Felicia and Casey Stone’s journey started when they helped a mother whose 10 children were placed in foster care. Six years later, the Heber Springs couple have fostered 30 children and were named Arkansas Foster Parents of the Year.
“I didn’t know that was a title. It’s not something we were campaigning for,” Casey Stone said. “I feel like I’m hard to surprise, but they surprised us. It was quite an honor.”
The couple, who have three biological daughters, were honored in July at the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion in Little Rock, one of 10 couples nominated for the title.
“We don’t get dressed up very often. It was like we were getting ready for prom,” Felicia Stone said, laughing.
Johnnelle Switzer, family-service-worker supervisor for the Cleburne County Division of Children and Family Services, said the Stones are definitely deserving of the honor.
“They have been foster parents for several years, and they have just a compassion for children and families,” she said.
“They serve as mentors to the children’s biological parents in promoting reunification. They take kids who are medically fragile and never even request assistance. They just take care of them — very medically fragile children. They’ve taken all ages, not just babies,” Switzer said.
“They are truly amazing people; they are very caring. They still keep in contact with some of the kids they’ve fostered before through their biological families,” Switzer said. “I just can’t say enough great things about [the Stones].”
The Stones are involved with The Call (Children of Arkansas Loved for a Lifetime) in Cleburne County. It’s a faith-based, nonprofit organization that recruits foster families through churches. The Call in Cleburne County is not associated with one church; it’s an affiliate of the Arkansas chapter. Felicia said that for more information, people can visit thecallinarkansas.org.
According to The CALL’s website, 33 children on average are in foster care each month in Cleburne County, and on average, there are 19 homes to care for those children.
Casey, who grew up in Heber Springs, said his parents became foster parents when he was in college. It wasn’t something that really crossed his mind when he and Felicia got married.
Felicia, who grew up in Rose Bud, said she’d thought about fostering, but it was a conversation with another couple one night that got the ball rolling.
“We were made aware of a single mother in our area who was a mother to 10 children between the ages of 1 and 11 who came into foster care. We were having dinner with some of our friends, who happened to live across the street from this lady. We were just talking about that scenario. … Honestly, we were pretty judgmental toward this lady,” Felicia said. “We’re believers; it was like the Holy Spirit convicted us all at the same time. ‘Why are we talking about this? We should be doing something to help this lady.’
“The four of us sat there and came up with a plan. I contacted Johnnelle, actually. I said, ‘What can we do? What are we allowed to do under these circumstances?’”
They found out that the woman’s home needed repairs to be livable. The Stones and their friends got a team together from area churches and repaired her fence, “which was why her kids were roaming the street,” fixed broken windows and more.
“She did get her children back, but long story short, they went back into foster care later,” Felicia said. “We had gotten to know the kids and knew how much they loved each other and how close they were with each other.”
Cleburne County had only about four foster homes at the time, she said.
“We pretty much felt helpless to do anything else. It pushed us — ‘Why aren’t we a foster home?’” Felicia said.
“I think the epiphany was, ‘Hey, we need to help these people,’” Casey said. “Fostering, for me, like for most husbands — the women are driving the boat, and they’re waiting on the husbands to catch up with their hearts. I can’t say Felicia nagged me or discussed it a lot. … It was just something we slowly came upon together after we had that helpless feeling.”
The Stones worked through The CALL and opened their home to foster children in June 2012. Their first placements were also their longest. The couple fostered siblings, ages 2 and 3, who stayed 15 months.
The Stones had help — their three biological daughters.
“Our girls are very much a part of what we do, and they instantly became big sisters,” Felicia said.
The Stones’ older daughter is married. Shelby Boos, 19, lives in St. Louis, Missouri; Abby, 17; and Sophie, 13, are still at home. Felicia home-schooled all three girls, but Sophie, “our social butterfly,” Felicia said, started public school this year.
Sophie said she enjoys helping with the foster children.
“I read to some of them, but usually, we have boys, and they want to play outside on the trampoline,” she said.
Sophie also gives the babies baths, her parents said.
Sophie said she wants to be a foster mother someday “because it’s fun.”
It’s given her experience beyond her years, too.
“I’m going to be an excellent mom,” she said.
