Author Archives: Alicia McCormick

I spend a lot of time as an ESH mom thinking about love and what it takes to love others. My current baby boy has a birth family that is super involved, and it has been a joy to see them love him and get to know him. But every time we meet, it isContinue reading “The Power of a Picture”

The biggest numbers challenge of foster care isn’t finding new families who are willing to foster or adopt – it is keeping the families who have said yes. Fostering is hard, so hard, but hard things are the things that matter. So how can foster parents keep themselves from burnout? While I in no wayContinue reading “Battling Burnout”

One of the most common misconceptions I hear as a foster parent isn’t about foster parenting at all – it’s about birth parents. From the conversations I’ve had, it seems like people think that all birth parents are awful human beings, selfish people who care more about themselves than their babies, and people who shouldContinue reading “Birth Parents: Friend or Foe?”

When I first started letting people know I was going to be a foster parent, the announcement was almost alway met with the same question. “Aren’t you afraid of getting too attached?” Too attached… what does that mean, exactly? I don’t think it means what we think it does. The fear of getting “too attached”Continue reading “Getting “Too Attached””

Everyone says, “It takes a village to raise kids.” I’ll let you in on a secret – it takes a village to foster! I hear all the time how surprised people are when they find out I foster, especially as a single mom. It’s always, “I don’t know how you do it. I never could.Continue reading “It Takes A Village”

ESH is a specific kind of foster placement, an Emergency Shelter Home. ESH placements are short-term, typically less than a month, and are a safe place for children to land when they first enter into foster care. The goal of an ESH placement is to allow social workers time to find a relative who canContinue reading “What is an ESH Placement?”