News Photo by Mike Gonzalez Stephanie Dettloff, executive director of Child and Family Services of Northeast Michigan, smiles next to pictures on Wednesday made by foster children served by the organization.

ALPENA — Michigan has about 10,000 children in foster care and 200 who still need an adoptive family.

For the Child and Family Services of Northeast Michigan, a child welfare agency based in Alpena, executive director Stephanie Dettloff said the department usually serves between 20 to 40 children at any given time.

Dettloff said the agency struggles to find foster homes within the local community. Because of that, children are sent to other locations as far away as Detroit and Marquette in the Upper Peninsula.

“Every time a child is placed in another home or another environment, it’s a new home and it’s a new relationship trying to be established,” Dettloff said. “That in and of itself is traumatic to children who experience multiple placements or don’t even have a place they can call home for any length of time. That’s sometimes a real struggle that we see with our kids and we understand that’s the impact of children who are coming into care.”

Dettloff said that children enter the agency’s care for different reasons, such as poverty-related issues, parents or guardians who suddenly die, or other reasons, but that each child has different needs for their circumstances.

According to the 2023 Kids Count in Michigan Data Book, 1,246 children in Alpena County, 322 in Alcona County, 396 in Montmorency County, and 446 in Presque Isle County live in poverty.

Dettloff said that some children would benefit from adoption options, but that many coming into the system are there when families need help, with the endgame of reuniting that child with their parents.

“There’s a lot of myths around what foster care is and what foster care isn’t,” Dettloff said. “There are situations where children are removed, but not due to anything associated with physical abuse. It might be that mom and dad have fallen on hard times, lost housing, or there’s instability within the home right now. Sometimes children are placed either with a relative or through foster care, so we really try to work on those reunification efforts through parent agency treatment plans with parents to improve the situation.”

Detloff said myths surrounding foster care can also deter people from participating and helping as foster parents. She said people assume they need to be married and have a higher socio-economic status, but that is not the case.

She said foster parents need to undergo orientations and training to become licensed, but that foster agencies give stipends and allowances for clothing and holidays to the temporary guardian to assist with raising a child.

“What we found with a lot of our foster parents is that they serve as good mentoring supports to parents that are struggling,” Dettloff said. “Some of our foster parents can kind of create that unique partnership to just be supportive of the parents going through that process. Sometimes parents never had a good parenting experience either, so trying to give them new tools and education can really help them strengthen that positive parent-child bond.”

According to Dettloff, Child and Family Services of Northeast Michigan is shifting brands soon to create a larger organization with a new family resource center. She said more information about the brand shift will come soon, but said she hopes to put a children’s museum, a family resource library, and different learning programs in the family resource center.

Dettloff said the agency is currently talking with an architect on a model of the facility but will talk about it soon.

“Foster parenting, it’s not an easy job by any means, but we’re really struggling in getting teens placed,” Dettloff said. “We certainly invite people who want to learn about foster care to talk with our foster care special licensing specialist. She can give an orientation about what the process is and help every step of the way from the start of licensing to the finish.”