OHH’s Amy Moore wins best foster mom in Texas

The Texas Council of Child Welfare Boards honored Olney Hamilton Hospital’s Amy Moore and her husband Gary as Foster Parents of the Year at a ceremony in Austin on Oct. 14. Mrs. Moore is the Human Resources Director at OHH, and she and her husband live in Graham. They have fostered more than 40 children, and adopted three of them.

The Enterprise talked with Amy Moore about the joys and challenges of being the state’s best foster mom.

Q: How did you and your husband become foster parents? A: It was my nephew’s children who we took in. They called us one night and said, ‘Hey can you take the kids?’ And of course, we said, ‘Yes.’ That’s how we got started, and [Child Protective Services] wanted us to get licensed because it looked like they were not going home. My twins were seniors in high school. They were on their way out so we pretty much started over.

Q: What kind of commitment does that take?

A: We had to go through an agency to get licensed. It requires lots of training. We still have to do training throughout the years.

Q: And then you decided to become foster parents again. How did that happen?

A: When they license you they measure your home and how many bedrooms you have tell you how many kids you could have. They said, ‘You could have up to six kids in your home.’ And we said, ‘No way. That’s not going to happen.’ Then they called and said, ‘We know you have openings in your home and we have a newborn that’s at Cook [Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth] that’s addicted to … methamphetamine and exposed to every drug under the sun at birth and in the womb. I just felt like I should do this so I drove to Cooks and picked her up and she was our very first one.