We would like to introduce to you, Meg Bankston. We asked her to share her heart and story on how she became a foster mom. Meg has been a joy to get get to know and has helped us in many ways in serving the foster care community.
My name is Meg Bankston and my husband Harry and I are foster parents here in Thomasville. We have both worked in Child Welfare over the years. I worked for DFCS as well as CASA before accepting a job at our church doing Preschool Ministry. Harry and I actually met and fell in love working for our local CASA program so we both have a huge heart for serving the foster care community. We got married in April 2020 (pandemic wedding style lol) and very quickly decided we wanted to pursue becoming foster parents. We reached out to Necco (a foster care agency) and became certified foster parents in November 2020. We accepted our first placement in January.
Having been around so many vulnerable children and families since I graduated college, there are hundreds of faces and names that are my why, but I will say, becoming a foster parent has intensified my desire to love and serve these vulnerable children and families.
Harry and I are what Necco calls “Partnership Parents”. This means we are your typical foster parents, but we also are open to being a support and resource for our foster kids’ biological parents. We have two little loves in our home right now and we have found so much joy in getting to be their foster parents, but we have found immeasurably more joy in getting to love and support their parents as well. Their parents have been in our home, shared holidays with us, and we talk almost every day. In supporting them, we have been able to better parent our little loves. We share highs and lows and try to work through them together. Knowing we are having a part in hopefully safely reunifying our boys with their parents who love them and are fighting hard for them helps Harry and I to know that navigating the difficult and tricky parts are worth it!
Being foster parents is probably the most difficult thing we have done so far, but we are wearing our strings because these little ones deserve a safe and stable home full of love, grace, and understanding. Every difficult moment has been made worth it in seeing them grow and thrive. Getting to watch and be a part of them learning to trust and give and receive unconditional love is such a gift. They have given us so much love and it is our honor to wear our strings for them and other kids like them!
