Advocating for foster families

By Sharon Hicks, KP News

May is National Foster Care Month, and foster care advocates around the country are organizing a variety of events to raise awareness and show support. Locally, a fund-raising walk is planned on the Key Peninsula May 3. Vaughn resident Karen Jorgenson, who is coordinating the event, is the executive director of the National Foster Parenting Association (based in Gig Harbor).

Karen Jorgenson of Vaughn has been the executive director of National Foster Parenting Association for 10 years. Photo by Karina Whitmarsh

Jorgenson and her husband, Dave, started foster parenting in the early ’70s and has been involved ever since. She has served as executive director of NFPA for 10 years. Jorgenson loves her work and is thoroughly dedicated to a lifelong commitment of helping others.

The Jorgensons have one birth child and one adopted. Karen’s grandmother was always interested in children and the love carried through. Jorgenson wanted to do things for other people so she became a licensed social worker and started a “head start” program where she intervened on behalf of children with special needs. While living in Ohio, she recruited families to become foster parents and since the early ‘70s she and Dave have fostered unnumbered children who needed a temporary home, whether that was a day, week, or months. The couple is still in touch with their first foster child, who is now 49.

Jorgenson has worked a variety of jobs, both public and private, and says, “It is a chance to share blessings with others.” During their life in Ohio, she started working for the NFPA and soon became the executive director. When her mother, who lives on the peninsula, became ill, Jorgenson moved the headquarters to Gig Harbor, where she could be close to her mother and still preside over her job. Her role now is caring for the foster parents and their needs in many ways through the association.

The NFPA is a nonprofit organization established in 1972 as a result of the concerns that the country needed a national organization to meet the needs of foster families in the United States. Today, the association has grown form 926 foster parents to over 513,000 children who are temporarily separated from their families because of abuse, neglect or many other reasons.

The national office in Gig Harbor works with child advocacy organizations to promote the improvement of the foster care system, as well as to help advance the laws and policies that affect foster families.

This May’s event will consist of about 100 walks in more than 25 states. In addition to the peninsula, many walks will take place between Olympia and Everett under Jorgenson’s coordination. The May 3 Key Pen 5K fundraising walk starts at 8:30 a.m. at the KP Lutheran Church. It is being sponsored by the National Association and its affiliate, the Foster Parenting Association of Washington State. Walkers participating in the event need to collect at least $30 in donations, and upon completing the course each walker will tie a ribbon to a tree. Blue ribbons, used during the National Foster Care Month, symbolize children in foster care.