Live in Arkansas? Crittenden County facing emergency need of foster care homes
WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. — Crittenden County officials say they’re struggling to find placement for the 86 children in foster care in the eastern Arkansas county and hope more families and individuals will sign up to help.
LaTava Chandler recruits and trains foster care parents for Youth Villages, which operates across the river from Crittenden County in Memphis and other parts of Tennessee. Youth Villages works with the state to coordinate foster care placement.
“Our biggest thing is recruiting efforts to get more homes because were always growing,” she said.
The same could be said in West Memphis, but the challenges are much bigger, since Tennessee-based groups like Youth Villages don’t operate there.
“We just can’t access each other’s resources as easily as folks think we might be able to,” said Keith Metz with Arkansas’s Division of Children and Family Services.
Metz even traveled from Little Rock to do an interview with WREG, as most state resources are based two hours away in the capital city.
“We’ve historically had a low number of homes here in Crittenden County,” he said.
Metz called the numbers staggering and concerning…
