from place to place to place is not good. And so sometimes I see kids, and I'm seeing this honestly more because there is such a push for them to be in foster homes instead of group care. I think we're a little bit of, like I say, that in-between space that doesn't have a name to it. Um, but I think that we're seeing kids who are placed in one foster home, then transition to another foster home, then they disrupt from that foster home. And they might have been at four or five different places. I I mean, I took a how old was he? 14, 15-year-old, who I think had been in 34 different places before he came to us. And then he went from the time he was 14 until he was 21, he was in our care. And so, no, we don't check the box that we're a forever family for him, but I will tell you that child still stays in touch with us, brings his kids to come visit us. We are a different type of permanency for for children who don't necessarily have that as an option for whatever reason.
SPEAKER_01:When we're looking at the big picture, when we're looking at statistics, it's really easy to say, hey, kids will do better in a home. And so let's try to put every kid in a home. Um, but sometimes, you know, with what our kids have experienced, the home can feel very challenging. Like a typical home environment can feel very challenging. And so, you know, they may disrupt, they may have behaviors that are hard for families to manage. It's hard for families to keep everybody safe. And so disruption may happen. Um, and sometimes it may happen because the foster parents aren't equipped, sometimes it may happen because foster parents, I I don't wanna this, I don't want this to sound against foster parents in any way, but sometimes foster parents are kind of flippant and and disrupting, and this is hard, and so we're just gonna move this child to the next place. But that really does weigh on kids. Every movement creates a worldview for kids that they're rejected, they're not wanted, they're all of those things, right? And so we want to keep our kids as stable as possible. Well, tell me a little bit about y'all's setup. What you took, you know, you said it's kind of a hybrid between a group home and a family, but what does that actually look like for kids? So when they come in, what does a home look like?
SPEAKER_00:Sure. So we have six homes on our property. It's 160 acres. We are in a very rural, beautiful setting, as you had indicated. We've got two fishing ponds on campus, a football field, an indoor basketball court, an outdoor basketball court, pickleball courts. Um, we have a couple of horses and two donkeys, then a little Shetland pony, an office cat, and then we've got a lot of um family pets that the house parents have or the kids. And so it is kind of this setting that when you drive on campus, which you've done, um, it feels very peaceful, yeah, natural, kind of happy setting. And for boys, I do believe there is this like need to get out and to play and to get your energy out and to have positive outlets. I actually think that's really lacking in society in general now where we've got so much screen time. And so being able to have the kids um come onto this property and see, like, this is a place where I can ride bikes and go fishing and play sports and do these things that are healthy for them, as we're trying often to replace some behaviors and some outlets that maybe have not been as healthy is a really positive thing. So when they get here, the first thing that happens is um they go up to the home, they meet their house parents. Generally, the other boys in the home will kind of give them a tour of the house and talk and welcome them, um, make sure that we get them something to eat, and then they get settled into their bedroom. Most of our kids on campus actually have their own bedroom and an ensuite bathroom. So they feel like they have some semblance of privacy and personal space, which we feel like is really important for felt safety. Um, they then get to go to uh one of the basements of the homes where we keep something we call welcome baskets that the community does for us. The basket is a laundry hamper, and then they fill it up with all of the things that they need. So all their hygiene products, um, towels, pillows, bedding, uh, all those kinds of things to be able to get their room set up so that it feels like their room. I just feel like kids who are in foster care often have so few choices. Yeah. And they're being taken to this place and Waleska, where is that? And some new people that they've never met before. Yeah. And um, and all these kids and a new school. So to be able to have a little bit of choice, even if it's just in like picking out the things for their bedroom and helping it to feel like home, those are some of the little things we do to try to give them a little voice and choice in a situation where they don't have much of that. Um, so our we have a nurse practitioner who's on our staff who meets with our kids within 24 hours and just touches base, makes sure all medical needs are taken care of. Um, we have an education coordinator who finds out where they are educationally and gets them enrolled in school in the right classes and starts working on any kind of accommodations that they need, uh, including 504s, IEPs, trying to navigate all that special education support. We have tutors who are on campus where they can, it's actual school teachers from our district who come up and do tutoring twice a week and they can enroll in that. We get them started with counseling, um, get their case manager kind of talking to them about what's going on with your case and how do we, you know, try to help you understand what is happening, which is a big thing. You I'm sure you've experienced that with kids who are new to care. Maybe somebody explained it to them, maybe not. Yes, most of the time not.
