John has retired from Foster Care but this blog and the ancillary pages will continue to be managed by his Co-Writer and Consultant, Diane Steinbach. We hope that you find this page to continue to be of value to all of our friends and family in the Foster care world.
~ Diane
Hi,
My name is John, and I am a foster dad who has had over 30 foster kids come through my rural home in Michigan. I am a simple guy, who, thanks to God's help and blessings, has been successful working with some of the toughest kids in foster care. We share a happy home with three dogs, a bird and two turtles... just to keep things interesting!
This blog is edited and managed by my friend, Diane Steinbach. She is an art therapist and writer. She is the author of three books on art therapy including Art As Therapy: Innovations, Inspiration and Ideas:, Art Activities for Groups: Providing Therapy, Fun and Function and A Practical Guide to Art Therapy Groups.
When you see comments posted from "John, via Diane" it means we talked it through and she typed in the response from her Blogger acct. Responses directly from her will be signed just from her. Her assistance with the blog makes it possible for me to work with the boys AND post on the blog!
A little about my background and where I come from when I write this blog...
I first started working with juveniles while I worked Maintenance
at my county courthouse and jail. In my first 10 years there I had worked with
children from ages of 6 years old to 17.
I was asked to
work with juveniles, so I worked for the probate court. That meant I worked with probation officers and Thank God I
worked with a great Judge who gave me free rein on what I could have the kids
do. I would then meet with the
officers and the judge and he would want to know what I could learn from the
kids that could help him work with the juveniles. I would report
to the Judge about the child’s life, at least what the child would share with his
probation officer and me. We were
a team.
I had hundreds of kids goes through the courthouse/ Jail
work program and it taught me a lot.
I took what I learned and
later I ran the County Park system with the new understanding about children. I now had adult probationers along with the Jail van working
with me in the parks system. People’s life story’s kept on coming.
Now I had the
full stories sometimes from men I had worked with as kids. They remembered me and I even had bets
with some of them that they would be in jail at some point before they were 21.
I was right. It was sad to be right sometimes.
But I tried to teach what I could to them all. Now the total
time I work with kids and adults was 10 years in the county courthouse /jail
and 14 years in the park system plus 12 years now as a foster Dad. (I had
foster children with I was the park manager for 5 years)
It adds up to
29 years overall. When I write about something on this
blog it is what I saw firsthand. It’s not something I read about. It was my life.
Thanks for reading and I hope you find the information I bring you here helpful in your lives with your kids...
