May is National Foster Care Month. It is a time to acknowledge the more than 8,000 children and youth of Tennessee who live in or are in desperate need of a foster care home and the family members and foster parents who care for them. I recently interviewed Rebecca Horton, Recruitment Specialist Team Leader for The Omni Family of Services (Omni Visions), to learn more about foster care and the needs of foster families.

Trauma—we have all experienced trauma, both little ones like when you lose your keys and you must be at an appointment in the next few minutes, to big ones like the loss of a loved one who was close to you. We all struggle with how to deal with trauma in our lives. Children in state custody live with practically daily trauma. They are taken from their home, and no matter how dysfunctional it seems to other people, it is home. For those who left home to go to college remember the pain in the pit of your stomach when you were driving away that first day?