SPEAKER_01:Most of the time we're the ones that are having to explain like what is foster care? What is happening to you right now?
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. And so all those things are just important for them to be able to, especially for the age of kids we work with. Yeah. Generally, our kids are middle or high school. We do have kind of a handful of elementary schoolers who are usually younger siblings of our of our big boys, but um, and then we have an activities director who does rec with our kids. So they jump in and start, you know, playing kickball and basketball and have these opportunities to start feeling like they can kind of settle in and have some roots. Um, all of that is kind of a part of the system of how we get them started with life here as quickly as possible. I think sitting around for a week and a half, waiting on life to start and perseverating on everything that's going on is not good for them. Um, but it's also important to use those moments before they kind of jump into everything in order to connect, to bond, to um create that sort of safety as much as you can with those kids. One thing we really try to do is find out immediately who are they allowed to talk to. Yeah. Uh, so that if they can communicate with their family, then they're able to do that. Our case managers actually reach out to the bioparents and talk to them and explain where that child is, uh, because a lot of times that hasn't happened. And hey, I know we're called a group home, but we're not this scary group of people where your child is going to get hurt. Um, and so just explaining that to them and then asking them a lot of questions about their kids so that they understand that we know they are the expert of their child and we see them as a resource and not the enemy and not the the the person who we rescued this child from. But this is gonna be a partnership and a connection between us and them.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's so important. Well, you said so many good things there. I'm so a couple of things to help our audience kind of understand when when you talk about home in I've been to a lot of group homes. Like I've seen in my time in this foster care world, I've seen a lot of different group home setups. And there lots of places will say, hey, this is the home for this age group, and this is the home for this age group, but they don't look like homes. They look like a group care facility. It looks like an institutional facility. Like your homes are actual homes. They look like homes, they operate like homes, like they they are homes. They feel homey. You walk in, there's the kitchen, there's the garage, there's, you know, like all the things that you would see in a typical home space. And I think that is really special. I think that makes a big difference in how people feel in that space versus going to an institutional space and it feeling institutionalized. Um, so I think that that is really critical. The other thing that I really love about what y'all do is when you talked about the kids like going into the basement and getting to pick out all of their stuff, their um comforter and their towels and, you know, kind of their welcome basket of stuff. And I will tell you, you guys, like this is something that our community is putting in place. Like we loved that so much that even this morning we were working on a document to kind of put this into practice in our community because it was just so special. It felt special. And it, I would imagine that it would help kids feel special in that moment to where they're not just given a bunch of secondhand items that somebody else has had in the past, but that they are really able to pick out the items that they like that fit them to create their own space, I think um really, really, really matters. And to have all of those resources for kids, to be able to offer all of those services, educational services and recreation services and medical services and all the things, all the supports that you guys give. What a blessing to the foster parents, too, the house parents in these places that are caring for these kids, that they're not doing it alone, that they have all of these resources that is this team effort. So it still feels like a home where you have parents taking care of kids, but at the same time, there are all these resources. So the parents aren't doing it by themselves.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's a lot to cool. Coordinate everything that's required. I I am kind of in awe of foster parents who do this with multiple kids in their home while somebody's working. It's it's a lot to take on. And so I think for us to be able to say, what can we do to support? When I when I first got here, we were struggling to be able to have house parents stay long term because there was there was burnout. There's tremendous burnout in this industry. I think the the average length of stay, because there are house parenting jobs all across the country, actually, but the average length of of retention for house parents is actually less than a year in nationwide. And so for us, the whole purpose of the family model is that you have consistency, you have attachment, you have connection. And so to be able to lengthen that, we spent a lot of time talking about what does it mean to support our house parents? And so when I talk about that whole service array that we now have, and we have support staff who help out in the evenings. We actually have one extra house parent couple so that if there's a situation where somebody's got to go to a funeral, someone's, you know, we're in between in staffing, anything like that, you've got this couple who already has relationship and connection with the kids who can jump in and and help out in that season. So everything is about how do we create consistency for our kids. And a lot of that has to do with how do we support our caregivers who are taking care of those children.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Cause that's those statistics about the length of time that house parents stay is that is also similar to the statistics for foster parents in general and how long people come in and do this work and they say, Hey, I want to be a foster parent. But a lot of foster parents statistically, 50% of foster parents don't continue on after a first year. They quit sometime before the first year. And the one statistic, even on the foster parent side of things, the one statistic that changes the statistic on how long people stay is if they have support. So if they have support, 90% of foster parents stay in service for longer than a year, um, which which is huge. And which, you know, I think simulates what y'all are talking about in the community or the group care model too, where you're just giving these house parents the support that they need so that they can focus on connecting and building relationship with the kids and really helping the kids as best they can. So why is that attachment and consistency so important? How do you build that up within your homes?
