There’s an urgent call for Iowa families to open their homes to take in foster children and to adopt. Bambi Schrader, recruitment supervisor for Iowa KidsNet, says there’s a critical need for families to shelter sibling groups, teenagers and children who are older than eight-years-old. “We have about 4,000 children in the foster care system,” Schrader says. “In 2015, there were 2,560 children referred into foster care. Unfortunately, we only have about 2,100 foster homes across our state right now so we’re in desperate need.”

There’s a continual waiting list for children in Iowa seeking “forever homes.” “A lot of times children are waiting longer in shelters or residential treatments or unsafe situations or there are being multiple children placed into a home where they might’ve only taken one or two children, now they have three or four,” Schrader says. “We want to make sure each child has their own unique home that meets their needs.”

For many children in foster care, it could take three years to be adopted. She says there’s a need for every type of family as kids come in all types. “We need everything from two-parent households to single-parent households, same-sex couples,” Schrader says. “We need some older couples that maybe aren’t looking to adopt but would take an infant that we want to reunify.”

Private adoptions may take several years and tens of thousands of dollars, but she says state adoptions through Iowa KidsNet are essentially free. The adoption process may take six months and it includes a home study, 30-hours of classwork and a background check. “Having lots of money or having a nice, fancy home is not what the kids need,” Schrader says. “They need people who care about them. They need people who love them. They need people to be there after school and people who will say, ‘No, you’re wearing that to school. Go change your clothes,’ or put discipline into their lives. A lot of our kids don’t have that or when they do have it, it was done in a harmful way.”

More than 23,000 children age out of the foster care system nationwide every year. Last year in Iowa, 39 children aged out with no family or permanent home. Learn more at www.IowaKidsNet.com or by calling 800-243-0756.

(Radio Iowa)

A traffic stop this (Monday) morning in Red Oak resulted in a Clarinda man being arrested on drug and other charges. 25-year old K.C. Franklin Liles was arrested at around 1:30-a.m. for Possession of a Controlled Substance-Marijuana/2nd offense, and Driving While Suspended. Liles was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $2,000 cash bond.

A large number of police officers from across the county are expected to attend the funeral for the slain Des Moines police officer today (Monday). Hundreds of officers from across the country turned out in April for the funerals of two Des Moines officers who were killed in an accident with a drunk driver.  Des Moines Police Department spokesman, Sergeant Paul Parizek, says they are expecting many more officers for the funeral of Sergeant Tony Beminio today because of they way he died. Parizek says more departments send honor guards in these types of situation were officers are shot and killed in the line of duty.

Beminio’s funeral is at 11 a-m in West Des Moines, and then a long procession of police cars will escort his body across town to a Des Moines cemetery for burial.

(Radio Iowa)

Police in Red Oak arrested a woman from Pottawattamie County, Sunday night. 27-year old Heather Lynn Lear, of Council Bluffs, was arrested at around 9:50-p.m., for Driving While License Suspended. Lear was being held at the Montgomery Law Enforcement Center on a $300 cash bond.