Burke commissioners launch initiative to hear from foster care advocates

More than 180 children in Burke County are in foster care, and a handful of kids are routinely forced to spend the night at the Department of Social Services.

Meanwhile, finding and recruiting qualified foster parents has become increasingly difficult for DSS, and the guardian ad litem program struggles to find volunteers as well.

In response, the Burke Board of Commissioners is engaging organizations on the front lines of the battle to provide kids with the support they need.

Over the next few months, the commissioners will hear reports from those nonprofits as part of a plan to open a dialogue between advocacy groups and the county in hopes of finding solutions.

They kicked off the campaign at Monday’s board meeting by hosting Jeff Marburger, founder and executive director of a Cleveland-County-based group called One More, One Less.

“For some amount of time, we have struggled to recruit and retain licensed foster parents,” said Burke County Manager Brian Epley, “and that really creates a system where children are being placed, at times, out of the county, long distances away, or sometimes not in the appropriate family atmosphere.”

“The data is clear that what’s best for the child is to really be embraced and loved in a caring home that provides that kind of foundation for their youth and development.”

That’s exactly what Marburger’s group strives to do.

He and his wife, Mandy, founded One More, One Less in 2019. The organization facilitates cooperative efforts between churches and government agencies to recruit and retain foster parents.

He said fostering is a calling.

“This is not a problem or an obligation,” Marburger said. “This is an opportunity for people like us to do things like this, and that’s a mantra that we really try to hammer home to local churches.”

Epley told the board One More, One Less has been successful partnering with both DSS and guardian ad litem in neighboring Cleveland County.

Marburger said Burke’s board is the first to invite the group to speak at a meeting, and he appreciated the opportunity to connect. He hopes to find two local churches that can serve as leads for the program.

He said many church parsonages in the area stand empty, and those homes can be a great resource for foster programs.

One of the group’s most successful projects is Not Far From Home, a transitional house for kids aging out of foster care. There, the children go through a 12-month program that teaches them basic life skills and builds a support group around them.

Marburger said being involved with foster children can enrich people’s lives greatly.

“Our project director likes to say that they’re (the kids) the anointed ones,” Marburger said. “That these kids in foster care are anointed to make us a little less selfish, and I believe that with all my heart.”