SPEAKER_00:I think a part of that is comes actually before the kids even get here, is trying to gather enough information to make an appropriate match between the kids and the house. So that's the other boys who are in the home, the house parents. Everybody kind of has their niche and their thing they just get excited and passionate about. I've got one house parent couple who love working with older kids because they love doing career coaching and talking about vocation and helping them get into alternative forms of education. They're willing to have kids home during the day and going to night school, things like that in order to help them. There's something they're doing called dual achievement this semester, where kids are getting their high school diploma and getting certified in a trade. And so they love that. And so if I've got a kid who's that type of kid, they're great for that home. And and because the house parents get really excited about that challenge. You know, I always tell people, like, you got to pick your challenge. We've got a house parent couple who work really well with um kids who are on the spectrum, kids who are lower IQ. She's got a the house mom's got a background and being a special needs educator. And so you've got, I have kind of these six couples who all kind of have their superpower. So making sure that ideally you're leveraging that passion, that uh skill set in order to set that up well. And then it's just all about trying to really pour into our staff and emphasize connection. So that actually starts before our house parents ever get here. I was just talking to a potential couple yesterday. I only had 30 minutes to talk to them. But one of the things that I talked a lot about was TBRI and a connection before correction and felt safety and believing that what's been broken in relationship has to be healed in relationship. I talk all of that language. And if you have the person going, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly what I believe, and they give you 10 examples of that, that's a person who's gonna fit within the mindset of what we're trying to do with our kids. We're not um, you know, there are many models that have point systems and and a different, completely different structure than what we do here. And I think that um there can be can be benefit to those systems. They're just not our system. And so knowing what it is that you want to do as an organization and then hiring people who believe in that and buy into that. I think having that home-like setting where house parents can the house that you guys went into, she's Patty's got a ton of plants and she's very crafty, and she writes Bible verses up on little chalkboards, and they do a verse of the week. There's opportunity for kind of creativity for the house parents to create this home like environment for what that means to them to invite the kids into. And then we do a ton of training. So our kid, our house parents and all of our staff go through the entire caregiver package. Um, so that's intro, connecting, empowering, and correcting. And then we do ongoing things. So we're we're gonna be doing uh this next year. We were just planning out some of the training for next year. It's every almost every week we do two hours of training. And so an hour of that is um is giving information, and then the next hour of that is generally breaking off into small groups and talking about how to apply that to our work. And that again generates connection amongst us because we're talking about the work together. Um, we do then we try to just have connection amongst us as a community because we are this interesting thing that kind of doesn't exist many places anymore where people work together, live together, kind of your whole life is a little bit within this one space and you have a different sense of community. So we have um Ladies' Days and Men's Days that we do every month where everybody gets together and and does things in order to connect with each other as adults, um, so that you have an adult population that feel like they're on the same team on the same page. If you're if I'm able to create a culture of connection and community at the adult level, then that's gonna filter down to the kids because when we're watching the everybody out on the football field playing, then we're gonna be cheering for all the kids and we're gonna be connecting with each other and it creates this kind of neighborhood, intensified neighborhood sort of feel for the kids. Um, yeah. So that I mean, those are some of the things that we do.