Peppers Ranch is a community of a dozen families raising at least five foster kids. Is it a model for providing better foster care to more kids?
In this episode of Catalysts, we visit Peppers Ranch and meet some of the people and families who call it home. We talk to foster child Scott, who was close to aging out of foster care but unprepared to live on his own. We also meet Tonya Ratcliff, a mother of 13 children who felt called to foster, and is now doing what would otherwise be practically impossible.
Being a foster parent is uniquely challenging, and in our current system families can often feel alone and isolated. In addition to all the typical work of raising a child, foster children often have had traumatic experiences and need psychological care, counseling and other services. Peppers Ranch addresses this by having services, activities, and resources onsite. By putting everything a foster family needs in one place, it makes it easier–enabling foster families to take on larger numbers of foster kids while providing much better care for all.
With new locations and facilities like Peppers Ranch spreading across the country, hopefully many more people will be encouraged to foster – and many children will get the opportunity for a great childhood.