Meet Our Families - Shawn & Jamie

Meet Shawn and Jamie! They have been married for 14 years and have been MCJFS foster parents for over 3 years. They have 4 children - 3 biological and 1 adopted through foster care. They currently have a 9-year old placed in their home. Altogether they have 5 children between 8 and 11 years old!

Beginnings
Before we even got married, we realized we both had a heart for kids who need a home. We got married, had our own kids, then saw an article about the need for foster families in Medina County. We did some research and signed up to take the classes. Initially we were interested in working with younger kids – in our kids’ age range. We have since expanded our age range to work with older kids as well.

Likes
It’s been an amazing experience to see kids come into our home and, once they sense they are ok, to see the light and life come into their eyes a little bit. We especially love working with school age kids. They are more self-sufficient and are still moldable, but old enough that you can have meaningful conversations and talk through things with them.

Challenges
Initially, navigating relationships was a little challenging, but then we got used to everyone and now we love connecting with our kids’ biological families. They’re like extended family to us. We also feel incredibly supported by our church family, our family coordinator, and MCJFS.

Advice
Most of our fears that we’ve had about foster care never played out like we thought they would. This all turned out to be much less scary than we thought. Friends and family were concerned about us fostering older children, but we always say we’ll give it a try and see where it goes, and then we all fall in love with these kids.