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Plus, I think when when adults are being invested in like that, and y'all, the caregiver package that she's talking about is the TBRI training, like it is uh TBRI has a a training that is like 24 hours, that's called the Caregiver package that goes through all of TBRI. Um, and so what a blessing to get that, you know, in-house, but but also to build those relationships and foster those relationships amongst the staff so that they're getting support from one another. Because as we're supported as parents, it helps us support our kids better. If we're lacking in those relationships. And this goes across the board, you guys. Like this isn't just in group care or whatever, but for all of us, if we don't have people investing in us, we're gonna struggle to pour out to our kids. You are a Christian organization, right? That is pouring into your kids both physically and emotionally and mentally and all of those things, but also spiritually as well, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Yes, we are. Um, all of our kids, so something that's kind of unique to us versus other group care settings is we really believe in our kids getting connected to the community and the community connecting to our kids, as opposed to being kind of this isolated bubble that they live in. And so a part of that is them being involved in a local church community. We don't, there are also a lot of places that say, hey, these are the five churches that donate money to us. And so that's where you're taking the kids. And we don't do that either. Right. We say to the house parents, I like again, I hire two um people who are like-minded in in those things. And then we say to them, go and find a church where you feel fed, where your kids feel connected, um, where they can be involved in a youth group. We've got several of our houses now are going to youth groups on Wednesday nights. Um, and they go to church camp and through Waymark. I don't know if you're familiar with them, but a nonprofit that puts on these amazing camps, and all of our kids participate in that. Um, we also have a program. Waymark has a program where they do something called Compass Groups. They come in once a week and bring dinner to the house and do a Bible study with the kids with a relational mentoring focus. Um, so all of those are different ways that we invest in our kids spiritually. But I always say, and I said this yesterday, actually, that the way in which we really demonstrate Christ, the love of Christ to our kids is the way in which we talk to them, the way in which we interact with them, the way in which we endure with them, all of that is going to be honestly more than all of that programming has just a sharp matter to them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And I think that's true of us that are just that are not in group care, right? That we're just at home with our kids, how we speak to our kids is going to matter a lot more. And I try to tell myself that all the time, you guys, because I'm really good at the program tasks type stuff, but trying to invest, making sure that we're investing relationally and spiritually into our kids at home is very, very, very important. So tell us what's it like to be a house parrot? Like what is that structure? What is that setup? Because you may have some people that are have a heart for kids in foster care, have a heart for the vulnerable, um, maybe even that have um experience or TBRI background or whatever, right? That may be interested in doing something like that. So what does that look like for parents?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so we in the homes, we actually have house parent quarters, is what they're called. So there is a three-bedroom, two-batroom apartment that is within the home. And that is the space where the house parents sleep at night and kind of have their own, their own space, their own bed and living room set up or whatever that looks like. Everybody kind of does that differently. And so that's where you live in the home for three weeks. And so for those three weeks, if you're a primary house parent here, that is your only job. But we pay a full salary and then we pay for all of your housing and your food, and you have a van that you drive with the kids. And so most everybody has a personal car, but other than that, there aren't a whole lot of bills that you pay. So it's a salary and insurance, and all of kind of your living expenses are taken care of in that role. And so sometimes people will ask me, Oh, could I work another job and do this? No, you can't, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I mean, you're because because what you're giving them is a full-time job. Y'all, let's not like it's not, it is hard work, it is a lot of work it what you're asking them to do.
