Stephanie Ford remembers the Mother’s Day weekend she said goodbye to her child.  

Not her child by blood, but a child she cared for over the course of a fostering assignment, a child she came to love as much as each of her own four children.  

“In this season of them being in my home, I am their mom. I’m foster mom,” said Ford. "I get to show them a mother’s heart. I get to show them an example of what love should be like.” 

As with the majority of foster cases, the goal was to reunify the child and birth family. Ford spent time with them while she cared for their child and, as they shared their story, she saw that a family should not be defined by one mistake. She helped them move into their new home, the beginning of a fresh start.  

When the time finally came, over Mother’s Day weekend, Ford said a bittersweet goodbye to a child who now felt like family, but she also watched a fellow mother regain a child she once thought lost.  

“I saw a mom who fought for her children, and I was so proud of her. Being able to witness restoration through reunification was beautiful,” said Ford. “That’s something that I will always remember.” 

Ford, who is originally from Indiana but now lives in Kalispell, is no stranger to the complex emotions experienced by foster mothers. She and her husband, Ryan, have fostered 14 children over the last 5 years. The average foster family takes in five to 15 placements over a lifetime. 

With each child she welcomes into her home, Ford knows she’s opening herself up to the unknown and to the heartache of eventually saying goodbye, but she continues to make those sacrifices. After years as a foster parent, she is confident that she is both a better person and a better mother.  

“I try not to sugarcoat it,” Ford said. “It is hard. It’s selfless and humbling, but it’s the most rewarding thing that I have ever done, knowing that I get to impact these children’s lives and pray and hope that they don’t become a statistic.” 

Ford is all too familiar with those statistics. For the past year, she’s worked as a foster care advocate for Child Bridge, a Bigfork-based Christian nonprofit that finds and equips Montana families to foster children who have suffered abuse and neglect. Nationally,  Montana has the fourth highest rate for children in foster care, according to the U.S. Administration for Children and Families. 

Of children who age out of the foster care system, 20% will become instantly homeless, and 50% will develop a substance dependence. Less than 3% will earn a college degree, despite the 70% who say they would like to attend college one day. Only 50% are gainfully employed by the age of 24. 

While those numbers often seem abstract, they represent real children. In the Flathead Valley, there are about 150 children in foster care, but only 55 licensed foster homes, according to Ford. There simply aren’t enough homes available for children who need a safe place to land.  

As a foster care advocate, Ford recruits potential foster families and walks them through the licensing process. Child Bridge’s goal is to reverse the numbers so that there are more foster families in Montana than there are children in need of homes. 

Why does the gap exist? Ford said families often hesitate to foster because of its temporary nature: it can be heartbreaking to nurture a child for weeks, months, or years and fall in love with them, only to feel like they lose them upon reunification with their birth families.   

But “attachment is needed to build healthy relationships for these children in the future,” Ford said. 

“I would rather put my heart in a box in the middle of the road to be run over so these children’s hearts don’t have to be,” she said.  

Other families simply feel they aren’t ready to take on the challenges of foster care, a feeling Ford understands. There was nothing miraculous about the Fords’ entry into foster care. As Ford recalls, they saw a need in the community that they were equipped to meet, and they decided to do something about it. As Christians themselves, they were motivated by the Bible’s command to care for orphans.  

“We are not superheroes, and we're just average, average people,” she said. “I'm an average mom who decided to say yes, who decided that I was going to walk into the hard, and I have never turned around and looked back. I continue to pick up my cross daily, but it’s rewarding.” 

At the time, Ford’s oldest daughter was five, and her youngest child was a newborn. Her four children — three biological and one adopted — don’t remember a life before foster care, and they’re as involved as their parents in the lives of their foster siblings. 

“I have seen my children learn humility, learn that children come from hard places and what that looks like. I have seen my children be an example to other children,” Ford said. “We've asked our kids, ‘Do you want us to put our license on hold? Should we wait after a placement is reunified?’ And each time it’s, ‘No, we love this. We get to be an example of Jesus.’ So just hearing that is huge.” 

Ford said the support from organizations like Child Bridge is invaluable. Emotional burnout is common among foster families as they navigate the challenges of taking in a child not their own. Without the education, training and peer support from these organizations, her family would probably have stopped fostering, she said.  

As a mother, though, Ford knows that she can give so much to these children, and for whatever amount of time they’re with her, she will love them like they are her own. 

“I eat, sleep and breathe foster care. Even on days when it's hard, I will still continue to do it, because I know what I'm pouring into and I know biblically what I'm supposed to be doing,” Ford said. “Whether these kids remember me or not, they'll remember what I poured into them and what I'm sowing into them.” 

Reporter Elsa Ericksen can be reached at 406-758-4459 or [email protected]. If you value local journalism, pledge your support at dailyinterlake.com/support.