One Home Can Change Everything Story contributed by Family & Children’s Services of St. Thomas and Elgin. A few years ago, a boy came into care carrying more than a child should. He was guarded, always bracing for what might happen next. He was placed with a foster parent who, going in, knew that it wouldn’t be easy. It wasn’t. There were long nights and hard mornings, times they wondered if anything they did was making a difference. But they kept showing up. Same routine. Same dinner time. Same bedtime. Same message, every day: I’m here, and I’m not leaving. The change didn’t happen all at once. It came as a deeper breath; relaxed shoulders; a laugh at the dinner table; the first time he asked for help instead of pretending he didn’t need it. “That caregiver didn’t erase his past,” says Myles, who manages the Resource department at Family & Children’s Services of St. Thomas and Elgin (F&CS). “What they gave him was steadier -- a home, stability, a place at the table and room to start growing.” It’s a story Myles has seen play out again and again. Now they’re asking Elgin to help write more of them. “We will always find a safe place for a child who comes into care,” Myles says. “But safe isn’t always the same as home. When we don’t have enough local homes, a nine-year-old ends up two towns away from every friend he’s ever had. That’s not a failure of care. That’s a failure of capacity.” A child might be moved outside the county, away from school and friends, or placed with a for-profit agency where, as Myles puts it, “care can become transactional when what a kid actually needs is connection.” That’s the case F&CS is making right now, through a new video series called One Home Can Change Everything, featuring real local foster parents talking honestly about the work. The campaign is also the subject of ongoing monthly information sessions. Myles pushes back on the idea that fostering requires a specific kind of household. “We are not looking for perfection. We’re
looking for people who can show up on hard days.” F&CS is recruiting single caregivers, couples, same-sex families, empty nesters, young professionals, retirees, renters, and families who already have kids at home, along with caregivers from the same cultural, racial, and faith backgrounds as the kids in care. “A child shouldn’t lose their culture on top of everything else they’ve lost,” Myles says. “We want kids to see themselves reflected in the home they land in.” Fostering takes different forms, too. Some children need a temporary home while a birth parent works toward reunification. Others need permanency, an adoptive family for the long haul. “We need homes for all of it,” Myles says. Myles doesn’t downplay the work. “It’s demanding, emotional, complicated. There will be days that test you.” But it can also be one of the most meaningful things a person ever does. “You watch a child who couldn’t sleep finally rest. You’re there when the walls come down and trust starts to build.” Somewhere in Elgin right now, Myles says, there’s a newborn who needs a safe place while a young parent gets support. A six-year-old who loves hockey, waiting out a parent’s treatment. Siblings who just need to stay together. “They’re not case files,” Myles says, “They’re real kids who need a place at the table.” The ask, for now, is simple. Come to an info session. Or just call. “If you’ve ever wondered, even for a second, whether this could be you, that’s reason enough to reach out. You don’t need to have it figured out. We’ll talk it through together.” Elgin has always been a community that shows up for its own. Myles is asking it to show up for this, too. Watch the video series at caselgin.on.ca, and find upcoming information session dates, or call 519-631-1492.
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Page 4 Hometown St. Thomas • October 2026
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