SPEAKER_00:And you have to have kind of those breaks during the day when the kids are in school or those moments in order to just decompress yourself to be ready because you want to be, I call, you know, 2 30 is when our elementary schoolers get here, and 4 30 is when our middle and high school get here. I'm like, that's go time. That's like the time that you want to be engaged, connecting. You want to already have a plan for these are the 25 things that are happening tonight, and I know how we're gonna get dinner and chores and study time in the middle of all of that. And so it does take a lot of coordinating and planning and energy to do it well. And so, um, so it is we do invest in our house parents in that way where it's a full-time job and we take care of them. So then every three weeks, they get a week off. So we actually have three homes that are off-site, um, two that we rent and one that we own. And so each house parent couple is assigned to one of those homes for their off time. And so if you have that home, then every time that you go off duty, you go to that house. It's kind of like your Airbnb for the week to just go relax, take a break, um, feel like you really have some time to invest in each other, uh, to go see family and to do those things. So that's our primary house parent role. And then we have a respite house parent role because who takes care of the kids during that week when the primaries are off? So that's our respite house parent couple. So again, that's a married couple. Um, the housing in the home looks like a one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment that's in the home that belongs to the respite house parents. So they stay there's you you work less days, but you move a lot in this role. So there's um things that are more and less challenging about it. So as respite, you go in and your goal for that week is to maintain structure, consistency for those boys for that week and and to connect with them and have fun and make memories and all of those things. But the goal is really to carry out kind of the plan that the primary house parents have for those kids as their primary caretakers. So you work one week in that home and take care of those boys. Then you move to a second home and work for a week in that home, and then you're actually off for two weeks. And so again, you have one of those respite homes that you're assigned to that you go to during your two weeks off. And, you know, I've had young couples who did this almost like a missionary experience where they did it for two or three, four years, and then had kids and went off and did career things that were not related to house parenting. Um, and those couples sometimes will use that time to travel, go on cruises, go out west, do all kinds of things. I mean, who gets two weeks off a month? You know, it's kind of a cool adventure, right? Yeah. And um, and then I've had pe people who um are sort of that like early grandparent phase where you've got grandbabies who are who you want to be able to spend time with, but you still love kids and really want to invest and want to do ministry. And so in that role, they're able to take care of kids and and do ministry, but also have that balance where they can go hang out with their grandkids and really feel like they're involved in that way.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. That that sounds incredible. Um, but but well, I so I say this in in two parts. Um for somebody that is very missionally minded, yes, and really has a heart for this. This is a great way to invest in kids who need it the most. But also, I don't want to underplay the hard of the role because it's it's not all vacation. Part of the reason that there is so much respite and downtime and all the things is because of all the pressure that's on you during that working time, which if you are already in foster care or adoption, you understand some of that pressure, some of those needs. When you're meeting the needs of a lot of kids at one time, it can be very, very exhausting. But it sounds like a great setup where you guys are giving kids parents what they need and kids what they need. You're giving kids that consistency, you're giving kids that family feel, but you're also investing in the people that are doing this work to make sure that they are well rested and healthy as they do it. Um, and I do think being respite and a full-time um parent are different. And I think that's true even in the regular foster care world. People ask me all the time, like, well, what's the difference? Like, why would you choose one over the other? And I think being a respite parent gives you a lot more flexibility, but you have to be a certain personality type that does well with the constant change. I learned like through our foster care experience, I am not good at respite. That is not my jam. I will do it to help out. Um, but I don't, I panic in that constant change. Like I like being a full-time foster parent. I would rather deal with the loss or the hardships or everything that come with that. Um because I can get into a routine, I can get into a pattern that helps me feel safe. So I think they're very different personalities jumping into that. But but we need both. And and this is true in y'all's model, but it's also true just in the foster care world in general. Like we need people to step up and do respite. We need people to step up and be full-time parents. And and in your role as well, I imagine that those respite parents are so, so crucial to your model in keeping house parents very, very healthy in this process.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. Well, and that's I mean, that's a great point, Nicole. I do think it is a completely different mindset when you're talking about respite and primary. And there are some people who respite is exciting and they're like, man, I don't have to set up all the structure of the home and figure everything out. I just have to come in and support the primary house parents, love on these kids for a week, and I don't mind moving three times a month. That's fine with me. That doesn't stress me out at all. And then there are some people who are like, I really want to decide how this is done. And I want the control over that because I, yeah, I want to. That's me. That's me. So I want, I don't mind taking the responsibility of that because I want the ownership of it and I want the control in that situation because I know how I want it carried out, and I don't want to carry out somebody else's plan. I want to create the plan. I want to be the one to do that and to and to have these more intentional, long-term kind of, you know, 75% of these kids' lives they're spending with those primary house parents during the time that they're with us. I want that. I want that deeper connection, more time, more impact. Um, and I want to stay in one place. That might be a bigger deal to them too. So it really just depends on the person. And for some people, they're like, wow, going and moving somewhere else, quitting my job, and and having this as like a full time position does not. Sound appealing to me because I like having these two pieces. I like having my career and I like serving foster children. And maybe for that couple, you know, then foster parenting makes within their home makes way more sense for them. So I think the beauty of it is in no matter who you are, if you have a heart for this, there are many ways to help. You can make a welcome basket.
