“Where are the vulnerable children?”
That was the question Jillana Goble, author and founder of Every Child Oregon, and her husband, Luke, asked themselves after living for a time in Guatemala, where they worked in an orphanage.
Jillana already knew the drill: She’d worked at the same orphanage a couple years earlier after graduating college. When she returned with her husband the second time, the couple offered respite services to staff on the weekends — that is, they’d stay with the kids so the employees could get some rest. “That was where our hearts began to be cultivated,” Jillana says.
I have a lot of hope that our small and humble offerings collectively add up to something greater than themselves.
jillana goble
Founder, Every Child Oregon
The couple was on the plane heading home to New York when they began thinking about how they could help at-risk youth, such as those families who were affected by mental illness, domestic violence, or incarceration, in their own community. They found out that many children in those situations end up in foster care. “So, my husband and I, at age 25, with exactly zero parenting experience and no biological kids, signed up to do respite through a local agency.”
But the agency had other plans.
“They told us we’d be really great regular foster parents,” Jillana recalls, “So we said yes.” It would be the first of many yeses for the couple, whose story of caring for children continues to this day. “I became a mom through fostering, birth, and adoption — in that order,” she says.
Building a family
The couple fostered their first child in 2002, a boy in early elementary school who lived with them for a year. When he left their care, the Gobles lost track of him; however, they reconnected eight years ago and are now in each other’s lives. “We count him as our oldest,” Jillana says.
The Gobles went on to have two biological daughters of their own. A few years later, after relocating to Portland, Oregon, Jillana called to inquire about fostering there. “I was just gathering information,” she says. A week later, a call came: A 6-month-old baby boy needed a family. “We said yes to him,” Jillana says.
That was 15 years ago, and it began an extraordinary relationship between Jillana and Luke, their foster child — whom they later adopted — and the boy’s biological mother, one that continues to this day. A few years after that, Jillana and Luke were asked to pick up a baby from the hospital just for the weekend. That baby is now their 12-year-old adoptive son. In all, the Gobles have five children they call their own.
Jillana says the journey that has brought her children into her life has enriched her. However, she’s honest about the challenges that accompany fostering and adoption, and the impact of those choices on a family’s dynamics. “We get called, we’re asked to say yes, and we really don’t know what we’re saying yes to,” she says. “It’s been fulfilling on a personal level, but there are days when it’s discouraging. Even though there are moments I wouldn’t choose, they have great impact.”
Every Child Oregon
In 2012, Jillana founded Every Child Oregon (previously Embrace Oregon), a movement that supports the foster care system by helping reduce the impact of the trauma on foster children in a variety of ways. That includes supplying tangibles, such as clothes, shoes, and personal-care items; educating the community about the need for foster families; supporting foster families through resources and initiatives like the Foster Parents’ Night Out program; and even conducting office makeovers to make the spaces where children go between placements more welcoming and comforting.
“I have a lot of hope that our small and humble offerings collectively add up to something greater than themselves,” Jillana says. “That is the story of Every Child Oregon, and that is the story of what I hope is happening underneath the roof of our home.”
May is National Foster Care Month. For more information, visit www.childwelfare.gov/fostercaremonth.