With 30 children going through their home, “there are lot of stories I”ll never forget,” Felicia said. “Some of the hardest stories are just the difficult ones, the ones we don’t always share. We did get a little boy around Thanksgiving. He actually went to a different foster home first. … The foster family needed respite. His little sister had died at the hands of a parent, and that’s how he had come into foster care. Just being here that day through that scenario with him — he was 7 to 9 — and he didn’t understand what was happening. That stands out in my mind,” she said.
The couple have memories of fostering that bring them to tears.
For Felicia, it’s the mother they helped get on the right track who later overdosed. For Casey, it’s the father who spent months in rehab and reunited with his son at the couple’s home.
Casey was holding a foster baby in his lap at his home in Heber Springs, sitting in the same chair where he witnessed that reunion, he said.
“I can hardly say it without crying,” Casey said. “There was one dad that we knew, Felicia knew, and it was just totally random when we found out, and we put two and two together that we had his son, whom he had only seen one time, and that was at the hospital. … He was under a year, probably 6-8 months old, and his dad had not seen him but one time and, through that crazy alignment of our lives, they intersected again.
“He just felt relieved knowing that Felicia had his baby. Because she [Felicia] knew him, it was an immediate friendship rekindling. He was recovering. … As soon as he got back in Arkansas, the first stop was at our house. There was no issue with him coming to our house. I believe he had dinner with us. Just seeing him and his son just connect, the tears that fell; we’re sitting here watching this … we’re getting to see this reunion unfold right where we’re sitting right now. As far as we know, [the father’s] still doing good,” Casey said.
Not every story ends that well.
“We recently had a biological mother,” Felicia said, pausing as she became emotional. “We’ve had her little boy; he was our first baby. He went home, and they went home, out of state, and we just reconnected with them last summer and met in their home state and had lunch with them and got to know them again.
“His mom — we just recently found out about a month ago, she relapsed and overdosed and died. Stories like that are all tough stories, just hearing the tough things kids go through.
The couple once fostered a teenage girl who was subjected to child pornography by her parents, “so those are just really terrible stories that people probably don’t want to hear.”
However, Felicia said, “I’ve never been worried about my kids being influenced or even in danger in any way.”
Not only do the couple take in foster children; they’ve taken in a parent.
“That is different; at least I’m told it’s different,” Felicia said.
The Stones had the woman’s newborn in foster care and later got the baby’s sibling.
“She went to a faith-based rehab; her life was just totally turned around. She did everything she was supposed to do, and it was really different than our experience with other parents,” Felicia said.
During the required permanency-planning hearing at the one-year mark of her stay, which was a 13-month program, the judge asked the woman about her plans. She had said, “I don’t know.”
“It was in that moment that he asked that question in court that I thought, ‘We have to do something to help her,’” Felicia said. “I didn’t know it at the time, but when I told my husband, he was also thinking, ‘She needs to come stay with us.’ I kind of stood up and said, ‘Well, I have an idea.’ [The judge] was a little surprised.
“When she had a visit with her kids, it was at our house. There was already a relationship there; it just seemed like the right thing to do. She moved in a few days before Christmas, and we kind of went from there.”
Casey, who owns Stone Custom Homes, said it can be a strain on the couple’s relationship to take care of foster children, especially the medically fragile ones. Felicia has an associate degree in physical therapy, so that comes in handy, he said. Sometimes she goes on overnight hospital stays with the children.
The couple have to communicate with each other and ask for respite care if they need it, he said.
They plan to continue to be foster parents.
“We’ve talked about continuing on till we become grandparents; we’re in a stage right now that we can. If we were empty nesters, and it was just us again, I don’t know what that would look like. Our girls do provide so much help,” Felicia said.
She said her ultimate goal is to reunite families.
“We’re always hopeful that their family is restored. For future generations … we’re hopeful it’s a turning point, and it breaks the cycle for the families we interact with. I think that’s why it’s so important to us to reach out to those parents, too. We want to be a loving and safe home for those kids.
“At least we can make a difference in their entire family in their future, too.”
Casey said the couple can say no anytime they’re asked to take a child to foster.
“Most of the time, it’s a decision that we have some type of discussion about. I’m more resistant and cautious. Felicia is more jump in with both feet,” he said.
“I see the lives that are changed. If we didn’t see any positive results, it would be so depressing, but we’re seeing changes, and we’re seeing changes in our foster children’s moms and foster children, and their dads. The bio parents, a lot of them are making better choices, and some of them don’t.
“Every story is not happy, but I think it’s the happy ones that keep us moving.”
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.