holly and tara

Holly Dibbet and Tara Dekkers pose in custom T-shirts, which they designed and which are available on the Setting Anchors website for purchase. All profits go toward the work of the organization, which connects foster families in the region with one another and with important resources.

REGIONAL—Foster families sometimes encounter stormy or uncertain waters, and Setting Anchors is a new N’West Iowa organization that its two founders hope will provide families an anchor in the storm.

Tara Dekkers of Ireton and Holly Dibbet of rural Sioux Center have been taking in foster placements for years, and if those years have taught them anything, it’s that foster families need support.

“It can be very isolating,” Dibbet said.

Dekkers said foster families in the region sometimes fall through the cracks.

“There’s a lot of support for adoptions, but not necessarily for foster care,” she said.

Organizations like Katelyn’s Fund Orphan Ministry, based in Sioux Center, provide adoptive families with crucial support, but Dekkers, who is 45, and Dibbet, 41, saw a need for support tailored to the particular needs of families who provide foster care.

“It can be hard — it’s not something your best friend is necessarily going to understand,” Dibbet said, speaking to foster parents’ need for connection with others who have been in their shoes.

Along with founding Setting Anchors, both women are in-home day-care providers and have large families composed of biological children, adopted children and temporary placements through foster care. Their households are bustling and complicated, and new foster kids sometimes bring new challenges to absorb, reflecting the trauma many placements bring with them.

“Just seeing how that trauma becomes secondhand for my children at home, and for even ourselves, we realized, ‘We need people,’” Dekkers said.

The two mothers rely on each other for support, and they meet regularly with a small group of other women who also are foster parents. The women come together to share their stories, encourage one another, vent and meet each other’s needs in practical ways.

tara and holly 2

Holly Dibbet and Tara Dekkers pose in custom T-shirts, which they designed and which are available on the Setting Anchors website for purchase. All profits go toward the work of the organization, which connects foster families in the region with one another and with important resources.

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“We have each other, and we have a small group that we talk to, but I’m like, ‘What about people who don’t have that?’” Dekkers said.

“And how do you find that?” Dibbet added.

Setting Anchors will create a space where foster families in the region can meet, connect with one another and connect to important resources. Beginning this fall, and continuing until May, Setting Anchors will host meetings at Faith Reformed Church in Rock Valley on the third Thursday of each month.

Education

Every other month, the meeting will include a speaker, and those in attendance can learn about a topic related to foster care while also completing a portion of the six hours of continuing education required of licensed foster parents each year by the Department of Human Services.

This year, the organization’s first, the lineup of speakers includes a therapist who will talk about the effects of trauma on foster families, a reversal of the typical approach, which considers the effects of trauma on foster placements and provides strategies for trauma-informed care.

Another of the speakers is a mother who eventually was reunified with her children, infant twins, who had been placed in Dibbet’s home shortly after their births.

“The fact that the twins went home is just remarkable,” said Dekkers, who first met Dibbet years ago when Dibbet was frantically searching for a day care for her foster twins. Dekkers made space for them in hers. Eventually, the twins were able to return to their mother, who overcame a number of obstacles to provide a safe space for her children.

The first priority of the foster care system is reunification of children with their parents, and Dibbet and Dekkers said it is important for foster families to try and better understand the experience of parents whose children have been removed from their homes.

Future meetings also will include more practical topics, and Setting Anchors will offer a CPR and first aid recertification course as well as training in reporting — regular documentation that can become useful to caseworkers or in court.

The two founders said the meetings are open to both foster moms and foster dads, who sometimes have fewer sources of social support.

“My husband said, ‘I would love to talk to other foster dads,’” Dekkers said. “We hope other husbands show up.”

Connection

Along with providing education opportunities, Dekkers and Dibbet see Setting Anchors as a conduit for connection.

“That’s our ultimate goal — to give people someone who understands, and to help them know they’re not alone,” Dekkers said, emphasizing the toll isolation can take on foster families.

“That’s when people get burnt out,” she said.

Dibbet and her husband have been foster parents for eight years, and in those years, they have taken in 19 placements, from newborn twins to teens, and everything in between. Their 5-year-old, Samuel, adopted through foster care, was placed with the Dibbets as an infant.

Dekkers and her husband have seven children — four biological children, two children adopted through private adoptions and one, Alijah, who was adopted through foster care and is now 9 years old. The Dekkers family has been taking in foster placements since 2016.

Both Dibbet and Dekkers have endured some rocky placements, and they have supported each other through the challenges. They hope Setting Anchors makes that possible for other foster families, too.

“There are good, rosy stories in the foster care system, of course — I mean, we both gained sons,” Dekkers said.

“But there’s pain in it, too,” Dibbet said. “The kids are hurting, the families are hurting, we are hurting.”

Along with the emotional toll, the two women said foster families have practical needs that can feel overwhelming. Sometimes, placements arrive with almost no notice, and there’s a push to quickly gather necessary supplies.

“Our last placement walked in the door with the clothes on their back,” Dibbet said. “We spent the next three hours at the store, finding clothes and underwear, getting snacks we enjoyed, just getting everything we needed.”

Dekkers remembers once heading to Walmart by herself with three children under 2 to get diapers after a foster placement — an infant — arrived without warning.

They said they hope by connecting foster families, they can create a network of mutual care — a safe-haven where families can weather a crisis together, meet each other’s needs, even laugh.

Setting Anchors will hold its kickoff event 4-7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 27, at Faith Reformed Church in Rock Valley. The family friendly event is open to all and will include yard games, inflatables and a number of food trucks on site.

“We really just want to connect people,” Dibbet said.

FOR MORE INFO:

  • To learn more about Setting Anchors, or the support the nonprofit organization, visit the Setting Anchors Facebook page or its website: setting-anchors.com.