Ohio family reflects on foster care success story

By Nadia Ramlagan

May is National Foster Care Awareness Month and foster families across Ohio are sharing stories of how they were brought together.

Brothers Caleb and Dylan were separated for five years while in the state's foster care system. Believing they might never be together again, they were reunited against the odds by a loving couple living in Dayton.

Kara Webster, their mother, said she and her husband had previous experience fostering and have spent time learning to support kids with serious trauma or challenges.

"The more we did it, the more it was like a calling for me. It was like a passion for me," Webster recounted. "It's become really; I've made it my whole career at this point."

Webster and her husband went on to adopt the two boys. It was facilitated by the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption through their Wendy’s Wonderful Kids program. The nonprofit has helped find permanent homes for more than 15,000 children and youth in foster care across the United States and Canada over the past two decades.

Webster added Caleb did not initially want to be adopted but the brothers are now inseparable and both are doing well in school.

"He tells me that it was because he still believed his mom was going to come get him, and it took him a couple years, I think, to really feel like that wasn't going to happen," Webster explained.

State data show during the 2024-2025 school year, Ohio schools had more than 14,000 students in foster care.