Youth Villages Needs Foster Parents in Middle Tennessee

Youth Villages has a great need for foster parents in the wider Clarksville area and throughout Middle Tennessee.

A free foster/adoptive parent information session is set for Jan. 23 at 9 a.m. at the Youth Villages Clarksville office at 651 Stowe Court.

Children enter foster care when their families are not able to safely care for them. Foster families provide children in state custody with a loving home until the children are able to return to a member of their birth family or, when this is not possible, an adoptive family has been identified. To become a Youth Villages foster parent, you must:

– Want to make a difference in the lives of children

– Be age 25 or older

– Have adequate space in your home

– Have a working vehicle and current driver license

– Pass a background check

– Complete foster parent training

Adoption through Youth Villages is free.

For more information about becoming a foster or adoptive parent, or to register for the foster parent information session or training, please call Jessica Burk at 931-503-0777.

Youth Villages is a private nonprofit with the mission to help children and families live successfully. Youth Villages provides a variety of programs, including foster and adoptive services, intensive in-home services, crisis services, residential and intensive residential programs, and YVLifeSet services to help young adults aging out of foster care make a successful transition into independent adulthood.

Youth Villages achieves consistently high success rates of around 80% two years after program completion.

For more information, visit www.youthvillages.org.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.