PANAMA CITY BEACH — The little black fur trimmed hoodie caught the attention of sponsors and volunteers as it darted past the window outside.
The face wasn’t visible from inside the house. Perhaps it was one of the 7-year-old foster twin girls taking a breather to ride her bike in the yard on the concrete basketball court near the porch and playground.
“One of the things that used to break my heart was when we had to separate siblings,” said Esther Jacobo, interim secretary at the state Department of Children and Families. “Because they remember less the abuse than the trauma of being removed.”
Anchorage Children’s Home in a partnership with Big Bend Community Based Care held an open house Wednesday for a sibling group children’s home, located at 7402 McElvey Road on the beach.
The eight-bed facility, already at maximum capacity, accommodates two family groups — a sibling set of six children and a set of twin girls.
The house is everything expected of a traditional home, including parents. Two sets of house parents, a married couple and two single women, live at the home four days on and four days off.
“Ideally, it’s to keep kids in Bay County that are from Bay County,” said Mike Watkins, chief executive officer of Big Bend Community Based Care. “And even better than that, we want to keep them in their home school district.”
Out of about 300 children that are in foster care, about 80 are placed outside of the county, he said, noting Bay County has the state’s highest per capita DCF incident reporting rate.
He said the house is intended to be a temporary care facility in order to “reunite families.”
“This home will, ideally, help prepare kids to get back to their biological parents,” Watkins. He said children’s stay will vary, but on average it’s expected to be as long as six months.