Foster parents sought in Curry, Roosevelt counties

As far as the Wofford kids are concerned, they chose their parents.

When they needed a permanent family, three of the five children decided they wanted Sherill and Alan Wofford of Portales to become their parents.

So they called and made the request.

Unbeknownst to the children, the Woffords had already started the adoption process.

“It’s good,” Maddison, 9, said.

Not every child is so fortunate.

In need of a family

Renee Fitts, Children, Youth and Families Department foster and adoptive parent recruiter in Roswell, said as of Thursday, 24 children in Curry County and eight in Roosevelt County needed a permanent home but had no one to commit to them.

Statewide, 300 children are waiting for permanent homes.

“The importance of them finding a forever home is to find permanency, stability, safety and a loving environment with a family that’s committed to them forever,” Fitts said.

If children can’t return to their parents, Fitts said, about 65 percent are adopted by relatives and 20 percent by their foster parents.

“It is difficult to find people who are willing to take in a stranger,” she said.

The situation of children aging out of foster care at 18 years old without an adoptive family is a crisis around the nation, Fitts said.

If they age out, she said, the youth often become homeless or go back to their dangerous biological families because it’s all they know.

On top of a shortage of adoptive parents, when foster parents adopt, they may eventually take in too many children to continue fostering, Fitts said. So, the state needs new foster parents.

The Woffords

In the case of the Wofford children, all five, three of whom are biologically related, had been taken from their families, placed in foster care and then adopted by a single woman, a friend of Sherill’s.

“They don’t remember not being together,” Sherill said.

The Woffords, who have four adult children, knew the family of adopted children through the Church of the Nazarene.

In March 2007, the children’s adopted mother died unexpectedly. They were separated and placed in foster homes.

Sherill said it was the Holy Spirit that led them to decide to adopt the children — Maleikah, now 11, Maddison, now 9, Daneisha and Johnathon, now 8, and Alexandria, now 7.

“We had been praying because we knew the kids needed a home,” she said.

Alan said the decision was mutual, something the couple prayed about and sought council on, including talking with their biological children.

Maddison said when her grandmother told her, Maleikah and Daneisha said that she was getting too old to raise them. So they called the Woffords.

Their adoption was finalized in July 2008.

“I felt like I needed to scream, and I kept on calling them Mom and Dad, and it was fun to spend the night at their house,” Daneisha said of how being adopted feels.

Johnathon and Alexandria’s adoption process started in August 2008 and was final last March.

Raising adopted children has given Sherill a different perspective.

When parents raise their biological children, she said, they assume they know where the kids are coming from.

“But when you have kids coming in from different places, it makes you really listen and get to know the kids individually,” Sherill said.

There were issues as the children dealt with the death of their first adoptive mother, she said, but the family is doing fine.

“They’re great kids,” Sherill said.