SPEAKER_01:Plug in and serve. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So many different way things that you can do on the continuum of service within this, this, uh, this realm of foster care.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. There's there, and in different seasons, you know, like I know for our family, we've done different things in different seasons because of what our household looks like or what our needs were, whatever. And so I that's true in for everyone, in that in different seasons, you may be able to invest in different ways. But once this is on your heart, once you see the need out there, once you understand what's going on, um, I think it's really hard to turn away and do nothing. And so to know that there are different ways to step in and serve in different seasons is really, really important. Well, Stacey, what would you say is your goal for every boy that comes into one of y'all's homes?
SPEAKER_00:Um, to learn how to give and receive love is the is the main thing I would say. I think you can kids will figure out how to do their laundry. Kids will figure out, you know, the skills that we try to teach them while they're here. We do those things. But the things that I feel like they go out into the world and I say it's like different chapter, same book. You know, it's like they live out this kind of broken attachment style over and over and over again and feel like it's everybody else's fault. And you watch their life be really hard if they can't figure out how to give and receive love. And so to me, all of that happens in connection, all of that happens in relationship. And our ability to endure through the hard moments with kids and to have those conversations and to be vulnerable and say, hey, this is where I messed up, all of those modeling kind of relational, connecting things are what create that um ability for them to do that. And so um, if there's nothing else that I want them to learn while they're here, if I'm gonna prioritize something, I think the love of Jesus is the thing that helps us to be able to learn how to see ourselves and how to see other people and be able to do that dance of giving and receiving love.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's so so important. Well, tell people where we can find you guys um if people are interested in looking at your model or in applying to be house parents or respite parents or something of the sort.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. So we have a website, scoshinvalley.org. Uh, we're also on Facebook and all of the other social media apps. And so you can find us on there. Um, there are opportunities every month to volunteer. We have something called Second Saturday out here with a second Saturday of every month. People can plug in. If you say, hey, that welcome basket thing sounded really awesome. I want to do that. That's on our website as an opportunity. Right now, we have an Amazon wish list where we are buying massive amounts of Christmas presents. The community is for all of our kids, because doing, you know, doing Christmas for 42 boys is a lot. A lot. And so the community um really helps with that. And and UPS should get paid extra if they get assigned ties because you guys are awesome about helping them um provide all that. So lots of opportunities to serve. If you think I want to be a foster parent, I would like to be a therapist, I want to um look into house parenting or come and see the ranch or the other parts of what we do, then any of that is is an opportunity. There's a place to contact us through the website and just share what you're interested in and we'll get you connected.
SPEAKER_01:That's amazing. Well, I'll link all of those in the show notes. But Stacy, thank you so much for coming on today and um telling us a little bit about what you do and how you invest in kids. Thank you. Y'all, foster care is so complex. Um, there are so many different facets to it and so many different ways that people can step in and serve, which is a blessing. Um, so I'm very thankful for Stacy coming on today and and kind of talking about how they serve vulnerable kids and specifically teen boys that are in foster care. Um, well, you guys, I would love to pray for us as we wrap up today. Lord God, I thank you for Stacey and the team at Goshen Valley. Lord, I thank you for the investment that they make in these teenage boys. Um, God, I thank you for the blessing of the land and the services and the opportunities that you have given this organization to pour into vulnerable children that need it. Lord, I ask that you raise up these house parents, that you give them strength, that you give strength to the respite respite parents that step in, that you give strength to the staff, that all of these people, Lord, have the endurance to continue to pour in so that these boys have consistency, Lord, that they have continuity, that they really have love that comes from your spirit. And God, I ask for strength and endurance and all of those things for every foster parent or adoptive parent that's listening. Lord, this is hard work. You know that it's hard work, but you walk with us as we do this work, that our strength ultimately comes from you and the victory is already yours. God, I'm so thankful for your love that you've poured onto us. Let us be an overflow of that each and every day to our kids. God, we love you. We trust you in Jesus' name. Amen.