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As a foster parent, Craig Block knows part of the job is letting go of children he's grown to love.

But that doesn't make it any easier.

Block and his wife, Katherine, became foster parents when they moved to Canton four years ago and have taken 12 children - all 20 months and younger except one 4½-year-old girl - into their home and hearts since then.

"We had both talked about adopting overseas, but we figured out the cost of that," Block, 44, said. "We figure a lot of kids in our area need homes so we're doing foster to adopt. We actually haven't adopted yet, but we're hoping."

Letting the children go back home or to live with a relative is definitely the hardest part of fostering, he said.

"Usually by the time we get an attachment to them, I feel more bad for the children," he said, noting he doesn't always agree with judges' decisions regarding foster children. "When they go back, it's tough when you don't know about the situation they're going back to. But sometimes, it's tougher when you do know about the situation they're going back to. That's always the most challenging thing, just letting go."

"I send a little bit of my heart with each one of them," Mrs. Block, 45, said. "I say a prayer for all of them every night."

He added the uncertainty involved in bringing other people's children into their home is another challenge.

"We have no idea what to expect," he said.

Mrs. Block agreed.

"You never know what's going to happen," she said, noting she doesn't count on them staying a long time until they've passed the 30-day mark. "It's a very up-and-down process, very much like a roller coaster."

While he has them, though, Block makes the most of their time together.

"I enjoy watching the kids grow, and I actually enjoy playing with them," he said.

"A lot of foster kids are behind developmentally, and we love to see them blossom and catch up," said Mrs. Block, who called her husband "a big kid at heart." "We just watch them blossom."

Block said he and his wife prefer children in the 0-to-2 age range, and most of their fosters have been 1-year-old or younger. But they "possibly may start to go a little bit older" since there aren't as many babies in the county going into foster care.

Their current foster child, an 8-month-old girl with curly black hair and a heart-melting smile, has been with them since she was 2 days old, and they're hoping they'll be able to adopt her soon.

"She came right from the hospital," Mrs. Block said, adding she would've gladly adopted any of their foster children. "She's our second or third newborn."

Block, a customer service representative for VWR International, said his foster daughter's smile gets him going in the morning and picks him up at night after a long day at work.

"I wake up every morning and see her smile," he said, noting they've had her the second-longest length of time. "I work a four-day workweek, and I get home around 7 o'clock, but I have to get a smile from her. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of time to spend together before somebody has to go to bed."

If she has to go back home, Block said he'll "feel more bad for her because we're all she knows."

But he won't be thinking about that today. He will celebrate Father's Day by opening cards and gifts and going out to dinner.

"The past three years, we've had at least one foster child in our home on Father's Day," Mrs. Block said.

The Blocks had their first foster child, a 19-month-old girl, only eight days - the shortest length of time they've had a child - but that was long enough for them to get attached.

"When she had to leave, we sat here and cried," Block said. "We expected to have her a long time. It hurts sometimes, but you have to let go."

The couple has been close to adopting a couple of times.

They were set to adopt the 4½-year-old, their second foster child who had already been in 20 foster homes in her short life. But because she was a special-needs child, she needed a stay-at-home mom, and Mrs. Block was working full time.

"She went to another foster home in another county," Block said, noting they had her 20 months, the longest of all their foster kids. "She's set to be adopted this summer, from what we've heard."

They also had a 5-week-old boy with a cracked rib and cracked skull who came to them straight from the hospital, and they were told he would "never go back home," he said.

"A 5-week-old baby with cracked bones," he said, noting they were never told how he got those injuries. "We thought we would adopt him. We had him five months, and he went back to his home. He had new and old wounds when he went to the hospital."

The state's goal is to reunite foster children with their birth parents, but if that can't happen, the next option is to try to find a relative who will "step up" and agree to take care of them, Mrs. Block said.

"Typically the court gives (the birth parents) a year before they start looking at other options," she said. "The state really tries to find a relative because they figure a child is better off with relatives than strangers."

If the parents' rights are terminated by the state and no relative can be found, the child can be adopted, she added. "It just all hasn't fallen into place (for us)," she said, noting she kept her 25-year-old niece, Leah, who lives with them, from going into foster care when she was 5.

"Our ultimate goal is what's best for the child," Block, a native of Pittsburgh, said. "If (adoption) is meant to be, it's meant to be. Even if we adopt, we'll still foster."

To become foster parents, the Blocks had to complete a 10-week, 30-hour Model Approach to Partnerships in Parenting (MAPP) course, which has since been changed to a seven-week, 21-hour Impact course.

Each of them also has to get an additional 10 hours of training every year.

The couple is licensed to have as many as three foster kids at one time, but so far, the most they've had at once is two, which has happened three times.

"Twice we've had two babies under the age of 6 months, and at the time, I was working full time so that was a blast," said Mrs. Block, who is not working at the moment.

They had a 20-month-old boy whom they'd had for three or four months when they got their current foster daughter, but they only overlapped by about 10 days, she added.

Besides caring for foster children, Block also is very involved in being an advocate for fostering.

He serves as vice president of the Cherokee County Foster and Adoptive Parents Association, is a foster parent facilitator for Impact and is the lead mentor for a mentoring program conducted through EMBRACE, a statewide initiative to help foster families.

In the mentoring program, which began in March, he assigns experienced foster parents to mentor inexperienced foster parents on what to expect out of fostering.

"We currently have 10 mentors to help out with our foster families," he said.

Mrs. Block added more foster families are needed in Cherokee County since there are currently less than 70 families to care for 300-plus foster children.

"For every one or two new foster homes that get opened, we lose one or two," she said.

dharris@cherokeetribune.com

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