By Gracie Fairfax | Echo
You will typically find Jess Fankhauser in professional attire as she serves as the director of the Calling and Career office, but what awaits her when she returns home is anything but typical. As of April, she also serves as a parent in the foster care system.
Fankhauser's fascination with the foster care system began in high school when she worked with preschool and daycare classes that had foster children in them. She witnessed how children thrived with the consistency created in their classes, despite the chaotic home lives they returned to at the end of the day. She asked herself what it would look like to offer that consistency to foster kids in her adult life.
"I've always felt pretty called to a local community," Fankhauser said. "I thought, 'How do I identify my gifts and talents, and how they align with needs within a local community?' Children were always one of those aspects for me."
Fankhauser felt she had the right personality for the job.
"They need someone who can fully invest," Fankhauser said. "I'm going to love kids for as much or as little time as I get and trust that God is in control."
When she's on her agency's list for openings, she has to stay on her toes, as she might get a call at any hour. Since she is licensed for foster care, but is not a pre-adoptive home, children leave her home either to be reunited with biological parents and relatives or to be moved into a pre-adoptive home. So far, she has had shorter placements, as the ultimate goal is to put children in a permanent situation.
Currently, Fankhauser is fostering her third and fourth child. She can care for two children at a time based on her home size and status as a single woman working full-time.
Although Fankhauser loves being a foster care parent, it requires sacrifice and self-awareness.
"You have to . . . enter the system to the capacity that you're able," Fankhauser said. "It wouldn't be fair to those children to be in a space where I can't even get them logistically to everything they need to get to."
You might find her walking back and forth during lunch breaks between Taylor's campus and her home in Upland to do laundry, wash bottles, run errands and make phone calls. Sometimes knowing her limits means the hard decision to turn down opportunities to take in foster children.
"I say no about as much as I say yes to the calls I receive," Fankhauser said. "You don't enter the system to say no. You enter the system to say yes. But knowing your limits is really key."
Fankhauser wouldn't be able to juggle her busy lifestyle of work and foster parenting without the help of her friends and family. Even though her brother, who lives with her, is gone for business a couple of weeks out of the month, he helps her balance the load when he is home. She also has an incredibly supportive community of people in Upland who babysit for her and are willing to help out at a moment's notice.
As a foster parent, Fankhauser is able to see beyond the bubble of Taylor and into the greater Grant County community where she works alongside others who are also passionate about seeing families restored.
"That doesn't always happen, which I think (is one of) the hard parts of the system. You can long for and hope for things, but it can be really heartbreaking and complex at the same time," Fankhauser said. "I can want a child to stay with me and I can want a child to go back to their family-both at the same time."
The foster system can be emotionally difficult and full of goodbyes. While Fankhauser knew what she was getting into, it doesn't make the hard aspects of the job any easier. When helping children transition smoothly out of her home, she stresses the importance of learning to say goodbye well and beginning the transition early by talking through the process.
"Foster care, for me, is one of the most tangible reminders every day of just how much I'm not in control-God is," said Fankhauser. "I'm thankful for even small amounts of time where I get to join him in the work of caring for children in this community."
