COLLIER COUNTY, FL. — Better Together is a non-profit organization in Southwest Florida working to keep families united since 2015.
Through Better Together's family program, parents can temporarily place their children with a background-checked volunteer family while they get the help they need.
"There's always going to be a need for foster care, but for those families who just need those supportive services, needs a little bit of time, we're here to help them and get them connected to host families that can help," said Isis LaRose.
LaRose is the Executive Director of Programs for Better Together.
The program's goal is to keep children out of the foster care system and help families navigate through a crisis.
"Some of the reasons we host kids are for families that are homeless, dealing with domestic violence, medical emergencies," said LaRose.
LaRose says an average stay for a child in their program is 41 days, compared to an average of 569 days in foster care.
Over 1,800 kids have gone through this program, and it has a 96% success rate of keeping children out of the foster care system.
"The difference is that we have someone that works directly with the parent while the kids are places with us to ensure that they're meeting their goals, and they are providing them with that support needed," said LaRose.
While parents can voluntarily reach out to Better Together for help — the non-profit does work with the Department of Children and Families.
"60-percent of our referrals come from DCF," said LaRose.
The families referred by DCF are those who don't warrant the state's intervention — like in the case of Krystal and her 1-year old son, Jack.
"DCF came across Krystal and Jack, and Britney, the CPI noticed that she was a loving mom, she's a great mom, but she needs some support," said LaRose.
Krystal recently moved to Southwest Florida from Pennsylvania.
Impacted by the COVID-19 crisis and without any support, Krystal turned to Better Together for help.
"Krystal needed time to get housing for her and her son, she was staying in just a temporary home that wasn't appropriate for her and her child," said LaRose.
Right now, Jack is with a volunteer host family, while Krystal is working towards finding them a proper place to live.
"During this time, she's been able to visit with her son, she does daily visits every Tuesday," said LaRose.
LaRose says they've seen an increase of 155% in calls seeking help since the start of the pandemic.
"It's really taken an impact on so many families in our community, and we've seen that we've seen an increase in our calls, we've seen an increase in our intakes, and we're planning for that number to keep rising," said LaRose.
To help fill the need, Better Together needs more volunteer host families.
"We're always in need of more host families, our volunteer process is very simple, it allows the community to wrap around these families and help them short-term so that they can keep their kids together," said LaRose.
"The process is very simple; it's one-night training, we do a background check, and we do a home visit of their home; it's usually a two to three-week process."
Host volunteer families will typically care for the child 90 days or less.
Better Together does do weekly home visits to ensure the child's safety.
LaRose and her family have also been a host family for the past three years and have hosted 18 children.
"It's not always unicorns and roses, but we love the impact we're making in our community," said LaRose.
Families in need of help, or those looking to volunteer, can visit Better Together's website for more information.
