Idaho foster families to get state parks passes, outdoor trainings in public-private program

Funded by private organizations, Idaho is giving Idaho foster families passes to Idaho’s 30 state parks.

The Idaho State Park Foster Family Passport outdoor program will also feature a series of outdoor skills trainings, such as how to pitch tents and extinguish fires, state officials and business leaders announced Wednesday at Lucky Peak State Park.

“Kids are the future of Idaho. They are the future of our outdoors, and they will help us be stewards of our great outdoors in the state of Idaho,” Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation Director Susan Buxton said at the event.

Idaho Department of Health and Welfare Director Alex Adams encouraged finding more public-private partnerships “to provide things that can create this sense of normalcy and family bonding.”

Waypoint Church Pastor Matthew McDonald said he and his wife have been foster parents in several states for more than a decade, starting in Washington.

They have three biological children. He and his wife love kids, “and see the desperate need in our community,” McDonald told the Sun.

Idaho needs more programs like this, he said, involving collaborations between businesses and state government for foster care.

“Foster kids are in foster care for a reason. They came from hard places, and many of them haven’t had the opportunity to experience things that kids in a normal family would experience. And so this opens up a positive environment and opportunity for them to experience our state and to engage in the great outdoors,” he said.

Regence BlueShield of Idaho, Idaho Business for the Outdoors to pay program costs

Regence BlueShield of Idaho, a Lewiston-based health insurance company, and Idaho Business for the Outdoors, a nonpartisan coalition of Idaho businesses focused on preserving Idaho’s outdoors, are paying for the program’s expenses – including the park passes and the outdoor skills trainings, Adams told the Sun.

For Regence, partnering on the program “was an easy decision,” president Mark Ruszczyk said at the event.

Idaho Business for the Outdoors Executive Director Heather Eastman called the program “an investment, in not only Idaho’s families, but Idaho’s way of life and the outdoor way of life.”

The program is seeking sponsors for equipment, such as for camping and recreation, Buxton said.

Idaho officials saw similar programs in other states, and thought “let’s go further,” Adams told the Sun.

“The right placement for most kids is in a family home environment. And the more a family home environment feels like a family, the better the outcomes. And they can come to the parks, when they can bond with that family. They can roast marshmallows in front of the campfire. Those create core memories and replicate the stability of a loving, nurturing, safe family, and it helps improve outcomes,” he said.

Parks program is part of broader foster care state government initiatives, top official says

Soon after taking over leading the state health department in June, Adams announced a “hyper focus” on improving Idaho’s child welfare system, including implementing temporary rules to waive adoption fees, the Idaho Press reported.

The parks program is part of a broader effort to address foster care issues, Adams told the Sun on Wednesday.

“This will not be the only thing that you see us announce this year,” Adams said.

Idaho has about 1,400 foster kids, and 1,100 families, Adams told the Sun. Officials hope to turn that around, he said.

“We want families waiting on kids. We don’t want kids waiting on families. When there’s not families available, kids get sent to congregate care settings. They get sent out of state,” where it’s hard to have good child welfare outcomes, Adams said.

Adams told the Sun the parks program is an effort to retain Idaho foster families, but he said officials are also focused on recruiting more, following watchdog reports by Idaho’s Office of Performance Evaluations.

Idaho Gov. Brad Little on Tuesday announced state employees who become foster parents are eligible for eight weeks of paid parental leave.

“Right now, we have more children in need of a foster family than we have families to help them. We are seeking to change that,” Little said in a news release. “Foster parents are heroes. They give of themselves and their resources to make a loving home available to children in need. We need to do all we can to make it easier for foster families to bring these children into their lives and homes.”