(PRESS RELEASE / THE VILLAGE REPORTER)
ADOPTION … Justin (J.J.) and Bethany Rupp recently shared their story to become advocates for foster parenting and adoption with Archbold Rotarians. Their young family includes four children: a 9-year-old daughter who was born to them, along with 6 and 5-year-old sons and an 8-month-old daughter who came to their home first as foster placements and then through adoption. Pictured from left: Rotarian Bob Aschliman, who arranged the program, Bethany and Justin Rupp, and their 8-month-old daughter.
PRESS RELEASE – For Justin and Bethany Rupp, the question of adoption and even foster parenting was one each had thought about before they were a married couple. And, for Justin – even before he knew Bethany.
The question was a matter of faith and the importance of providing children a safe, loving and caring home to grow in whether those children were their birth children or children born to others who were unable to provide those basic nurturing necessities of life.
The two met in college, married and returned to their roots where Justin farms with his father and works for Bryan Municipal Utilities. Bethany is the northern regional manager for Adriel, a foster care and adoption agency.
After their first daughter was born, Justin and Bethany told Archbold Rotarians that they decided to revisit the question of foster parenting and adoption – both as a matter of faith and to grow their family.
Through her job with Adriel, Bethany was familiar with both and understood the need for licensed foster parents in northwest Ohio.
Once they completed the training and review process (a home visit, background checks, medical and financial statements, etc.) that Ohio requires for foster families, they waited for a call from a county family service agency or a private placement agency such as Adriel.
Those calls can come at any time when it’s determined children need to be removed from an unsafe home and placed in foster care.
Justin referred to foster placements as “jumping into the messy.” He explained, foster families don’t have to accept every placement when called.
However, families don’t have a lot of time to decide since these are emergency situations where an immediate foster home is needed.
Additionally, foster families may not know a lot about the situation that a child is coming from. And, they often arrive with only a garbage bag full of everything that can be quickly gathered from their home.
Justin added that Adriel provides a duffel bag containing basic necessities that child they place will need.
Children placed in foster care will remain with a foster family or various foster families until the court from the child’s home county determines that it is either safe to reunite them with a parent or a grandparent or other relative. Sometimes, the court and birth parent agree that adoption is the best option for the child.
Three of Justin and Bethany’s four children (two sons and a baby daughter) have been adopted after first being placed with them in foster care.
For more information about foster care and adoption, visit the Adriel website: www.adriel.org.