Take time to thank unheralded heroes

I would like to recognize some heroes who walk among us often unrecognized and under-appreciated. They are people who are there to help some of our most vulnerable members of society. Their heroism doesn’t make the front page of the paper or the 5 o’clock news, yet their good deeds are done day and night, every day and night.

These people aren’t running into burning buildings to rescue others, or jumping in to save a drowning person in the literal sense, but in the figurative sense they do it every day. They are the ones caring for and opening their homes to victims of some of the worst trauma imaginable: abused and neglected children. Caring for children who are wounded and hurt emotionally can be a roller coaster. The highs can include seeing the child grow, learn and heal. The lows can include displaced anger, and resentment from the children they are trying to help.

May was Foster Parent Appreciation month, but every day we appreciate our therapeutic foster parents and all foster parents for their amazing talents in caring for kids who really need adults that are safe and supportive in their lives.

Joanne Norman

Compass Health

Children’s Intensive Services Program Manager

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FILE — In this Sept. 17, 2020 file photo, provided by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, Chelbee Rosenkrance, of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, holds a male sockeye salmon at the Eagle Fish Hatchery in Eagle, Idaho. Wildlife officials said Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2021, that an emergency trap-and-truck operation of Idaho-bound endangered sockeye salmon, due to high water temperatures in the Snake and Salomon rivers, netted enough fish at the Granite Dam in eastern Washington, last month, to sustain an elaborate hatchery program. (Travis Brown/Idaho Department of Fish and Game via AP, File)
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