Good Neighbor Podcast: Union
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Residents of Northern Kentucky! Based in Union, KY....The Good Neighbor Podcast helps the residents of Northern Kentucky get to know local business owners as people. We allow the business owners and influencers in NKY to tell the stories of how they started their business and why. We hear about their families, their personal interests and why they love living in and serving resident of Northern Kentucky!
Good Neighbor Podcast: Union
Every Child Deserves a Family: DCCH's Mission to Connect Hearts and Homes
Ever wondered what happens to children when their families can no longer care for them? In this eye-opening conversation with Ron Bertsch, Director of Foster Care, Adoption, and Independent Living Programs at DCCH Center, we uncover the hidden foster care crisis affecting hundreds of children in Kentucky every month.
Ron reveals the stunning statistic that approximately 450 children are referred for foster placement monthly, yet only a fraction find homes due to the critical shortage of foster families. This gap is especially severe for older children, sibling groups, and children from minority backgrounds, who often wait the longest for permanent placement.
With 39 years of professional experience in child welfare—and as an adoptive father to four children himself—Ron brings both expertise and heartfelt passion to his work. He walks listeners through the process of becoming a foster parent, dispelling common misconceptions about requirements and financial concerns. Contrary to what many believe, foster families receive comprehensive support including monthly stipends and full medical coverage for the children in their care.
The conversation takes us through DCCH's remarkable evolution from its origins as an orphanage 176 years ago to today's multifaceted organization offering residential treatment, outpatient counseling, targeted case management, and independent living programs for young adults aging out of foster care. Ron shares moving success stories, from viral adoption testimonials to powerful family reunifications where parents overcame addiction to rebuild relationships with their children.
What makes this episode particularly powerful is Ron's emphasis that the most important qualification for becoming a foster parent isn't financial resources or a perfect home—it's simply having love in your heart and a commitment to helping a child in need. Whether you're considering fostering, adoption, or just want to support vulnerable children in your community, this conversation provides valuable insights and inspiration.
Ready to learn how you could transform a child's life? Visit dcchcenter.org to discover upcoming information sessions and explore ways to get involved with DCCH's life-changing mission.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Mike.
Speaker 2:Murphy. Thank you, Charlie. Yes, I am Mike Murphy, host of the Good Neighbor Podcast. We like to interview local business owners, influencers, various different movers and shakers in the community, and sometimes we talk to people who just need to get a message out to the community at large. With us today, I'm with. Ron. Is your last name pronounced Birch?
Speaker 1:Correct.
Speaker 2:Hey, that's a good guess. Ron and I are meeting for the first time now. He's director of foster care and what else there at DCCH.
Speaker 1:The adoption and our independent living programs.
Speaker 2:Okay, because I know your title. It's a big title, it's a mouthful. I stopped writing it down about halfway after you started telling me and I thought I'm just going to let him explain what he does, after you started telling me and I thought I'm just going to let him explain what he does. So, having said that, with me today is Ron Burch, director of all that with DCCH, and he's got a few messages he wants to get out to the community today. So I'm going to help him do that. So, ron, thanks for joining me today and welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:Sure. Well, thank you for having me. I'm so excited about this. You know that's my message to the community is just letting people know what we do here at the Diocesan Catholic Children's Home. That's what DCCH stands for, by the way, some people don't even maybe not put that together, but it started as an orphanage back 176 years ago. As an orphanage back 176 years ago, murph. This has been our history as St John Orphanage out of Covington and St Joe Orphanage out of Cold Spring, kentucky. They merged in 1961 and changed the name to the Diocesan Catholic Children's Home with a little bit of focus of working with kids instead of true orphans but legal orphans, kids that were abused and neglected in our community, that needed a little bit more help in a treatment environment. So that's still our flagship program and operation here, you know.
