Jaylen is an active boy who loves sports and arts. His favorite class in school is creative arts, where he gets to draw and write stories.
He also loves football and hopes to be a quarterback one day. Jaylen has played football on a rec team where he's a running back because according to Jaylen, he "runs fast!"
When hanging out indoors, Jaylen likes listening to music, watching Spongebob Square Pants, playing with his Nintendo DS or playing UNO. Jaylen describes himself as goofy and says he tries to be good and always have good days.
Jaylen is good at helping out around the house and will feed the dog, take out the trash and sweep the dining room. When asked about his favorite person Jaylen said "my counselor - because she listens to me and makes sure to remind me what I'm working on." When he grows up, he wants to be a caseworker so he can help other kids.
Jaylen is a smart, sweet and bold little kid who needs a forever family.
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Follow the FAMILY Fund on Instagram
The
FAMILY Fund helps HCJFS cover expenses that go beyond what the agency is allowed to fund or for which it has very limited funds. It stands for Friends and Advocates Making Investments in Local Youth.
Donations to the FAMILY Fund have paid for things like college visits, car repairs and sports camps - things that help make a foster child's life feel a bit more typical.
Check out @HCFamilyFund to see what's going on with the fund and how it is helping kids in foster care.
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Thank you to 675
special families
May is National Foster Care Month and, according to the latest figures from the state, we have 675 certified foster homes in Hamilton County.
This month, I am sending a special "thank you" to 675 wonderful families that made the choice, at great personal sacrifice, to change their community for the better. In addition, I want to thank and acknowledge family members, policymakers, child welfare professionals and other members of the community who help children and youth in foster care.
About a decade ago, we ran a foster parent recruitment campaign called Everyday Heroes. The message was simple: those who volunteer to foster abused and neglected children perform heroic work and are worthy of their own tights and capes. Heroic is still the best word I can find to describe foster parents.
More than 100 years ago, the U.S. Children's Bureau affirmed the importance of keeping children in their own homes whenever possible and, when that was impossible, providing a "home life" with foster families. Foster care is a temporary support when parents are unable to keep their children safe; it is not a substitute for parents.
Although we make every attempt to keep children with their families and serve them in their own homes, there are times when children do need to be temporarily moved from their home. We work hard to keep them with families or close friends. These "kinship families" are similar to foster families - they step forward and take on the great responsibility of temporarily raising someone else's child, at their own great sacrifice.
Despite our work and commitment to birth and kinship families, foster families remain an incredibly important part of the child welfare system. Without them, the system won't work. We can't always keep a child in their home and we can't always find kin to take them. So, on any given day, hundreds of children in our care stay in foster homes. Honoring foster parents who provide a temporary safe and stable home for children is critical and important.
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Child support cards
being discontinued
Child Support Consumers: Your e-QuickPay cards are being discontinued! You must verify or update your address to receive the new payment cards, which will begin mailing June 21.
Please act now.
- Visit the child support portal, ChildSupport.Ohio.gov, or call Hamilton County Job and Family Services at 946-SETS (7387) to verify or update your mailing address.
- Do not discard your current e-QuickPay Cards until after July 1 and after it has a $0 balance.
- Beginning July 1, payments will be loaded to new Visa Cards only. You must act now to verify or update your address to receive your new card! Please visit ChildSupportOhio.gov or call 946-SETS (7387).
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Come meet some kids who are waiting for forever families
If you have a home study on file with us, please consider coming to this recruitment event to meet some of the kids who are looking for adoptive families. It's a fun, no-pressure way to begin the process. 
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In May, we call attention
to the costs of fraud
May is Public Assistance Fraud Awareness Month.
For fraud month, HCJFS is spreading the word that "Fraud Costs All of Us."
Each year, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services disburses more than $2 billion in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, more than $200 million in Ohio Works First cash assistance and more than $600 million in child care provider subsidies.
Individuals who mislead caseworkers or provide false information on an application for benefits account for a very small percentage of the funding disbursed, but the department takes even the smallest fraud cases very seriously.
Applicants and recipients of public assistance programs are encouraged to report their circumstances accurately and timely in order to avoid facing potential criminal charges, program disqualification and repayment of benefits issued improperly.
Residents of Hamilton County can report suspected public assistance fraud by calling HCJFS at 513-946-2217 or going to www.hcjfs.org/fraud or
www.jfs.ohio.gov/fraud.
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