Today we’d like to introduce you to Amanda Boyd.
Hi Amanda, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
In 2006 I met my husband Nick while teaching, and little did he know I had big plans for his life. On our second date, I casually asked him if he was open to ever adopting, and he goes on to tell me that he had heard a story of adoption on a Christian radio station and felt the Lord nudging him to adopt someday. Now, he says if he could go back, he would have clarified exactly how many children I was talking about adopting because well… we will get to that part of the story a little later.
Two years later, we had our biological kiddo Camden, and then my husband brought a bonus kiddo Malyk from a previous marriage. When our two children were 2 and 5, we decided it was time to start our fostering journey. We found an agency and began our classes. By this time, my husband was an assistant principal and dealt with the behaviors of children on a regular basis, and I was always the strange teacher that enjoyed the behavior kids in my classroom. So, as we are going through the classes, and they are talking about the behaviors that can be caused from trauma both my husband and I were like, “We got this,” no problem at all.
My husband was very specific and only wanted a max of two kids, with the oldest being 9 or younger, and now I can picture the Lord just smiling and nodding with a smirk on his face as if to say ok buddy say what you want, but you do realize that I am God right.
About two months into training the agency calls us and tells us about these three kiddos that they have that they thought would be perfect for our home. They were 2 boys 5 and 9, and 1 girl aged 11. It was like God was saying alright, Nick, what you gonna do now. At first, he was furious and felt like he had been tricked. Anybody out there ever feel like you have been tricked by God? It is because he knows that if we knew the whole story, we wouldn’t do it.
We decided to trust in the Lord and prayed that if the Lord didn’t want us to have the kids that he would shut the door so tight that we couldn’t open it. In true God fashion, we moved Chance, Hannah, and Tyler in our home in August of 2010. They had come into care in March of 2010, and we were their 3rd foster placement in 5 months.
Hannah had eczema on her hands and feet that was inflamed and purple from going untreated. Tyler’s glasses had been broken for over a month, and trust me, this kid NEEDS glasses.
I could feel this anger growing inside of me. How could kids be pulled out of biological homes where they were neglected and then end up being further neglected in a system that was supposed to protect them.
Then, I heard God in his still small voice, say, “I see your angry, Amanda, now, what are you going to do about it?”. I didn’t share that tidbit of information with my unsuspecting husband for several years down the road.
You see you get into fostering and adoption because you want to help change a child’s life, but what you find is that they end up changing you instead.
To say that the 11-year-old Hannah was challenging was an understatement. She was a deeply wounded young girl who had learned to survive and not be “soft” or vulnerable for any reason. She had learned that the world was a hard cruel place and that adults were not to be trusted under any circumstances. In fact, adults would only try to control you and hurt you any chance they got. The only feeling she would allow herself to feel was rage, and I was the main recipient.
Fostering was just so hard, and everything in my body said to get out, to protect myself and the rest of my family from the pain and chaos she caused. After all we could just turn in a 30-day discharge notice, and she would be taken away to another home and out of our lives.
However, once again, God reminded me of his unconditional love and how when he was on the cross, his own people laughed at him, caused immense shame and emotional pain, finally killing him. He whispered in my ear and said now you know what it means in the bible when it says take up your cross and follow me. This is what it means to show unconditional love. He implored me to lean into him for my identity, my comfort, my strength, and my security. He kept telling me, “I am enough to sustain you, Amanda, if you trust in me.”
Over the years, I grew in my faith, and Hannah got better. Her anger turned to sadness, and she began to heal. Little by little she began to open up her heart and trust that we love her and will never leave her.
It was through this experience with her and the other 5 children we adopted through foster care that The Sanctuary was born. Now you see why my husband needed to clarify.
Through our story, we realized that foster parents need heavy support to make it through the hard battle with a kid and to not give up. Nick and I had extensive experience with children that had behaviors, and we were not prepared for what having a traumatized child would do to our lives.
So, myself and two other ladies opened an agency that would change the face of foster care. You see the average foster kiddo moves 7 times while in care and each time receives more trauma and becomes less trusting, impacting their lives long term and adding to the homeless, sex trafficked prison, and addicted population.
However, we can change all of that. We can step in and support the families that are willing to open their homes to these kiddos with everything we have. We can cook them a meal, become a babysitter or mentor and provide financial help so the families can receive the counseling support they desperately need.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Our main struggle has been to secure the funding needed to provide the counseling services that the families need. The other struggle is to build a program unlike any other that exists and all of the challenges that come with blazing a trail for the first time. The field traditionally has a high turnover rate for staff, and so the other challenge has been how to help the staff maintain health and reduce burnout.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
At The Sanctuary, we specialize in providing the best care possible to foster/adoptive children and the families that support them. I am most proud of seeing families be able to continue fostering challenging children that would have otherwise been moved several times. Personally, I am proud that our family has been able to provide a stable home with unconditional love for several children that might have otherwise been a negative statistic.
We offer therapy services not only for the foster child but for the entire family to include individual and marriage therapy for the foster parents and any biological or previously adopted children in the home. We give the family in-home group/family counseling to work on improving family dynamics. Finally, we offer 24/7 in-person crisis intervention, which means if a child is having a meltdown, running away, or destroying property, we have a clinician that will respond to the home, skating rink, restaurant, or anywhere the family needs help to help deescalate the child and the rest of the family.
We have monthly events for the entire foster family so that the child and the parents don’t feel alone in their journey.
We provide a meal train for families for the first two weeks of placement so the parents can focus on bonding with the child and acclimating into a new routine. If the foster children come with little to no clothing, our clothing team swoops in and collaborates with area foster closets to get the needed clothing for the kiddos.
Whatever is stressing the family, we try to help so they can focus on helping the traumatized child heal.
How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
We have several ways for businesses, churches, and individuals to get involved. We have a real estate program our Sell a Home Give a Home program, targeted specifically for anyone related to real estate. The real estate agent puts a sign out for their listing stating that they are an agent that cares about the community and supports The Sanctuary Foster Care Services. Once the house is sold the agent makes a donation, and The Sanctuary sends a card to the family thanking them for choosing the agent and for caring about the community.
Businesses make donations based on transactions, and we send a card to their clients as well. We are having a fundraising breakfast for the business community on August 23rd at River Oaks Country Club at 6:45-8:30 Businesses also can engage in our monthly events by hosting a booth or craft for the kiddos to enjoy or being a food sponsor. Many companies in the gas and oil industry have an employee match program that can go a long way to help us reach our goals.
Individuals and families can get involved by attending our fundraising events, such as our Gala on October 7th or our car show on December 9th. We also have many volunteer opportunities, such as joining our meal train, emergency clothing, and mentor teams.
Pricing:
- It costs $30 per therapy session/staff cost
- It costs $60 for each crisis call/staff cost
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sanctuaryfostercare.org