Speaker 1:But in 1999, I was hired. You know I had worked for the state of Kentucky doing foster care and adoption work and then came here to DCCH in 99 to start the programs with. The first goal is to help the kids that were living here find a good forever family through adoption or, if somebody needed, a temporary home and foster care until they could move to a back to their birth family or an adoptive home. That was my mission. But we've expanded and grown over the years and work with kids all over the state that need these services, not just the 32 kids that might live here in our residential program. And then over the years we've expanded to other programs and services and that's why they wanted to go by our initials DCCH Center, because it was more than just the children's home, dcch Center because it was more than just the children's home. So we have an outpatient counseling center here just to work with anybody in the community that might need counseling services for individual, family or marital counseling, and they accept all types of medication or insurance plus Medicaid insurance. So that's something that we like to let people know that is happening here on our Fort Mitchell campus.
Speaker 1:And then we started more recently a targeted case management program and this was to help prevent children from coming into foster care.
Speaker 1:So we see families that are struggling and if we can have services and supports to those folks or those parents to prevent their kids from ever entering foster care, we'd love to be able to do that.
Speaker 1:So those are the two things that were kind of new and then, like I said, what I work with and in charge of is our foster care and adoption program, and these two are just our biggest need is resources, because I can't work and help a child if I can't recruit a good foster parent or an adoptive parent.
Speaker 1:So I'm always getting that message out to our community to let them know that we are in need. There's just hundreds and hundreds of children across the state that are referred literally every day. On average, murph, we have about 450 kids referred every month for foster care placement. So I can, you know, serve just a minuscule number of those children that are referred to us because I can't recruit enough families. So that is our message and I just think people knew, you know, that there were so many children that are available and need a foster home and many of them also will need an adoptive home. So that's what I want to let people know to come and contact us and talk to me and let us prepare them for this big challenge of helping a kid.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, there's a lot there, so let's kind of take things piece by piece. As you're speaking, there are questions that I have. One of them is you're talking about having kids being referred, receiving referrals, for how do those referrals come in? Who refers the child? How does that work?
Speaker 1:Well, you know the state of Kentucky is in charge, you know, with the judicial system, you know, to be able to investigate any allegations of abuse and neglect.
Speaker 1:And if they find that and take that to a judge and say, yes, these kids are in danger, and it's pretty serious criteria.
Speaker 1:They have to be in danger of death or very serious harm. So that's what a judge is going to look at to be able to give the state custody of that child and remove them from their birth home or a relative or wherever they may be living and in that kind of dire circumstance. So that's what the criteria is to get a kid in foster care. And the children are here, so they're placed in facilities all over the state. Some of them are emergency referrals that you know the police are just been called and there's a removal of a child and then the state will send over time. They have high tech situation where they can email and communicate to us through our website. Every child that needs a home and literally we're on average getting 30, 40 of those a day that we are reading and trying to see if we can match them up with one of our families that we might have available. And if we do, then we run with it and make that placement happen.
Speaker 1:Some of them can be very short and sweet or some. You know, if it's a child in our residential program, the urgency is not there. We can take our time and look at this kid and their circumstances and try to match them with a family, and I love those kind of scenarios because we can take weeks and months sometimes to have visitation with that child and family to make everybody comfortable and then transition them into their home them into their home.
Speaker 2:So when somebody, when a child is, when there's a foster family that gets involved, what type of criteria does somebody have to meet? I know you're looking for volunteers to be foster parents at various different levels. Some are temporary and then maybe there's permanent adoption. Is that correct? What does somebody have to go through if they want to raise their hand and say, hey, I'd like to be a foster parent? What's the next step after that?
Speaker 1:That's a great question and this can be some of the misconceptions. People are afraid of that. But it's a little bit of a process. It's not like they call and say and then the next day we're going to put a child in their home. You know, they're going to reach out to me, we're going to share information, give them some education. I invite them to a monthly informational meeting, orientation that I have every month on a different day and usually in the evening time for an hour, an hour and a half. And if they feel comfortable after that step, then we invite them to our training program. Feel comfortable after that step, then we invite them to our training program.
Speaker 1:You know it is the requirement that we offer 30 hours of face-to-face live training for any potential foster and adoptive parent. And it's during that 10-week phase of reaching out, you know, and providing that weekly training, that we give folks their application paperwork, you know. So there is some involvement with that. You know we have to run background checks. We're going to have them provide a lot of proof of who they are and proof of insurance, their license. They have to get medical verification. We're going to get references. You know we're going to gather all that up and then write up a home study narrative on that family and and go through our process to approve that person and try to see what would be a good match for them. How many kids could they consider? One or more than a sibling group? You know what's the best age range would fit into their home and they have say in this and tell us what they think is good. And if we agree then that's what we're going to kind of refer them to for the type of child.
Speaker 2:Okay. Well, what's the deficit, would you say right now, you know, number of kids looking for placement versus the number of families that are kind of going through that training.
Speaker 1:There's a huge deficit and kids are waiting, you know, and temporary placements in facilities like our residential state. They stay longer here because we don't have enough homes for them. So there is a great deficit and the biggest need is for families to consider older children. You know, 10 and older is a tremendous need. Most people seem to be more comfortable saying, well, we'll foster, adopt a baby or an infant up to three years of age or something like that. Even though there's a need for that, it's not as great of a need as there are for older kids. People that would consider sibling groups, you know some people can say, well, we can help one child, but we could never take two or three or four. But we want to keep siblings together, brothers and sisters together, at all costs, if we can do that. And then children of minority status they're a little bit harder to place just because there's some folks might be intimidated or afraid to do that. So that is our need for older kids, sibling groups and minority children.
Speaker 2:So if a family reaches out and they go through the training and everything happens the way we all hope it will, the child is placed into the home. Are there check-ins and check-ups periodically to make sure that everything is happening For sure, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we have our case management team that will be assigned to every family and every child and they're going to be having weekly contact and, you know, at least once a month in the home having a lengthier home visit and check in. And you know, sometimes we'll do other types of check ins and maybe they come in for a therapy appointment, because all our kids that are what we consider a therapeutic need, for a therapy appointment, because all our kids that are what we consider a therapeutic need, they're going to have a counselor assigned to them and families would usually bring the children to us here for counseling services and sometimes that could be weekly or maybe bi-weekly. You know we have a psychiatrist and a psychologist on staff that consult with us and help us guide the family and the child and whatever their needs may be, and if it's a psychiatric need then that doctor can prescribe medication for us if a kid has a diagnosis that requires that.
Speaker 2:Okay, how about on the financial side of things? If somebody's afraid because their heart says yes, but their wallet says geez, I'm not so sure. Is there financial assistance that are kind of coming with that child or children?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the good point here too, because I think in the past that would have been a barrier, but I let people know that that shouldn't even crush your mind at this point, if you are able to live within your means and take care of your own needs. The state of Kentucky and some federal dollars are funneled through us to be able to offer a family a monthly stipend that really should cover all the costs of caring for the child. In addition, the state provides Medicaid insurance so all their health care needs are covered that way. So a family's not purchasing their own or having to add them to any private insurance plan. That is all covered.
Speaker 1:And the other thing that's good, murph, is if somebody you know fosters a child and most of our adoptions are like a foster to adopt placement, and we love that for a child not to have to transition again.
Speaker 1:So if any of our foster families are open to the adoption, if a child cannot go back home to a birth parent or a relative, then we want our foster parents to have first options to the adoption of that child, and that's predominantly what most of our families end up doing, especially if a kid can't go back home. We've had success. We just celebrated our 179th adoption that we facilitated through our foster care program, so we're very proud and happy for those families and kids to see that happen. But from a financial standpoint, the stipend is then there's more federal dollars that are given to adopt a family. That helps them all the way through the child's 18th year of life, and they continue with the Medicaid secondary insurance if it's necessary, or it can be their primary. Some adoptive families might already have a family plan and they can just add an adopted child into their private insurance, but they would still have the Medicaid as a supplement.
Speaker 2:So how long have you personally been the director of the foster care and adoption program?
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I just celebrated my 26th year here at DCCH, and prior to that I worked for 13 years, so 39 years of my life I've been doing this work, and not only have I done it professionally in helping, but when I started in this career, I saw the need and it just. It was so overwhelming to me and so it just moved my heart so much that when I met my wife-to-be, I said Julie, you know, I feel like I'm called to foster or adopt a child. Are you with me on that? And she agreed. But she said just don't bring them home and surprise me.
Speaker 1:So, I said, no, it doesn't work that way. And, kind of like I described to you earlier, we have a process. So she and I got to go through the training. Even though I was leading training, I got to switch roles and be the recipient and go through a home study process and we ended up adopting a sibling group of four children and we had one child by birth. So now, you know, now my kids are all grown and some of them are out of the home. Some are still in the home with me, but they, you know, I've lived it and done it and I think that that helps me, you know, relate to folks, because I can understand what I'm asking people to do, because I've done it myself.
Speaker 2:So on the personal front, then you've mentioned your wife again. What's her name? Julie, julie, okay, so then we've shouted Julie out, and you know you've mentioned the kids that you have various ages. How old are the kids, if you can remember?
Speaker 1:Well, they're in range from 31 to 24 in age, so I have five kids in a short, short time span.
Speaker 2:So if they're going to listen to this and I hope they all get a chance to what are their names we want to shout them out.
Speaker 1:Oh, my oldest is Donovan, and then my second child is Houston, third is Tyler, a daughter, carolyn, and then my youngest is Sarah.
Speaker 2:Okay, so when you're not at DCCH in your office, as you are now, when you guys go out and have fun as a family, what does that look like? Do you have family vacations that you get to go on? Oh, yeah. So what type of fun do you guys have as a family?
Speaker 1:Well, we like to do all kinds of stuff and when they were younger, you know, things were different. We went to Disney a number of times and enjoyed that a couple of times to the beach, of course, to let them experience all those fun things. Times to the beach, of course, to let them experience all those fun things. We just got back from Georgia. We went down to Lake Oconee and celebrated Fourth of July, so we had a nice vacation, for not all the family got to go, but a few of us did together. Some of my older kids are in different parts of the country. My oldest son is in Alaska, so I need to still get up there to see him while he's been up there and I want to go vacation. So that's my plan. Maybe next summer is to get to Alaska. I've always wanted to do it, so I want to do it while he's still living up there.
Speaker 2:Well, it's a beautiful place to live. I'd like to visit Alaska someday myself.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, we'll make sure to send him this video. Yeah, He'll get to see you at least on YouTube. All right, so, professionally, you've been doing this for enough years where you have seen some success stories. I'm sure You've seen kids grow within the program. You've seen kids grow within the program. So do you have a particular story that stands out to you that you would call success, or one that tugs at your heartstrings or that you're just particularly proud of?
Speaker 1:Well, there's quite a few, but one that's probably received some notoriety here recently was a young lady that lived in a residential program for a number of years and then she was placed in one of our families through, you know it was the intention to adopt right away and I kept in touch with this family. There are a couple that live out in Union, so out in your neck of the woods there in Boone County, and this you know, like I said, kept in touch with this family. But the girl that was adopted reached back out to me when she because she is attending University of Kentucky, she's decided to major in social work. So she reached out if she could do some volunteer work with us. So I readily agreed to that and she came in and I said well, why don't you tell your story? So she told her story, wrote it up and we put it on our Facebook and social media and it went viral.
Speaker 1:She got calls from People magazine, good morning America, and it was picked up around the world and you know they did in the local news stations here, did a story and covered them and it just went viral. It just went viral so fast forward. She came and did her semester practicum with us right before she graduated this past May of this year. So she got to volunteer and work with us for a whole semester and so that is just a tremendous story to see the success that she had and to see this mom and dad and you know we had them tell their story too and wrote it up and it's just, it's so powerful what she went through and what this family has done. So I love that.
Speaker 1:But every one of our adoption stories, as well as some of the stories of kids that have, you know, been able to reunite with a birth mother and father, you know we had one, two kids that we really thought were going to be adoption bound because their, their mom and dad had such a long history of drug and alcohol addiction and then the father had passed away from an overdose and I just thought for sure that you know we were planning for an adoption but their mom was imprisoned, you know, at the end of this journey here and she was able to get sober and she came out of jail and stayed clean and we took a long time to really work with her and let the kids visit.
Speaker 1:But this is the miraculous story is that she continued her sobriety and we reintroduced the kids because they were scared to death of going back, because they knew what life was like prior to that their whole lifetime. These are young teenage kids, but mom was so successful and we were so happy to see her and these kids reunite for a happy ever after. And they have continued to do well. So I love adoption stories but I really like when you can rehabilitate a family and see them reunite because somebody overcame Because that's probably the biggest reason some of our kids come in care maybe 85% as parents that have addiction and abuse issues. So if they could overcome that and we know that's a hard thing to do, but if they can what a joy it is to see them succeed and have a healthy family life again them succeed and have a healthy family life again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, addiction is a very hard thing to overcome, so to do that in and of itself is a miracle of sorts. But then to have the family reunited too, that's a great story, and just one of the many, many, many stories I'm sure that you have. So if you were to, you know. You've said you wanted volunteers to be aware of the program. What are maybe the top two or three indicators that maybe they should be reaching out to you to learn more?
Speaker 1:Well, I think anybody that has a stirring in their heart and love for kids and think you know and really want to follow God's commandments and say we are to love our neighbor and care for them and serve them, and if they take that to heart, you know, then that's. The first obstacle is that they need to have that willingness to self-sacrifice, because this is a huge commitment to care for another human being and it's not always an easy task to do that, because you are making a lot of self sacrifices to what you want to do in your leisure time, because these kids need you and are going to require a lot of supervision and guidance to help them along the way. But so, having that desire and love first of all, you know, but we and then flexibility, being realistic in their expectations, you know, and maybe being patient, you know, because sometimes with working with the system the bureaucracy can be frustrating because it might take longer than we think it should for a child to be freed for adoption and be able to go through that process and finalize. But it's so worth it to go through that and I feel like as an agency here for us being a private, faith-based agency, we're there to support any family and person that wants to become a foster adoptive parent, and we work with single people, married people, whether they have kids or not, you know, whether they live in the rural areas or urban areas or in a suburb. You know there's no typical foster adoptive parent. They come from anywhere and everywhere.
Speaker 1:But I think that it's more of their internal characteristics that we're looking for and maybe you know, maybe what I would say because of some of the need for our older kids, maybe a family, not that you know, we've worked with young couples with young children and that can work, but it might be a little bit more of a challenge to place an older kid in with a family, a young family with other kids.
Speaker 1:So maybe people that are have teenagers in, you know, high school students or those young empty nesters are ready right when their kids are going off to college, before they get too accustomed to be in life without children in their home. Those are the ones I really like to get because they have parenting experience. Maybe they're a little bit more mature and have lived a life and feel like, hey, they have a little bit more time maybe to do a temporary foster care scenario for us, or maybe they do have it in their life to say, yeah, we could help another child and adopt them for the next five to 10 years and just help them launch them, because we've already done it. Those are the folks that I'd really like to hear this message.
Speaker 2:So maybe really the only qualifier indicator is that they've got to have it in their heart, They've got to feel that, calling the monthly meetings that you have with families, is there a set schedule? Do you just sort of how do you? Do you announce it on your website? How do people find out about those?
Speaker 1:Yes, I have it on our website and I try to change up the days and times, or not really the time so much, but I can. I can do it even individually, but I try to do. You know, one of these free meetings, you know, starting at 630 on a Monday, tuesday or Thursday evening typically is what I do and I change that up in case somebody always has a you know a certain night of the week that they have another activity. So I try to change that up from month to month, um, you know, and it just lasts an hour, an hour and a half, and I give a little powerpoint presentation open, you know, q a period, just to explain things and let people be comfortable with taking the next step, because that's what I wanted to do. Just learn enough to say, yes, I'm ready to start training classes. And again, there's no commitment anywhere along the way. You're not committing until you accept a child into your home. All of it is a learning and a step-by-step process.
Speaker 2:Okay, so people can come see you regardless of meetings.
Speaker 1:It's not just, the meeting is not the only way I can do a Zoom meeting or a lengthy phone conversation and whatever it would take to get people comfortable enough to say I'm ready to start the training classes. And we do four training classes a year because it's a 10 week. You know commitment of time meeting, you know we start one this week on Thursday night, so, and then we'll do another one in the fall on Tuesday nights, and then we'll do another one in the fall on Tuesday nights.
Speaker 2:You had mentioned something earlier to me, before we recorded this 30 hours face-to-face. What was that exactly?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is the training curriculum, so we would ask people to come in. Like this next group starts tomorrow night, so they would come at 630 until around 930, about a three hour period every Thursday for 10 weeks.
Speaker 2:Okay, so if people want to learn more, I've been to your website and there's a lot there. There's a lot of information, and so what is the website you want people to go to?
Speaker 1:It's our initials dcchcenterorg.
Speaker 2:And so your office is where it's on Orphanage Road, I believe, is that correct, that is correct.
Speaker 1:We're right here in the heart of Kenton County, in Fort Mitchell, right between 275 and 75 there. So you're pretty convenient I feel like we are kind of do accommodate the Northern Kentucky community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you are. You're like right there in the center. Well, okay, brother, our time together is pretty much up. I think that we've done a pretty good job of covering sort of what you want people to know about DCCH, about the foster and adoptive services. Is there anything else that we haven't talked about that before we wrap, you'd like the listeners to know.
Speaker 1:Well, you know I mentioned our independent living program and I didn't maybe explain that as well enough, because I love that If there's an older kid that's in our system that we can't find an adoptive home. I love that now we have funding that we're able to help a person turning 18 if they choose and want to stay committed till they're 21 or, you know, they could drop out in anywhere in between but just to get them started, where we can set them up an apartment and offer them case management and counseling services and just give them a start in life. Because I know, at 18, I couldn't have even imagined stepping out on my own and taking care of myself without my family and the support. So I love that we can do this for some of these kids who might not have a relationship with birth family and they're kind of on their own. So if we can help them with, you know, just teaching them a lot of life skills and helping them with their rent and utilities to get them a start in life, financially especially.
Speaker 2:And doing the good work that you're doing is not without cost. So I know there have to be people out there who they would love to help, but they just can't help on the level of being a volunteer. But they would love to maybe make a financial gift or whatever that looks like.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I'm not the one that usually asks for money, because I want to just be recruiting foster and adoptive parents and our mentors for our kids. But you know, we wouldn't be able to do this without the generosity of our community. So, yes, we have different fundraisers, but even people that just want to help us out in any way or earmark it for any one of our programs, we'd love to have that financial support.
Speaker 2:Okay, Well, I just want to make sure that people understand that they can do that too if they feel compelled.
Speaker 1:One other thing I didn't say to you about when you talk about fundraising. We have a flea market that is run 100% by community volunteers, who receive all these donations that people just drop off to us. They clean it up, market and sell it and then the proceeds come back to help us run our programs. And it's all community and volunteer run, 100% profit.
Speaker 2:That's a great way to raise money.
Speaker 1:It is and they have been so successful. Retired bankers started it right when I was hired here in 99. And it's continued and it's grown exponentially over the years. So they really are a fundamental resource for us financially and it's a great way for the community, because there are always people looking for ways to donate stuff and it's a great way to support us just through things that they are clearing out of their house or garage or if there's an estate that is trying to clear out. We'd love to have that kind of donation.
Speaker 2:You're doing certainly your work. You're doing God's work as well. So thank you for everything that you're doing. Certainly your work, you're doing God's work as well. So thank you for everything that you're doing for the community, all the people you're helping, and I'm glad that we could be a little little part of it, thank you. Thank you for having me. I always sign off with the same sign off, show after show, and that is we are the good neighbor podcast. So until we talk again, everybody out there, be good to your neighbor.
Speaker 1:I'm selling everybody bye-bye thanks for listening to the good neighbor podcast union. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpunioncom. That's gnpunioncom, or call us at 859-651-8330.