Kathryn saw the tremendous need for children to get matched with foster parents in her position as an attorney for the Arizona Department of Child Safety.

She saw children having to sleep at the department’s offices and discovered infants were sent to group homes, which showed the great need for foster parents, she told Catholic Charities.

Soon enough, Kathryn became a foster parent herself – to a baby girl named Zoe.

Zoe first came into Kathryn’s life when the first child Kathryn fostered went to live with her grandparents. Zoe arrived in poor health. But with the help and support of resources home specialist, Rebecca Dominguez, Kathryn was able to successfully navigate the process to becoming a foster parent.

While the purpose of foster care is reunification between the child with their biological family, Kathryn felt Zoe would not return to her biological parents because of pending abuse charges against them, Catholic Charities reported. Zoe might have gone to other relatives if they had stepped forward.

A logjam in the courts stretched the process to sever Zoe’s biological parents’ rights to 17 months.

During that time, Kathryn and Zoe kept in contact with her biological parents through video calls. There was no physical contact.

Kathryn said the uncertainty associated with foster care was the hardest part.

“You never know what will happen, the case can take so many turns,” she told Catholic Charities Community Services. “If you care for a child the way they deserve to be cared for, you are going to get attached. It’s best for the child.”

Fast forward to today. Zoe went from a baby clinging to life with frequent visits to the hospital to a high-energy little girl who loves dolls, gymnastics and swimming.

Kathryn tells anyone who wants to be a foster parent to not think about the difficulty.

“I was a lawyer, a single parent working full time and fostering a child with significant effects from abuse,” she told Catholic Charities. “You’ll get support, you’ll get childcare. These children deserve loving homes.”

To learn more about becoming a foster parent, call 602-943-3843.