PBS News Hour

LISA DESJARDINS: Kaitlyn Davis is a social worker in Elgin, Oklahoma, who drives close to nine hours round-trip in the flatlands to meet face-to-face with foster children under her care.

This is due in part to a chronic shortage of foster families, especially in rural areas.

Long-distance placements are stretching a child welfare system that aims to help youth navigate sudden loss of homes, schools, friends, pets.

Davis shares her Brief But Spectacular take on building hope for better futures.

KAITLYN DAVIS, Child Welfare Worker: Foster parents are one of the most important roles of child welfare.

If we don't have placement for these kids, they are in the office, they go to shelters, they go into group homes.

So we really have to have foster parents that are willing to step up and take these kids that are dealing with trauma and just need somebody to love on them.

I work with Oklahoma Human Services and child welfare, and I am a permanency planning specialist.

The range for the kids we work with are newborn to 18 years old.

They are dealing with a trauma.

They really need somebody that is going to just stick with them and get through the hard times.

We are coming in on the hardest day in their lives, so I don't want them to feel like they're just another case and client for me.

I want them to know that I'm a support for them and I'm willing to help them in any way possible.

The questions that I get on the first visit really depend on the age.

It's: Am I going to see my mom and dad?

Am I going to see my sibling?

When am I going to have a visitation?

How long is this going to take?

Am I ever going home to mom or dad?

We're a stranger to them.

We're coming in at a point to where they don't understand what's going on, why they were taken from their parents.

Leaving their family is a big one, absolutely, but it's also leaving their church, their friends, their other family members.

Sometimes, they have dogs and cats that they're really close to.

It's a whole new identity going to a new foster placement.

On hard days, I always go back to think about my family and think about, what kind of worker would I want them to have if I was in that situation, just because, I mean, this could happen to anybody.

Foster parents are one of the most important roles of child welfare.

It is a lot of work to be a foster parent, but the reward outweighs that.

My name is Kaitlyn Davis, and this is my Brief But Spectacular take on helping kiddos.

LISA DESJARDINS: You can find additional Brief But Spectacular episodes at PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief.