CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A London neighborhood is home to foster families, young adults who have aged out of care, and the network of people who help care for them. But when foster parents need a certified caregiver for a few hours — or a few days — they face a challenge most parents don't: they cannot simply call a babysitter.
Agape Ranch, a community organization in London, works to fill that gap through a network of respite care providers, and it is looking for more people to join the effort.
"This neighborhood really encompasses what we do at Agape Ranch. We want to provide a home where in a neighborhood where children can feel safe and overall just have a community that wraps around them," Susan Klaus, founder and executive director of Agape Ranch, said.
Sidney Funck and her husband are among those providers. They open their home to children when foster parents need a break — whether for a few hours or several days.
"In our experience we've had kids in our home for three days, for five days. It really varies. Uh, but you can also just have children in for like a date night babysitting. It really just depends, but it's just a resource when, when you're a parent, you just think like, oh I can just leave my child with a babysitter that I find online. Foster parents don't have that ability," Funck said.
Before starting Agape Ranch, Klaus and her husband fostered 10 children and adopted two.
"We as foster families go through things that are challenging because of trauma or court or whatever have you and through that process we're like man we really wish that there's more support around the community and there wasn't one and so we created it," Klaus said.
Today, the ranch has 26 certified respite providers. But the need for care often outpaces the number of people available to help, which is why the ranch is continually recruiting new volunteers.
The shortage can force foster families to travel long distances to find support. Funck recalled one family's experience.
"There was a foster family that drove all the way from the valley about two hours just to drop off their kiddos to us because they had a really hard time finding respite care in their area," Funck said.
Funck said that family had been searching for about six months.
Funck started her journey at Agape Ranch as a volunteer before becoming a respite care provider and is now preparing to foster.
"I started as a volunteer, then I went to respite, then I went to foster, and I just truly believe if uh me and my husband can do it that anyone could do it, uh, it really just takes a willingness to come and see. Uh, and yeah, I would just want people to know that there's nothing special about me and my husband," Funck said.
Funck said more respite providers could mean foster families spend less time searching for help and more time focusing on the children in their care.
Agape Ranch offers respite care training for free. For more information, visit https://www.agaperanch.org.
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