LARAMIE — A child needing care was brought to the Lundahl home after being found through a two-state Amber Alert. Foster parents Karen and Kevin Lundahl were ready for her, providing both a bed and the understanding that she might not be able to sleep in it.

“Some kids sleep through the night. Some of them don’t sleep through the night. We had one of them who experienced severe trauma, had watched her mother be murdered, so we just cuddled and stayed up all night talking,” Karen Lundahl said, recalling the incident.

While most children in foster care don’t experience this level of trauma, they all come to the Lundahl home needing a safe shelter, and the Lundahls are ready to provide it.

Their willingness to help children in foster care is one of many reasons that Ellen Currano and Gregg Randolph nominated them as Laramie’s Unsung Heroes.

“Probably every child who has been in foster care in Laramie has stayed with Karen and Kevin at some point. They routinely have several placements of their own, and step in to take children until DFS can find a longer-term home,” Currano and Randolph wrote in their nomination. “They are incredible with the kiddos, and Karen especially is a powerful advocate for them to make sure they are getting the medical and legal attention they need. We became foster parents in 2019, and Karen has been our mentor. She is amazing, and we are in awe of everything she does.”

DFS (Wyoming Department of Family Services) is the state agency responsible for child welfare cases with an office in Laramie.

Being a foster parent means caring for other people’s children when the children can’t stay in their own homes, Karen explained. The placement may be for one night; the longest was six years.

Having many children in the home is something the Lundahls wanted from early in their marriage, they said.

“Kevin wanted nine kids when we first got together and I came from a huge family and I almost died after my last son was born, so I was told I couldn’t have more children. So that sparked a little bit, that maybe we wouldn’t have nine children but we could have more than two,” Karen said.

They ended up with a few more than two. Since they began as foster parents in 1993, they have helped close to 200 children. In addition, Karen said, some became permanent members of their family.

“We have 15, two biological, 11 adopted and two in guardianship,” she said.

Kevin said his interest in being a foster parent was kindled while he served as an officer in the Laramie Police Department. He said he would see children in situations that were “very sad or scary.”

After the initial call, he said he would sometimes never see the children again, or worse, would see them in the same situation, “And I would go back, and go back.

“I would come across situations where children were obviously in households that could not care for them. I talked to Karen about it, and she kind of took the ball and ran, it was something that we were both concerned about, wanted to do something about,” said Kevin, who is now an Albany County Sheriff’s Department senior deputy.

When children need a safe place away from their home, the Lundahls receive a call from the Albany County Department of Family Services, asking if they can take a foster child placement. If they have room, they go to a foster closet, a local volunteer organization, to get supplies and wait for the child to come in, Karen explained.

“I think we start off, we make it as comfortable and as easy as we can for the first couple of days. We don’t make too many demands on them, we kind of meet them where they are. Some of them are already in school, some are not. Some are from out of town, just driving through on the interstate, so it depends on what their circumstance is,” Karen Lundahl said.

Once they settle in, the Lundahls said, they make the children part of the family.

“Kids are really resilient, they’ll adapt to a lot of situations. They appear to blend in with other kids we have here, on a more permanent basis,” Kevin said.

Karen added that having two of their children still living at home can help some foster children feel more comfortable. Keeping sibling groups together is also one of the Lundahls’ goals, she said.

“The siblings — I’ll probably chat with them in a room all together. We can separate them later if they stay long enough, so they’re more comfortable and not scared,” she explained.

Karen’s own experience in foster care has guided the Lundahls’ willingness to take family groups.

When Karen was a child, she and her brothers and sisters spent time in foster care. They were placed with an aunt, and lived with her for six months before returning home. That experience has led the Lundahls to accept any combination of foster children, from infants to family groups.

“My aunt decided to keep us together. That really had an impact because I didn’t want to be separated from my siblings,” Karen said.

“That was really important to me, to keep siblings together, especially when you have a sibling group of three or four. I think we had a sibling group of five at one point,” she added. “That was really important to keep them together, because that’s all they had left when they are separated from their family.”

The Lundahls credited the larger Laramie “village” for helping with their foster children.

“I just think we have the best friends and neighbors to help us. Law enforcement helps us a ton. Schools, DFS, lawyers, we have so much support. Doctors, dentists. Hospitals, I mean it takes all of them for us to be successful with the kids,” Karen said.

The Lundahls encourage anyone interested in being a foster parent to consider it, but also to understand that it is a big commitment.

“You have to really invest yourself in the kids and the families. You have to really throw yourself into it,” Karen said. “It’s kind of hard to navigate the system at first, especially new foster parents. And I don’t want them to burn out because we have some good foster parents. So that’s why with Ellen and Gregg, I helped mentor them, I see so much potential in them for foster parents.”

Even after children return home, Karen said, she tries to maintain contact with the permanent family.

“I stay in touch with a lot of the parents. We become close not only to the kids but to the parents, as well, because we work together to get them home,” Karen said. “I think a good foster parent can build relationships with the biological parent. It’s not always successful. Some parents don’t want that, and I understand that. But to the best of our ability, that’s the best outcome, for us all to get along and for all of us to work together.”

Karen, who also provides in-home child care, said that they want to be an ongoing resource for parents, offering support if they need help.

“And know that we’re a team, not only to support their children but to support them,” Karen said. “We become family, actually, together.”