Press Release for WWW.CAKID.ORG

Below is the Press Release that we sent to the local and state news organizations and city officials on July 30, 2009, introducing our new www.cakid.org web site:

“CENTRAL ARKANSAS KIDS” WEB SITE PROVIDES COMPREHENSIVE INFORMATION FOR THE FOSTER CARE COMMUNITY.

The Pulaski County Foster Parent’s Association has researched and gathered together into one place a comprehensive collection of information for and about the foster care system in Arkansas, resulting in their www.cakid.org (Central Arkansas Kids) web site. It is aimed at current and prospective foster parents, adoptive parents, Division of Children and Family Services (DCFS) case workers, the judicial community, and other State of Arkansas officials as “the place to go” for information and answers to questions about fostering in Arkansas and adoption from DCFS. The web site includes questions and answers for foster parents and adoptive parents, contacts within DCFS to help with their questions and concerns, publications and forms for foster parents and DCFS case workers, and links to organizations focusing on the foster care system and children’s issues in Arkansas, along with publications on the web aimed at recognizing and identifying child abuse.

Being a foster parent is a noble calling, with times of heartbreak and disappointment outweighed by the opportunity to pour love and hope back into these children forced to grow up too fast, and give them some of their childhood back, restoring their feelings of safety, security, belonging, and, especially, love, that all children deserve. The web site ends with a saying that conveys foster parenting best: “One hundred years from now it will not matter what kind of house I lived in, how much money I had, nor what my clothes were like, but that the world may be a little better because I was important in the life of a child.”

If you would like further information about the www.cakid.org web site, or to schedule an interview with Steve and Nancy Rea, webmasters for CAKID.ORG, please contact them at 944-1237, or e-mail them at srea@maristream.org.

One hundred years from now it will not matter what kind of house I lived in, how much money I had, nor what my clothes were like, but that the world may be a little better because I was important in the life of a child.

The beautiful pictures on cakid.org are graciously used by permission and copyrighted by Darrel Tank at www.darreltank.com. These and more may be seen at http://www.cakid.org/Darrel_Tank/thumb.html. Thank you, Darrel, for your contribution to the foster parents of Arkansas. We thank you, and our kids thank you!

All information, forms, manuals, and other material on this web site are freely available to all
foster parents (in any role), potential adoptive parents, DCFS staff, CASA workers, guardian ad litem's,
county judges, legislators, and any other state officials or state employees that may need it.

The webmaster who maintains this web site (Stephen Rea, a foster parent) can be reached at srea@maristream.org.
Please let me know if you have any other resources or information for foster parents that we can post here.
Your contributions would be greatly appreciated by us and the other foster parents across the state!